Medea Key Themes 3

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Key Themes

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  • Betrayal
  • The betrayal of Medea by Jason is the reason for most of the death that comes about in the play as it sends her into an almost grief like state as she is unable to release her anger towards Jason in any other way
  • Medea betrayed her father when she left her native land and gave Jason the Golden Fleece and also by killing her own brother. This is the most awful of sins in the greek world therefore this betrayal is the one that started it all. Created a 'domino effect', it was known what she was capable of
  • Jason betrayed Medea and the children by marrying someone else. He said he did it for their own good however Medea is unable to understand that
  • Jason's unfaithful behavior and lack of sensitivity towards Medea is symbolic of the overall unfair treatment of women.
  • Could be argued Medea betrays her children by depriving them of living their life. Gives them a false sense of security for some time and then leads them into their death
  • Medea betrays Jason by killing his wife, father in law and children
  • Medea betrayed Corinth by killing 2 members of their royal family
  • Women and femininity
  • Jason is a misogynist and this is put across throughout most of the play. When Medea asks him to persuade Glauce to let the children stay he points out that if she is anything like the rest of her sex she will give in- has a dim view of women
  • Medea when faking to get Jason to let the children to stay says that she flew into a passion, this is important as Jason then states it is "fair enough" that one of the female sex should go into such moods and fly into such a passion
  • The Chorus are key in this theme. They say honour is coming to the female sex, they say that if they could they would sing against men. The Chorus is a group of women in the Medea and this means Medea is able to appeal to them more so than if they were male. This is why they agree to keep her secret plan to kill the royal family and her children
  • Medea is essentially a symbol of feminine revolt and rebelling. She is not acting within the normal realms of a greek woman which is unusual yet such a key element of the play as she is taking control of things
  • Fact that Jason left her for another woman shows he doesn't respect her anyway another example of him being misogynistic

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