Socioeconomic Implications in 'Medea'

The characters in Euripides’ Medea are directly affected by their socioeconomic statuses. Their social standings in the hierarchy of Greek antiquity impact their decisions and attitudes toward other members of their society. This can be critiqued in correlation with their opinions of the discretions and indiscretions of other members of their same socioeconomic class.

In this text, a play written by Euripides in the fifth century, Medea is the scorned sorceress obsessed with the destruction and humiliation of her husband, Jason, and his new bride, Glauce. Jason, of the legendary Argonauts, has chosen a new bride for himself and betrayed the woman who brought him wealth and power.  Medea devises a plan to emotionally harm him as well as kill his bride and father-in-law. Creon, the King of Corinth and father to Glauce, comes to Medea and banishes her from Corinth. Medea convinces Creon to give her but one day for her children.  Creon, being a father, takes pity and gives Medea her wish.  Medea’s next encounter is with Jason. He reproaches Medea for bringing her banishment upon herself with her temper. Medea reminds him of the many things she helped him to achieve. 

Aegeus, the ruler of Athens, arrives and makes an allegiance with Medea. She will help him bear children and he will give her a place to stay when her business in Corinth is complete. She summons Jason and apologizes for her behavior. Having revealed her plan to a chorus of Corinthian women, she appeals to Jason to allow her children to bring gifts to the bride. The bride receives the poisoned gifts and dies a horrific and painful death.  Her father, in his attempts to save his child, dies also. Medea completes her revenge by killing her children and riding off on the chariot of her grandfather, the sun god.

When we first see Medea, she is bewailing her tragic fate to all who will listen. Medea’s situation is precarious. She is the granddaughter of Helios and daughter of a king. In this part of Greece, however, she is seen as a barbarian and an outsider with no rights.  Medea reveals her plan to a group of Corinthian common women as seen here, “Now I shall tell you all my plans. Don’t expect to receive these words with pleasure” (772-773). We see by her trust in them that she cannot deem them worthy of her silence or suspicion. She seems to regard them with the same trusting blindness that one might use with a slave or inferior. She trusts them because she believes they have not the connections necessary to save those she intends to entrap. Medea also dismisses them when they attempt to dissuade her from her crusade. She says, “I can pardon you for saying this for you do not suffer as cruelly as I” (815-816). She also places a certain degree of faith in her servants upon whose faithfulness she seems to take for granted. We see this in the comments from her children’s tutor and their nurse.

Medea’s social standing in Greece is diminished by her reputation and her origin. The stories of her adventures with Jason and the limits to which she would go to appease him are notorious. By no means is Medea the quintessential feminine woman represented by the chorus. She has an androgyny that she uses to her advantage. Where the chorus women are timid, indecisive, and unintelligent, Medea is strong, determined, and influential. Her means of convincing Creon with her rhetoric is more than would have been expected from a woman in fifth century Greece. Medea capitalizes on Creon’s love of his children in making a plea for her own.  She convinces a king, who would be resistant to these sorts of charms, to bend to her will. Creon recognizes her oratorical prowess and ability to manipulate him. He says, “And now too I can see that I am making a mistake, woman, nevertheless you will have what you ask for” (350-351). By saying this, he attempts to reassert his power over her by reorienting her, in his mind, to the female status over which he feels superior.       

Jason also attempts to assert power over Medea by reminding her of the ways in which he looks after her, as though she were in need of this. He tells her of his attempts at coming the king and queen down and reminds her of her foolish behavior as though she were a child. He denotes an inferior quality on her gender by declaring that her desire for revenge stems from her womanly need for sex. “You women have sunk so low that when your sex life is going well, you think you have everything, but then, if something goes wrong in regard to your bed, you consider the best and most happiest circumstances utterly repugnant” (569-573). He goes on to add, “A female sex should not exist. Then, mankind would be free from every evil” (574-575). In these passages, the trend of misogyny and inequality in attitude and thought toward the female sex is apparent. Even among those of high socioeconomic status, women were second class citizens.

Medea seems to hold the reverse to be true as well. Her opinion of Creon is that he has “plummeted to the depths of stupidity” (371-372).  She, at least, views the men in her life as being merely pawns whom she can manipulate and control.  She does this with amazing competency as she becomes what they see her as. “But we are what we are- I won’t call us evil- we are women. And so you should not be like us in our weaknesses” (890-891). She apologizes to Jason for her behaviors and blames them on her passionate moods and lunacy. She praises his behavior and acknowledges his intelligence to have chosen Glauce as his bride.  Earlier, at length to the women of Corinth, she compares the lives of men to those of women. “As for a man, when he has had enough of life at home, he can stop his heart’s sickness by going out- to see one of his friends or contemporaries. But we are forced to look to one soul alone” (245- 249).

In her lamenting, Medea sees herself as pitiable and woeful. Despite her motivations, her actions are difficult to pity. Her methods of revenge are atrocious. The slaughter of her adversaries, Glauce and Creon, could be understood, on the grounds of her motivations.  Glauce and Creon die painful deaths from Medea’s poison. Medea’s ruthlessness is only undermined by her apparent love for her children. Filicide is difficult to comprehend and pity, however. She hesitates to kill them before the time comes to do so, yet when the time comes, she does without waiting.

The implications of socioeconomic status are less than subtle in Euripides’ Medea. Perhaps, in the writing of this well known mythological story, he wished to give Greece a look at the impulses that drove the men and women of his own society. In satisfying their need for tragedy and theatric dominance, he gives them a political view of the roles of women and men of all standings in the Greek community.