Today we discussed the proto-feminist text, "Medea." We debated whether Jason or Medea loved the children more. Although Jason abandons them, he does wish to provide a secure future for his children. Medea kills her children to get revenge on her husband; however, she claims that she did so to save them from insult. We concluded that, although both Jason and Medea were poor parents, each loved the children to a certain extent.
Because the protagonist of "Medea" is female, it is vastly different from other Greek works, such as the Odyssey. In the ancient Greek culture, the hero was almost always male. In this culture, women had no rights, even fewer than foreign men, and, essentially, were not permitted to engage in society. Therefore, Jason looks down on Medea, believing her incapable of making decisions or carrying out any sort of responsibility. Medea, however, is clever and exhibits metis through her knowledge of poisons, drugs and medicine. Additionally, she is cunning and uses trickery to her advantage.
In this text, the gods play a "deus ex machina" role. Helios, the main god presented in this story, gives Medea, his grandchild, a chariot pulled by dragons. She uses this chariot to escape after all of her transgressions. Compared to the Judeo-Christian tradition that many of us are accustomed to, in which God is the epitome of morality, the gods play a different moral role in Greek tradition, in which they show favoritism and are not necessarily fair.
In this prime example of a Greek tragedy, the protagonist starts in a low position that eventually deteriorates to a horrific position. Further exemplifying a tragedy, elevated language is used, it ends in a catharsis, and it is based around a myth, “Jason and the Golden Fleece.”
WC: 294
Passages:
Page 623, lines 337-348
Medea: Allow me to remain here just for this one day,
So I may consider where to live in my exile,
And look for support for my children, since their father
Chooses to make no kind of provision for them.
Have pity on them! You have children of your own.
It is natural for you to look kindly on them.
For myself I do not mind if I go into exile.
It is the children being in trouble that I mind.
Kreon: There is nothing tyrannical about my nature,
And by showing mercy I have often been the loser.
Even now I know that I am making a mistake.
All the same you shall have your will.
Here Medea reveals one of her heroic qualities, metis. She is able to craftily trick the king into letting her stay another day, leading him to believe that her intentions are harmless and that her primary concern is the relatable fearing for her children. It is soon revealed that she has murder on her mind, but by keeping a cool head even when the king comes to banish her, she is able to procure the extra day she wants.
Page 621, lines 226-232
Medea: It was everything to me to think well of one man,
And he, my own husband, has turned out wholly vile.
Of all things which are living and can form a judgment
We women are the most unfortunate creatures.
Firstly, with an excess of wealth it is required for us to buy a husband and take for our bodies
A master; for not to take one is even worse.
Here we see the women's role in society much more in-depth than in works with a male protagonist. She relates how women are forced to buy a husband (through a dowry) and must serve him, even if he turns out "wholly vile." As bad as this may sound, the alternative, not marrying, is "even worse." We see here that women have little to no control over their own lives in ancient Greek society, and we can see from the first line that Medea was actually fairly reconciled with having few choices, but at least having a faithful husband. Yet when the frustrations from the little power Medea has combines with her feelings about her husband's adulterous behavior, we are given insight into a potential cause of Medea's scheming and murderous acts.
Page 644, lines 1324-1324
Jason: And the boys whom I begot and brought up, never
Shall I speak to them alive. Oh, me life is over!
This passage tells of the importance of children in Greek society. Emphasizing this cultural value puts Medea's murder of her two children in context and makes it even more appalling.
Terms:
metis--the art of using intelligence with crafty, technical skill to gain an advantage over another.
catharsis-- an emotional climax at the end of a work that leads to a purging of all emotions in the audience
deus ex machina-- "god out of the machine"; the gods have less of a role in the occurences of the work
Greek tragedy--people of high position decline, expressed in elevated language, ends in a catharsis, based around a myth
Comments (9)
Walt Miller said
at 1:19 pm on Sep 10, 2009
• Jason:
o Abandons Family
o Offers them money to help
o Argues with the king to keep the children from being exiled; “gets children a home”.
He only does this after Medea asks him to
o Marries royalty to secure a position
Does it for the future of his family, so he says. (Pg 628 line 536-555)
o Doesn’t talk to Medea about it first, does it without her consent
o Is going to die without distinction by a blow to the head from part of his boat.
o Does care about his children and is a tragedy for him
Pg. 644 and bottom of 635
o Jason refutes Medea’s help and says that she only helped him because of Aphrodite making her. (pg. 627)
o Tells Medea that she has no “agency”. Basically that she can not make choices and that she just goes along with the gods’ wishes. (Is one of the main reasons she decides to kill the kids.)
