The final scene of Medea has been much debated. What are your responses to the ways in which Euripides ends the play?

What is different about the ending is the portrayal of Jason. The play is ended with Jason being left helpless, all alone with no kingdom, no wife, no children and nothing to his name. This is unconventional and extraordinary for a greek hero which is what is different. Medea, despite being a female is shown to have power over him.

Looking back at any Greek mythology books, Jason is described as an “ancient Greek mythological hero” or a “somewhat unconventional hero” due to his human nature, he was always described to be a hero. Euripides does something different in this play which is challenging the highly patriarchal view of  a hero of the time and depicts Jason’s negative aspects to his character trait. The way he portrays Jason helps audiences understand how he is nothing more than a self-immersed, selfish, sexist and frankly delusional male. His sexism can be seen in his remarks to Medea. After years of marriage with Medea, he chooses to marry somebody else, daughter of Creon for her status and wealth. When Medea gets mad about it, he labels her as an overly emotional woman, saying “You women are all the same”. He goes on to say, “What we poor males really need is a way of having babies on our own – no females, please. Then the world would be completely trouble free” even though the reason she is acting like this is because of his betrayal to her. Euripides in a sense, uses Jason to symbolise the highly patriarchal society of the time. His insensitivity, ungratefulness and delusion is also depicted in this. Without Medea, he would not have been considered a hero at all and ironically wouldn’t be worthy to be wedded to Creon’s daughter. Yet he downplays her involvements and service she provides to him as seen in “Your cleverness played a part” and “your service did no harm”.

 

Episode 1 and Episode 2 Medea

Examine Medea’s behaviour with Creon: what strategies does she use to manipulate him

In the first episode, Medea’s manipulates Creon into allowing her to let her stay for a day by using her children as a scapegoat. Medea, taking advantage of the fact that Creon is a father, uses the idea of caring for your children, which Creon will inevitably empathise with, in order to convince him to let her stay for a day even though she does not really care for her children as seen in her future decision to kill them.

How does Medea’s speech after Creon’s exit give us further insight into her character

This helps audience get a psychological evalutation of her. She can be desribed as almost sociopathic and highly maniupulative as seen in her ease and fluidity in putting up a front to manipulate Creon and buy herelf time to do what she wants to do especially in a situation as grave as the one she is in. It also shows her selfishness in the sense that it depicts how little she cares about her children.

How does Euripides dramatically present the contrast between Medea and Jason’s different perspectives on their relationship?

Euripides helps highlight Jason’s insensitivity and lack of gratitude towards Medea as it shows how his perpective of their relationship. He fails to appreicate how important and vital Medea was to his successes and fails to understand the gravity of her sacrifices. He even left her just for the power and status he would get from marrying into a royal family. Meawhile, Medea’s perception is quite emotional and attached and shows how she views this much more intrinsically than jason.  THis brings us to the chorus who help audiences to an extent empathise with Medea.

What sympathy does the chorus show to Medea? Why?

 

 

For personal understanding : The stasimon is a section of a Greek play where the chorus sings alone in the orchestra, the actors are off-stage.

Is Atwood’s novel ultimately a feminist work of literature, or does it offer a critique of feminism?

Yes, her novel is ultimately a feminist work of literature. There are many examples that highlight this.  Moira helps express these feminist ideas, and Offred helps reiterate many of the ideas that influenced the novel. The most important idea was Moira’s belief that living solely with women would solve many of the problems women were facing in that dystopian reality. In an ironic way, the new structure of society in Gilead creates a support system for women by women; Most women here had little to no contact with men. Women are expected to support each other in times of birth, death and sickness. Women teach other women about the new regime. Within a household, women work together to fulfill the different functions of their gender.

What is the symbolic power of naming as described in The Handmaid’s Tale?

One of the examples that stands out the most to me in the Handmaid’s tale is June’s name “offred” which is a symbol for the repression of her identity. the Prefixes “of” as seen in Offred, Ofwarren etc symbolises their belonging to a specific commander. When they change commander, they change name, and when Ofglen is replaced another Ofglen appears in her place. The Identity or the individual themselves don’t matter, only the handaid’s relationship to the commanders hold significance.. The handmaids understand how important names are to maintain their identity as seen in the conclusion of the opening chapter with them whispering heir names in the dark so at least someone will always know who they are, and they regularly use these secret names when alone together. It’s ironic that the narrator’s name isn’t certain. It’s likely to be June, as that’s in the whispered list and not used elsewhere – but it’s not definitive. Symbol for lack of identity and confusion. them discussing their names also represents their building up rebellious nature and acts as a tool of foreshadowing for the ending.

Suraj Ka Sathva Ghoda- Samajik samasyaein

पहले 2 अध्यायों में, किन सामाजिक समस्याओं को चित्रित किया गया है-

1. नारी शिक्षा and बाँझ नारी पर कलंक

स्त्री के प्रति अन्याय की भावना
2. जाति भेदभाव
जब तन्ना को जमुना के साथ विवा करने से इंकार कर दिया गया
3. अनमेल विवाह and दहेज प्रथा

4. अंधविश्वास