The story of Medea, written by Euripides, is a romantic tragedy that ends in an unexpected way. Throughout the play, it is easy to feel sorry for Medea who has devoted herself to Jason, only to have him leave her and her children for another woman and a better life. However, readers will begin to despise Medea as her final revenge on Jason is to kill her own children. Even though Medea knows it is wrong, this paper will argue whether Medea murders her children out of selfishness or out of love? Medea fell in love with Jason the moment she met him.
Cynthia Benitez Mrs. Pope AP Literature 21 October 2011 The Betrayal of an Arrogant Jerk The underestimation of wise women justifies the lack of capacity men have to handle a manipulative, clever woman. In the Ancient Greek tragedy, Medea, by Euripides, Jason’s abandonment of his family crushes Medea emotionally to the degree that Medea’s quest for justice results in the murders of Creon, Creon’s daughter, and her two innocent sons. Jason’s haramatia, through arrogant actions, and the underestimation of Medea’s capacity of wickedness, directly lead to his peripeteia, compelling the audience to feel catharsis for him. Jason’s self-interest and arrogance only make him a fool, as he provokes Medea to take on a series of murders, rendering
Electra fights with her mother, Clytemnestra, and her mother’s lover, Aegisthus, because she feels betrayed by them as they killed her father. When Electra and Orestes are finally reunited, they plot against their fathers killers, and finally kill them. The play has several themes, such as vengeance and deception which are extenuated by the heightened realism style of the play. In Electra’s introductory speech, I would emphasises her agony of her father’s death, as this is the main reason the character is vengeful. To fit with the heightened realism of the play, I would exaggerate the mental pain that the character is going through by associating some lines with physical pain, such as ‘But my mother, and her bed mate Aegisthus, Split open his head with a murderous axe’.
The Madness that is Abigail Williams: Her Intentions in The Crucible “How hard it is when pretense falls! But it falls, it falls!” With these chilling and ominous words, Abigail’s twisted sense of revenge rings hollow in Arthur Miller’s terrifying play, The Crucible. A masterpiece of its time, The Crucible brings forth the true horrors man is capable of: deception and vengefulness. No character presents these values as well as Abigail, whose lust and heartbreak for John Proctor results in a homicidal goose chase. Because of her hate towards Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, Abigail creates demented tales, directed at abolishing the “problem.” Though Abigail’s wild canards seem quite obtuse in civilization today, at the time her acts fell to justification.
Stella is the wife of Stanley and also the main character in my opinion. She’s a huge dope, who’s fallen in love with the wrong guy. Even after Stanley hits her she still comes back to him “There is the sound of a blow [and] Stella cries out”. She’s blinded by how things used to be between them when they first started dating. Stella is willing to look past everything Stanley does because she loves him and that makes her the fool of the play.
In this passage, Juliet goes through a variety of emotions – betrayal, conflict, resolution and guilt. At the beginning of the passage, Juliet feels betrayed by Romeo. This is expressed as she curses him, “O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!”, a “wolvish ravening lamb” and “just opposite to what thou justly seem’st”. All these phrases show how she felt deceived that Romeo, despite his beautiful appearance, turned out to be a murderer of her cousin. This is right after she hears from the Nurse that Romeo was the one who killed Tybalt.
She is completely unable to control her feelings for her only love, “I must love a loathed enemy” [I, v, 139]. The way that Shakespeare uses “must” is very interesting because although the households are enemies she must go against her parents will because she loves Romeo. No longer did her parents support her instead she was rejected. When Juliet rebels against marring Paris, “He shall not make me a joyful bride” [III,v,117]. Lord Capulet becomes enraged of this defiant behaviour, “An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend / an you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, / For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee” [III, v, 192-4].
Tragedy is said to be further represented in Shakespeare’s use of opposites or antithesis. Suggested in Romeo’s oxymoronic prophetic- “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. Why then, O brawling Love! O loving hate” (I i.162-164) Along with omnipresent motifs of light and darkness, youth and age. Overall this scene of opposites is set within context of the lovers that are opposites in family caught in a feud that ultimately leads to tragedy.
Lady Macbeth’s Direct Influence of Macbeth The downfall of Macbeth is caused by two unparalleled sides of the same road that is merely Macbeth’s own personal weak conscious and the dominated physiological abuse of Lady Macbeth. The constant manipulation of Lady Macbeth directed at her husband operates as an assault to his duties as a man and spouse, along with substituting her husband’s ambitions and aspirations with her own thriving greed for power. The ability to think to beyond what is needed encourages not only the collapse of sanity in Macbeth but also the rationality of Lady Macbeth. “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
ENGL 2111 Greco-Roman Essay What’s Love Got to Do with It? The stories of Medea and Dido revolve around their intense relationships with the men in their lives and the aftermath of love lost. Both character’s failed relationships result in death, but their paths and conclusions vary tremendously. Medea, a character of Greek origin, verses Dido, a character of Roman origin, is a true match up of materialistic self-indulgence against repentance and self-sacrifice. Both women find love, commit to love, lose love and suffer from heartache.