Arushi Bahuguna

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She is just such a woman as the audience would expect a foreign princess
to be.
Comment on Medeas character in the light of this statement.

Euripides Medea [431 BC] is a unique play in which the woman protagonist
achieves all that she plans and is heroic in her tragedy. The play has a long
history of contested criticism and Medeas character has affected her
reception as a tragic protagonist ever since Aristotles Poetics. Her escape
without mortal punishment has raised the question whether Medea is at all
a tragedy. The given statement proves how Euripides and his heroine play
on peoples expectations to achieve unexpected aims. The identification of
Medea as a foreign princess by the Athenian audience can be analysed to
understand her alienation and her tragedy.
Medea is foreign in the literal sense to the people of Corinth and the
audience. The Nurse laments Medeas condition by recalling how Medea
had earned the citizens welcome after arriving from her homeland. This
welcome was won by the respectable status she occupied in Corinth as
Jasons wife until he betrayed her and married the princess Glouce. From
being an outsider in exile, Medea had a secured position which got taken
away by her husband, returning her to her exiled situation. Her outbursts of
anger and anguish, however, are not the reactions of a victim. The Nurse in
fact anticipates some harm on the victim that has incited Medeas rage.
Medea refuses to be the victim of Jasons actions in the same way that she
refuses to be the stereotype of the submissive wife. Although her status
depended on being Jasons wife, she had chosen and earned that position
herself. Her unconventional marriage, however, placed her in a position
where she is expected to perform roles that are incompatible with her
character. In a society where the woman is given in marriage by her familys
patriarch to the groom, Medea is a woman who flouts these customs to

unimaginable degrees. She chose Jason as her husband even if it involved

betraying her family, fought alongside him and handed him the torch of
glory by winning the Golden Fleece. Medea may be Jasons wife, but she sees
herself as an equal partner in their relationship. This makes her an Asiatic
wife who is also foreign to the wifehood that is expected of her.
The manner in which she sees Jasons betrayal alienates her even further
from her gender. In seeing herself as Jasons equal, Medea lays claim to the
demands that a male hero makes from the people he associates with.
Besides winning her husband, like a hero she is very conscious of the
dangers to her position. As long as Jason fulfilled his duties as a husband,
Medea was the obedient wife he expected her to be. Her character
overpowers this wifely role when he completely disregards her by marrying
behind her back. She feels dishonoured in the same way Achilles did,
except in her case she faces a graver and actual exile. The position that
Medea is forced into, is one that is worse than death for anyone who enjoys
the privileges of the community in Greek society. It is however, a position
that is not uncommon for a woman to find herself in. Other characters in
the play do not see the reason for her intense rage, and they pity her because
they feel this intensity will only harm her. Medeas feelings that channelise
her actions are characteristic of the thumos of heroes. She is capable of
formulating successful plans in her difficult position, which shows that she
is guided by her rational and intelligent mind. It is her heroic outlook that
makes her differ from others in the way she negotiates reason and emotion.
Euripides outlines Medeas unusual character by the opinions of the Chorus
and the Tutor on her misfortune. The women and the Tutor are surprised at
the length and intensity of Medeas suffering because for them it is a
common thing for a husband to spurn his wife. Medeas elevated sense of
honour makes her seem a princess to the audience, and they understand her
rage as resulting from rupturing of her pride. The perception of Medeas
character is gendered, and so they do not see her as a hero who can only
respond to such injustice by punishing the people who cause her harm.
All the characters except the Nurse subscribe to the norms of the society
and so, they view Jasons actions as common and Medeas suffering as
uncommon. The Nurse, however, doesnt appreciate Medeas heroic
conduct. She dismisses the grand life and is content in her insignificance

but she understands Medeas reasons for her rage. She knows Medea cannot
be bound by the constraints of gender. The audience might see Medea as a
foreign princess, but the Nurse remembers her past and sees that Medea
hasnt given up the commanding nature of a queen. As she has served
Medea for a long time, the Nurse is the only one who doesnt underestimate
Medeas capabilities. She sees her mistress in a heroic light and almost
echoes Medea when she argues with the Tutor that Jason has betrayed
those near and dear to him. As Elizabeth Bryson Bongie points out,
behaviour towards friends (philoi) and enemies (ochthroi) is an important
feature of the heroic code. Medea asserts her heroic self image 1 by wanting
to be seen as loyal to [her] friends and dangerous to [her] enemies. This
heroic ideal makes it necessary for her to act in order to protect herself from
laughter and ridicule. Her suffering propels her need for revenge, instead of
making her unfit for action. Medeas rage is not of a helpless woman who
responds over emotionally to being betrayed, but that of a hero who is
deprived of honour and status. Even in her rage she evokes the gods who
solemnised Jasons oath and doesnt mention a broken heart even once
[Bongie]. She is far from feeling jealous of Jasons new wife when the anger
she feels at being treated unjustly is so strong. As Medea translates her
anger into ruthless actions, she engages in a heroic exercise that makes her
foreign not only to womankind, but to mankind as well.
A womans place in Greek society does not allow her to follow the heroic
code as heroism is inherently a masculine endeavour. Despite limitations of
gender, Medea is heroic not only in action, but more so in her words. An
important facet of the heroic identity is the skilled use of speech and
Medeas skill with words gives her control that even masculine valour
cannot secure. Euripides interest in the art of rhetoric is reflected in the
way he experiments with the form of Greek tragedy. He integrates the
Chorus into the action and stages multiple agons that are all dominated by
Medea. Even though Medea uses soft words with Jason in order to succeed
in her revenge, in the first agon she ease[s her] heart by totally
vanquishing Jason in a war of words. As Jasons actions have harmed her
image, Medea retaliates by discrediting him of his honour. Her brilliantly
argued reply to Jason in their first agon never wavers from her concerns of
1

