What is the function of The Chorus at this point? How has its role changed from the beginning of the play?
The chorus changes from being quite opinionated and having a personality that would either agree or disagree with Medea, to being very narrative. They simply describe the situation that is going on rather than having any sort of input. Furthermore, their input was typically only related to what was going on concerning Medea herself, but in this part of the play they are simply adding on to what the Messenger says.
Chart the vacillation of Medea in this scene.
Medea shows a large contrast to her previous sentiments towards her children, where in previous scenes she saw them to be these incarnates of Jason where they meant little to nothing to her. In fact, she even used them as assets to get what she wanted, to manipulate people around her for power. She had previously talked about killing them along with Jason, Creon and his daughter. However, ironically, now that it was the time to send them off with the poisoned gifts, she finally felt remorse and even a fleeting moment of motherly responsibility. But once she is done with the emotional argument with herself, she is almost immediately won over by her deep-rooted desire to burn down the world around her, with her “if I’m going down, everyone else is going down with me” mentality.
The final scene of Medea has been much debated. What are your responses to the ways in which Euripides ends the play?
The final scene is quite conflicting, because on one hand the audience gets to see that Medea had achieved the justice for herself that she wanted for the entirety of the play, in her own twisted manner albeit. But in the scene Medea is almost brainwashed by her hatred for Jason that any of her previous sentiments of regret or love for her children are just swept away by it. Any remnants of the vacillation that was presented in the previous scene is almost laughable as she spits in Jason’s face. Her desire for revenge had turned her from a victim to a criminal, she basically stooped down to his level in order to make him feel like how she felt. She took everything away from him and then decided it would be funny to laugh in his face too. So the audience is left wondering whether or not to sympathise with Medea, who had been victimised the whole play or with Jason who had been previously portrayed as the villain of the narrative, who we now see is suffering. So I think the ending of Medea is well written because of this choice that the audience needs to make.
