Medea.docx

8/10/2019 Medea.docx

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Id rather die. (Line 243) So Euripides is saying that justice does occupy an inferior role in the lives of

women. According to him, Justice is not able to have any significance in the lives of women if the entire

meaning of their lives is hinged on the quality of their marriages. And it follows also that women must

be morally inferior, because the nature of their existence does not allow them to have a sense of the

significance of justice. And yet, despite this moral gap, Euripides writes his entire play from the point of

view of the women in The Medea, and expects the male audience to follow. It must have been quite a

challenge.

For now, think about how Medea, a villainous individual, is able to commit so many crimes and

in the end get away with all of it. First of all, she does not even kill the man who transgressed against

her. The audience would have been sympathetic with that. Instead, she kills four innocent people,

including her own two children. And in the end, every event plays out just as she had planned it,

including her escape. So where is the justice?

It is presumed that in ancient Greek thought, justice was ultimately carried out by the gods, who

are always involved in the lives of human beings. But there is no divine intervention in The Medea,

instead there seems to be altogether a complete absence of gods. So now the question is, why did the

gods not correct Medeas transgressions? How is she going to answer for the murders she committed?

What will be her punishment? The answer is that there is no punishment, no justice, at least not in the

play. This is because Euripides wanted us to focus on her actions, indicating that her crimes speak more

about justice than her punishment.

Now go back to the earlier question, why Medeas point of view?This question is important

because Medeas crimes are the only things in this play in which Euripides can say something about

justice, and the point of view greatly affects the tone that playwright conveys. The simple answer is that

Euripides wanted the morally righteous men to fully understand the mind of a criminal. Mainly,

Euripides wanted to show that criminals have no regard for the justice that is to befall them. He starts


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with Medea, who is the most loathsome individual; a criminal, a murderer, a woman. Euripides then

shows his audience how she is not going to suffer. He shows this to his audience by writing the play

through Medeas point of view. Because the play is through her perspective, the audience can then see

that she really does understand what justice is, and yet willingly and knowinglyforsakes it, choosing

instead to continue with her evil actions, and not caring about justice at all.

Thus, Euripides points out that there is no point to justice if it cannot deter criminals. In the end,

Jason is the one who is left to suffer. And even if the gods punish Medea for her crimes, it will not

change Jasons lot, he will still be destroyed.That is why Euripides chose to leave out the punishment,

because it was inconsequential. The gods were too late. Therefore, it does not matter; justice does not

matter, and therefore there is no justice in the world.

Sophocles takes a different approach to justice. In his play, Oedipus the King, there is definitely a

sense of justice. Justice requires two elements. The first element is the action, morally good or morally

bad or indifferent. The second element is the consequence which matches the morality of the action it

preceded. Oedipushas both of these two elements, and therefore it has justice. But the concept of

justice in the play is complicated by the audiences feelings toward the main character, Oedipus. The

audience cannot help but feel as though justice here is both just and unjust at the same time. Thus, by

his skillful characterization of Oedipus, Sophocles manages to challenge his audience on their

preconceptions of a just and fair world.

It all starts with the very first lines from Oedipus. Indeed Im willing to give all/ that you may

need; I would be very hard/ should I not pity suppliants like these. (Lines 11-13) From the beginning of

the play, Sophocles paints Oedipus as a kind, honorable man. Oedipus is also clever. Though the scene is

only referred to in the play and never explained thoroughly, it is known that in ancient Greek mythology,

Oedipus became king of Thebes when he solved the riddle of the sphinx, which had previously stumped

all other wise men and prophets before him. What we do see in the play are two instances which show


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