Bongie, Elizabeth Bryson. Heroic Elements in Euripides Medea. John Hopkins University Press.

honour and conduct befitting a hero. In the process of asserting her heroic
identity, she strips Jason of his own. Her speech executes a castration by
rendering him unman[ly]. He lacks the loyalty that is due towards his
philoi and on harming them he turns them into his enemies. Even on
upsetting this important relationship that a hero must respect, he expects
Medea to remain his philoi. He doesnt see Medea fit to operate by the
heroic code 2 and in thinking her less than a hero, he loses both his heroic
and masculine identities.
Medea is in complete control throughout the action of the play, and it is this
position of power that lends her character the attributes of a princess.
Unlike a male hero whose prowess is judged in the battlefield, Medea uses
her skill with words to get the power she is not physically and socially
granted because of being a woman. Medeas turns speech into a formidable
weapon by her ingenious use of oaths. Oath-taking is another ritual
predominant to the heroic realm and Euripides grants his female
protagonist immense power by making her the procurer of oaths. 3 Medeas
plans depend on the fact that the gods will be on her side since it is Jason
who has broken an oath protected by the gods. She also secures a refuge
for herself by trading her knowledge for an oath from Aegeus. By binding
people to oaths, Medea gains control over peoples actions. This is a
powerful position that she achieves as through controlling action she can
control fate. She gains the favour of the gods as heroes do in battle, and is
able to punish her enemies for treating her unjustly. The punishment she
brings on her enemies is in accordance with the demands that the heroic
code makes, but it makes her tread a most wretched path which leads to
her tragedy. The heroic code brings about a double alienation as Medea is
alienated from her gender and from the human plane.
As Helen P. Folley 4 has observed, Euripides exposes the adverse effects of
the idealised heroic code in this play. He deliberately uses a foreign,
barbaric woman to make his point in order to exploit possibilities that
wont arise in a male heros case. Medea caters to the expectations of the
Athenian audience as she passionately pursues her revenge but she
2

Bongie.
Fletcher, Judith. Women and Oaths in Euripides. The John Hopkins University Press. 2003
4
Folley, Helen. Medeas Divided Self.
3

surprises them by the extent of her revenge and the reasons she gives for
her actions. When she appears above the house that no longer exists
because of Jason, she has literally left the human plane. If transcending the
mortal plane by ones heroic actions is a heros aim, Medea fulfils it and is
rewarded by a chariot from the gods. The fact that she excels in heroic
activity does not, however, make her story any less tragic. The clash between
her heroic self identity and her gender requires her to choose between the
duties of a hero and that of a mother. As she says herself, her own heart
wont spare her the pain of killing her children because it cannot allow her
to let her enemies go unpunished. If sacrifice for honour is what determines
heroism, Medea goes a step further than sacrificing the self. She sacrifices
the life she has nurtured and makes her pain worse than death. She is ready
to pick up the sword and kill her enemies, but it is the success of ones
plans that renders one heroic [Bongie]. The only way she can deal [Jason]
the deepest wound is by killing the children. The revenge she plans is
perceived by the Athenian audience as barbaric, but Euripides constructs
her in a heroic image that finds validation for her unsettling actions.

The Medea is not just Euripides experiment with drama, but with the heroic
tradition as well. In Medeas character, he explores an ideal that he feels
needs to be critically evaluated. The audience may see her as a foreign
princess, but she subscribes most strongly to an ideal that the Athenians
respect. The reward she gets for her acts takes her to the very land that the
audience is so proud of. By making Medeas foreign identity subservient to
the heroic code, Euripides gives her a prominent place in the Athenian
history which produces the desired response of horror and discomfort. He
combines the Athenian anxiety about barbarity and powerful women in his
heroine, making them rethink their belief of Athens as the epitome of
civilisation. For this purpose, he presents his audience with a protagonist
who is most heroic and most tragic at the same time.