• Medea:
o Could be considered a hero because she does rise against the normal, stereotypical woman’s role as a weak person with no rights or say in anything.
o Is a foreigner, she is a barbarian. Foreigners never can become Athenian citizens.
o Gets Jason to argue with the king to keep her kids out of exile
Only does this as part of her plan
o Kills her own kids
o Uses the kids as a weapon against Jason
o Jason, “Oh you loved them, and you killed them”. Medea, “Only to hurt you”.
o Refutes Jason’s reason for remarrying. (Pg. 628 line 574-576)
o Also kills her kids so that they are not “slain by another hand less kindly to them”. (middle of pg. 642)
o Pg 624 line 366 and down explains that killing her kids are no part of her original plans, she argues with herself back and forth over it, then decides to go ahead and do it and ultimately justifies it on pg 628
o Helps Jason get the Golden Fleece. Also, kills her family for him to help excape.
o Takes what Jason thinks about women and turns it around on him to catch him in her trap. (pg. 635)
Walt Miller said
at 1:20 pm on Sep 10, 2009
• gods:
o Helios
Pg 644, gives Medea a chariot drawn by dragons to make her escape
Proves that there is a family relationship that plays out a lot better than the relationship between Medea and her children
The gods’ morality here is in question: She is not punished by the gods for killing her own children
• “dues ex machina” means gods out of the machine
• Helios saves Medea just like Athena cleans up after Odysseus
• Play is a Tragedy
o Actors wore masks, which caused the whole play to be played out by only three male actors.
o Aristotle: What makes a tragedy?
People in high position
Good to bad (however this one was bad to worse)
Elevated language
o Catharsis: The cleansing, or purging, of emotion
o Draws from myth
Medea draws from Jason of Argonauts
Opens en medias on pg. 616
o Left to choice
Bases the play on myth because people enjoy things that relate to something they are already familiar with.
• Hiro Protagonist (name of the main character in Snow Crash)
o Delivers pizzas for the mafia
• Medea is our Protagonist:
o Her clever/metis gets her in trouble
Uses poisons
Pelias’ daughters killed him because of Medea’s intervention
Gets an extra day because of her wit
Aegius: Protection from extradition
• Uses him as a safe place to go
o Different from Odysseus because she is a woman
Page 621 around line 230 shows that women “must” be married to a man. It is better to be married to a man than to be without because you have no rights as an unwed woman.
• Chorus:
o Understands how Medea feels and wants to both help her and tell her not to.
• Athens does not honor marriages to Barbarians
• Ino was driven from her home and killed her kids, however, Jason says no Greek woman would have killed her kids. (pgs. 643 and 644)
Walt Miller said
at 1:21 pm on Sep 10, 2009
This is just the outline, feel free to add/delete whatever you want
Paige Wartko said
at 5:43 pm on Sep 12, 2009
I was looking over the example notes our professor took and some of the other groups and the comments he made on them, and it looks like this should be more of a summary, a few passages, and terms. He said that depth on the main issues rather than trying to cover every single thing we discussed in class is good. I think I'll try to start editing it into more of that format. Maybe you were just putting the outline up here as a starting point?
pattyparade said
at 4:40 pm on Sep 13, 2009
Nice summary, Paige!
I defined the terms, if that was needed, and did a bit of re-wording to try to keep the word count low. I don't remember what the limit is, so maybe some more cutting or rewording is going to be needed later.
Austin LaFaille said
at 12:11 am on Sep 15, 2009
I liked it as key points were viewed, but I took out the ending as it was unnecessary filler and incorporated some of it into the text and got the word count down to 326.
Paige Wartko said
at 12:49 am on Sep 15, 2009
the word count for the summary is supposed to be between 250 and 300 words. the passages and terms don't have a word limit.
Brian Croxall said
at 12:36 pm on Sep 19, 2009
For the most part, this is a very good set of notes for your first attempt. I was pleased to see that you had used the comments section to talk with one another about how the notes were taking shape. (Most other groups haven't yet found the utility in doing this.) I'm also glad that some of you were looking at other groups' notes and my comments to them. That's the right way to figure out what's important in an assignment like this.
The place where you could really improve is the passages. You did a good job in picking some parts of the text that could supplement your summary. You didn't have time there to talk about the importance of children within the text, so you brought it into the passages. That's a good technique. But the importance of this cultural value is not the most important thing in the text. While you could well have one passage on the topic, you would do better to cover something else with the passages, illustrating the more important points such as Medea's status as a woman and/or barbarian or her "heroic" qualities. Furthermore, each passage should have an explanation of why it's important, and it should be a bit more in-depth than what you've produced here. At the moment these are more summaries of what is said rather than an explication of why these are especially important for the text.
The other thing that I would say that is missing is any consideration of the characteristics of a Greek tragedy. We spent some time on that, and it's useful to have in mind for later in the semester. If you don't have space in your summary, perhaps this could be placed in the definitions?
That being said, it's worth repeating that this is a very good start.
Brian Croxall said
at 9:59 pm on Sep 26, 2009
I've just looked at the revisions on your notes. Paige's revisions have definitely strengthened things. The summary is now more direct and includes information about what a Greek tragedy is (although I think there's a typo when it says that they start with characters in a low position); the passages are excellent and each cover a different thing; and the definitions have been improved. I think the original definition of deus ex machina got more to the point: the too-neat and tidy ending is what is meant more than that the gods are stand-offish throughout.
Still, these notes are a model for what every group should be doing all semester.
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