While examining a work, questions should arise from the audience about the characters and the motive of the author when creating the characters. When reading Medea, the audience is forced to not only examine the author but the ideas that authors had about society and mankind at that time. The play Medea creates many questions about what characteristics of a person are more important than others and how one should view the value of emotions that Euripides creates. Drama should evoke emotions that one exhibits and observes throughout their lives. The Greek authors felt that life should imitate art and more importantly, that art should imitate life. In order for a play to have a sincere imp ...view middle of the document...
The audience then learns through dialogue with Jason and Medea that Jason values logic more than he does true emotions. He sacrifices his children and the relationship that he has with Medea for a marriage that will allow him to become more successful. The audience soon realizes that with characteristics like those, Jason cannot be the hero. In contrast, Medea can first be perceived as the anti-hero. When seeing her children Medea cries to them "What should be wept for bitterly. I hate you,/ Children of a hateful mother. I curse you/ And you father. Let the whole house crash."# Confusingly enough, by the end of the play the audience is secretly applauding for Medea despite all that she has done or because of what she has done. Medea commits the most unnatural act for a mother by killing her children but does it so that she can commit the most natural act of a person and that is to defend herself . She truly believes in the love that she and Jason had and refuses to be rejected by her true love. Because of this, she sacrifices the lives of her children. "…to suffer my children/ To be slain by another hand less kindly to them./ Force every way will have it they must die, and since/ This must be so, hen I, their mother, shall kill them."# Within this aspect of the play, the author again plays with the emotions of the audience in order to portray real life. With thoughts of homicide flourishing in the mind of Medea, the audience is forced to examine themselves and decide whether an act like that can be considered justifiable. The audience must feel as though it is justifiable in the case of Medea because of her hero role. Not only must there be a good reason for this act, but the act of killing her children must be viewed by the audience as honorable. While this thought may only be contemplated by the audience for mere seconds, it accomplishes the purpose of this work. Euripides forces the audience to f...
