5
edits
Medea: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
No edit summary |
|||
| Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
== Themes and Motifs == | == Themes and Motifs == | ||
== Xenophobia == | |||
Euripides’s Medea explores the tensions which existed between citizens and foreigners and Greece’s subsequent Xenophobia. In the play, Medea represents the non-citizen who completely lacked legal and social rights. Not only is she far from the comforts of her native land, but also, as both a woman and a foreigner, she is viewed as a “poor creature” (643), below the level of a human being. | |||
As Doctor Gerry Lucas pointed out in his lecture, marriage was a citizen’s contract, meaning Medea had no legal hold on Jason and could not take any form of official recourse. The Nurse laments that “…she has discovered by her sufferings/ What it means to one not to have lost one’s own country” (643). The Nurse is making a deliberate comparison to Jason, who as a male citizen enjoyed legal protection and political activity. Medea, a female non-citizen, is left without a voice or support. Her lack of institutional support led to the necessity that she herself administer Jason’s punishment. | |||
Jason most aptly expresses the Xenophobic snobbery inherent in such disparity between citizen and foreigner. As he explains to Medea the advantages of living in a ‘civilized’ culture he insists that “…instead of living among barbarians/ You inhabit a Greek land and understand our ways/ How to live by law instead of the sweet will of force” (653.) Such ethnocentric attitudes were both stemmed from and perpetuated by the lack of citizen’s rights. According to Wikipedia, women and foreigners were unable to vote and therefore could not create public policy that would help eradicate Ancient Greece’s sexism and xenophobia. | |||
== Historical Context == | == Historical Context == | ||
| Line 33: | Line 42: | ||
== Commentaries == | == Commentaries == | ||
* [http://litmuse.maconstate.edu/~glucas/archives/000320.shtml Euripides' ''Medea'': Patriarchal Terrorism]] | * [http://litmuse.maconstate.edu/~glucas/archives/000320.shtml Euripides' ''Medea'': Patriarchal Terrorism]] | ||
== Sources == | |||
<U>Athenian Democracy.</U> 2005. Wikipedia. 8 April 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Citizenship_in_Athens>. | |||
== External Links == | == External Links == | ||
[[Category:World Literature]] | [[Category:World Literature]] | ||