Hey everybody,
For this blog post about Medea, I want to give my opinion on this text as well as ask a question hoping everyone can give their possible views on. First of all, the unhinged Medea definitely perplexed me in a number of ways I’m sure some of you can relate to as well. Despite the actions of her untrustworthy husband that can be considered the root cause to all these problems, mostly all her actions were completely unethical and way out of line. Even though her husband cheated on her, that doesn’t give her the right to ruin the lives of others including her children who have nothing to do with the actions of their father which brings me to my question. “If her children have no role in her husband’s deceitful actions, why does Medea hate them and want to punish them?” In lines 118-120, Medea wishes death upon her household including her innocent children. “O children accursed, may you die-with your father! Your mother is hateful. Go to hell, the whole household! Every last one” (Medea 789). I’m pretty sure we can understand why Medea is going through a tough time but still don’t get why she has to involve her children in it and wish death upon them. I definitely look forward to the interesting discussion in class to learn everyone’s opinion and viewpoints on Medea.
See you in class! – Gurminder Virk
Hey Gurminder,
I don’t know yet if Medea is the place to talk about madness. Madness implies some sort of skewed perception of reality, but we see that throughout the text Medea sees quite well what’s happening. She’s too clever for her own good. She’s definitely not following any moral rules, and when she’s getting ready to murder her children we see the ethical side of her come out to fight with her rational, vengeful side. Ultimately the latter part of her wins and she kills her children. (As an aside, let me just say that perhaps the reason she hates her children is that they represent the hated father from whom they came. But does she really hate them? If she did she would not have hesitated to kill them. She was enraged, and her anger overtook her words, but I don’t believe that she hates her children. Anyway, I’ll end this aside here). But this side is precisely the rational side. She has certain beliefs, desires, and goals, and creates a plan to reach those goals. Let’s not forget how well she planned everything and, moreover, achieved her goal. This is just meant to say that we should not confound rationality with morality.
Hey Gurminder,
I thought you brought up a good point when talking about Medea’s thought process. She clearly recognizes that Jason is the culprit for her sorrows, so why would she dare punish her owned loved ones? Maybe it has something to due with the fact that she shares these children with Jason and wants nothing to do with him anymore?
Hey Gurminder,
I definitely agree with you that Medea might be showing signs that she is a bit insane. Her main goal is to seek revenge and make Jason suffer and she does this by doing the extreme, which is killing her children. This shows signs that she is very ambitious to get what she wants and nothing really stops her. She cares more about how her enemies view her than the value of her children. Thus, she does seem to be a little off, because she could’ve gotten her vengeance in any other way, like killing Jason for example, which seems to be more understandable.