European Union & Disunion

History 102H

Study Guide
Euripides, Medea

Assignment page

Jason: My children dead and her - Oh her I will repay.

Jason: This you have done, this monstrous deed you have dared commit, and still you look upon the sun and earth? I curse you!

Jason: May you be struck down by our children's avenging curse and Justice who punishes murder!

   Three times at the end of the play Jason, hero of the Argonaut expedition, invokes a curse against his estranged wife Medea. Three times his curse is impotent.
   Medea herself has become a fury, and at the beginning of the play she rallied the gods to her cause: Themis, Artemis, and even Zeus. At the end Helios, the Sun, enables her to escape in his chariot of fire.

Guide to the text
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Limit the scope of your paper by selecting one of the following topics:

1. How does Medea's murdering of her own children represent an act of justice?
2. Pretend that you are the appointed Public Defender charged with defending Medea in court against her accusers.
3. Initially the Chorus is appalled at Medea's determination, but eventually they are won over, at least begrudgingly, to her side. What is the argument that persuades them?
4. What was Jason thinking?
5. Creon is trying to be a good king by finding a strong successor for his kingdom and a stable guardian for his daughter. Is he the cause of this whole mess?
6. Princess Glauke is not even named in the play. Is she simply a pawn for Euripides? Is she a pawn of Creon? Of Jason?
7. The gods grant Medea's prayers, and they deny Jason's. Given the celestial chariot that whisks her away at the end, the gods certainly seem to favor Medea's cause. Why? Are the humans simply the pawns of the gods, who pit them in conflict? To what extent are the humans their own agents?
8. Medea is a barbarian, from the edge of the earth where the Caucasus meet the Black Sea. To what extent does her precarious status in xenophobic Greece explain her decisions?