But on me hath fallen this unforeseen disaster, and sapped my life; ruined I am, and long to resign the boon of existence, kind friends, and die. For he who was all the world to me, as well thou knowest, hath turned out the worst of men, my own husband. Of all things that have life and sense we women are the most hapless creatures; first must we buy a husband at a great price, and o'er ourselves a tyrant set which is an evil worse than the first; and herein lies the most important issue, whether our choice be good or bad. For divorce is not honourable to women, nor can we disown our lords . . . --Medea
This quote is from the beginning of the play and it describes the situation that women are put in when there husbands leave them, and her feeling towards her husband. The part of the passage; “. . . first must we buy a husband at a great price, and o'er ourselves a tyrant set which is an evil worse than the first; and herein lies the most important issue, whether our choice be good or bad. For divorce is not honourable to women, nor can we disown our lords . . .” elaborates on the idea that women give up a lot when they marry a man. In Madea’s case, she leaves an amazing family to marry Jason. However, he leaves her to marry a princess, and being a divorced woman of this time period, it would ruin her chances of ever living a happy life, because she would never be able to get married again, and because she was forced to leave Corinth she no longer has a place to live. Medea is a play about sacrifice, and correcting errors. In Medea’s case, her husband made the mistake of leaving her for a princess, so she spends the whole way of plotting to fix this mistake, and eventually she does by kill Creon, his daughter, and she even kills her own children. Killing her children was a sacrifice she made to fix the mistake of Jason leaving her for a princess. Jason also tries to fix his mistake of not marrying a princess. So for his children to have a better life, he decides to marry the princess of Corinth and hopes that this will allow his children to become noble.
I chose this selection mainly because of the last statement; “. . . divorce is not honourable to women. . .” This statement is important because the hole reason Medea wants to kill everyone is because she doesn’t want anyone to view her as week, and she doesn’t want anyone to think that she is letting Jason get away with leaving her for a princess. Medea spends a while talking about her honor during the play, and it is obvious that that is what is truly important to her, if it were anything else she would have never killed her children.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
when I say hole in my blog, I mean whole
ReplyDelete"she spends the whole way of plotting to fix this mistake," this part doesn't make much sense to me because of the "way" but, it was a good blog.
ReplyDeleteI read this book as well and I like the passage that you chose. It defines the exact reason of why Medea wanted all this revenge on Jason. You also said that Medea did not want anyone to view her as weak. I also agree with that and like you're thoughts on it. I do not really think it was a mistake, like there was a wrong or right in leaving Medea. Jason had his choice but it's Medea's opinion that it was a mistake. You really can not consider it a mistake, but Medea makes it a mistake by making his life a living hell. Overall i enjoyed you're analysis of the passage and i also enjoyed this book.
ReplyDeleteok mitchell no need to point out every mistake, no one else on the blog went around doing that, way to be rude.
ReplyDeletehave fun corecting this grammar too, I know you'll enjoy
Can you say that this play is a play on fixing problems or is it a play that addresses the theme of revenge, which she knew that she needed to get back at these people for ruining her dream of a happy life, so her plot is to get her revenge by killing them? The passage does bring up the main issue of the play, and it seemed significant, that is why it seemed like an obvious choice to choose weather or not you like this book off this plot alone. I guess I personally would not read a book like this because I do not need to listen to a woman’s tragedy. They need to deal with it, just like everyone else did, and it is just the same old story repeated in many different ways, which just bores me.
ReplyDeleteYour selected passage does get right to the heart of Medea's conflict. As a woman in a patriarchal society, her fates are tied to Jason's with little room for her to follow her own stars. Along this line, I find your analysis of this play as a "play on fixing problems" to be an interesting one. How are Medea and Jason's problems "unfixable" due to the social issues you've mentioned? Furthermore, how it the tragedy made difficult due to Medea's lack of status in society? How do her limitations in society make her particularly sympathetic to us? Or does this not matter at all (as Butters suggests)?
ReplyDelete