The plays Medea and Lysistrata both portray title characters that are women in Ancient Greece. In each of these plays the title characters feel they must confront the patriarchal society in which they live. The men of Ancient Greece see the women...

In Euripides’ Medea, Plutarch’s Sayings of Spartan Women, Lycurgus and Xenophon’s Spartan Society, it is made clear that filicide is a byproduct of the dichotomy of an honor vs. shame society. Medea, the barbarian wife of a man who remarries in...

“Nothing in excess” is inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. As the cornerstone of Greek philosophy, this creed was embraced through a lifestyle of moderation and self-restraint. In spite of this ideal, in his tragic masterpiece Medea,...

Writer Oscar Wilde once said: “A mask tells us more than a face.” Throughout history, lies and masks have been a means to an end in achieving the goals of women who are limited in their current situations – social, political, or economical. Women...

Medea, as introduced by Euripides, is known for her violent actions and domestic violations. Motivated by Jason’s unfaithfulness and wavering heart, Medea loses her sanity and eventually commits infanticide. Medea’s story is representative of...

Throughout the course of history, marriage as an institution has changed drastically, weaving in and out of various phases and forms. What began as a purely reproductive relationship evolved into an emotional companionship. Or has it? Does...

Despite her violent transgressions, Euripedes paints Medea as a victim from the start to the end of the play. Even Medea’s most violent act, the murder of her own children, is made complicated by Euripides’ appeal to the reader’s sympathy for her...

Medea, in Medea by Euripides, might be described as a hysterical and ruthless murderer, for she kills an innocent princess and slaughters her very own children. The women in The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu could easily be described as needy...

Greek theatre, portrayed in Medea, emphasizes the characters and the plot through the structure of Greek theatre as well as bringing about a new moral and social portrayal of Greece. Originated in Athens around the 5th century BC, Greek theater,...

The struggle of the outsider is facilitated by their isolation and their inability to form significant bonds with others in their community. Whilst outsiders have the capacity to challenge their respective communities, their struggles inevitably...

In Euripides’ Medea, one could argue that Medea’s most tragic flaw is her emotions. Medea goes on a quest to seek revenge on her unfaithful husband Jason and her retaliation is her closure. Jason’s betrayal is the fuel for this revenge, and...

In a last, desperate attempt to gain support and exercise free will in a society that condemns her, Seneca’s Medea calls on the gods for help. Medea finds herself in a country with an oppressive government that despises foreigners, and her foreign...

Originally written by Euripides, Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy based upon the myth of Medea and Jason. After encountering Jason during his quest for the Golden Fleece, Medea falls in love and abandons her homeland to help him throughout his...

The scattered leaves of the great tree shivered a sound of wind through rotted sail, and from some immense crevice near the tree’s considerable base, a serpentine shadow of midnight scale and flashing fang poured rapidly forth to surge across the...

In the play Hippolytus, Euripides depicts characters in a realistic fashion by displaying their warring emotions in the wake of dramatic events, as well as their deceit in achieving their objectives. A prime example of such tactics is the...

The works of Euripides differ largely from those of the arguably more iconic Sophocles, nominally in the regard that they lack individual Aristotelian tragic heroes. Instead, despite having a central and typically eponymous figure, each play tends...

In Troilus and Criseyde, a poem which presents tragedy as a necessary component of love, Chaucer explains that fortune, the planets, and free will all control the fall of the protagonist. These forces, none of which lead to his ultimate benefit,...

Heracles, Greece’s greatest hero, is a demigod whose mortal life is dominated by a series of successes due to his tremendous strength and failures due to his excessive passions. While, ostensibly, his passions cause him pain and bring about...

Universal suffering and pain is the ultimate aftermath of war; this is the fundamental message Euripides strives to display in his tragedy, ‘The Women of Troy’, performed to an audience of Athenian men in 415BC, a year progressing the atrocities...

Anti-War Sentiments in Trojan Women

In the year 415 B.C.E., the Greeks had been fighting a long and bloody war with Sparta for over a decade. It was in this year that Euripides, a well-known playwright, wrote Trojan Women, a tragedy about the...