Oh no class ended before I could speak up. Time to make a post about my thoughts!
Today's topic: Euripides' Medea (with a brief cameo by Aeschylus' Agamemnon).
I think another reason Medea would have seemed like such a monster to ancient Greek audiences is, not only does she flout conventional rules for how a woman should behave, she is aware of what those rules are and exploits them to get what she wants. Both Clytemnestra (from Aeschylus' Agamemnon) and Medea are vilified because they don't act like women, they act like men, but you could argue that Clytemnestra acts the way she does because in the world of the play she has forgotten how to act like a proper Greek woman much in the same way Agamemnon forgets how to act like a proper Greek man (and both, of course, end up dead for their transgressions.).
With Medea, I think in the scene where she convinces Creon to let her stay in Corinth for an extra day it's pretty clear that she is deliberately exploiting the conventions of feminine behavior to get what she wants from him. The exchange of stychomythia between them starts when Medea starts wailing and begging and supplicating herself to him, and stychomythia generally shows up when one character changes another character's mind. The combination suggests to me not only that Medea was putting on an act for Creon (which is what she says as soon as the exchange is over), but that Medea was specifically putting on the act of typical feminine behavior because she knew that was behavior that Creon would expect, and would perhaps even find non-threatening enough to cave to her demands. I think she's also pretty contemptuous of Creon and Jason for falling for the act, too. That is the proper Greek female behavior Jason is so puffed up about bestowing on her? Overemotional pleading and begging? Jason can take that and shove it up his superior Greek behind.
Medea isn't just horrifying or terrifying because she flouts the rules, it's because she not only knows the rules, but is willing to flout them or stick to them as suits her goals. It's not just that she doesn't know how she should act; is that she does know, and she doesn't care. The rules that define Greek culture and define how Proper Greek Women act have no power over her and are meaningless. More than that, Medea's ability to adopt and shed her role as the wildly emotional female supplicant suggests that the traits Greek men so prize in their women have nothing to do with inherent femaleness, and everything to do with women acting in the way men expect them to act. It's notable too that, for Medea, the acts she puts on are things she does not out of revenge but also out of desperation -- the time she buys from Creon allows her to enact a deal with Aegeus and therefore secure her safety, in addition to giving her time to enact her revenge. The uberfeminine act she puts on is her way of assuring safety from the men around her. The suggestion, then, is that women act like proper Greek women not only because men want them to and have dictated how proper women behave, but also out of self-preservation. It's the only way for women to be safe in a world ruled by men and their dictates.
(We aren't reading Seneca's version of Medea, but my teacher mentioned that in his version Medea seems aware of her own myth. I think that self-awareness of her mythological status fits very well with her self-awareness of her role as a woman; in both cases, she knows how she is supposed to act, and dons or sheds those roles as her goals require.)
As a final side note, I think Medea killing her children is what sends her actions over the edge, as it were, but I think that edge is needed. Her revenge is both masculine and divine in its overtones, and I think if she'd just killed Glauke and Creon it would not have been nearly as devastatingly either of those things. To be masculine means she needs to spill blood by the sword (a male hero's method of killing); to be divine she must destroy everything except Jason. Her murder of her children is horrific, but it makes her vengeance total and complete. Like a god, she ascends at the end of the play, and the bodies of her children become the markers of her presence, like Herakles' club and lion skin.
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I think another reason Medea would have seemed like such a monster to ancient Greek audiences is, not only does she flout conventional rules for how a woman should behave, she is aware of what those rules are and exploits them to get what she wants. Both Clytemnestra (from Aeschylus' Agamemnon) and Medea are vilified because they don't act like women, they act like men, but you could argue that Clytemnestra acts the way she does because in the world of the play she has forgotten how to act like a proper Greek woman much in the same way Agamemnon forgets how to act like a proper Greek man (and both, of course, end up dead for their transgressions.).
With Medea, I think in the scene where she convinces Creon to let her stay in Corinth for an extra day it's pretty clear that she is deliberately exploiting the conventions of feminine behavior to get what she wants from him. The exchange of stychomythia between them starts when Medea starts wailing and begging and supplicating herself to him, and stychomythia generally shows up when one character changes another character's mind. The combination suggests to me not only that Medea was putting on an act for Creon (which is what she says as soon as the exchange is over), but that Medea was specifically putting on the act of typical feminine behavior because she knew that was behavior that Creon would expect, and would perhaps even find non-threatening enough to cave to her demands. I think she's also pretty contemptuous of Creon and Jason for falling for the act, too. That is the proper Greek female behavior Jason is so puffed up about bestowing on her? Overemotional pleading and begging? Jason can take that and shove it up his superior Greek behind.
Medea isn't just horrifying or terrifying because she flouts the rules, it's because she not only knows the rules, but is willing to flout them or stick to them as suits her goals. It's not just that she doesn't know how she should act; is that she does know, and she doesn't care. The rules that define Greek culture and define how Proper Greek Women act have no power over her and are meaningless. More than that, Medea's ability to adopt and shed her role as the wildly emotional female supplicant suggests that the traits Greek men so prize in their women have nothing to do with inherent femaleness, and everything to do with women acting in the way men expect them to act. It's notable too that, for Medea, the acts she puts on are things she does not out of revenge but also out of desperation -- the time she buys from Creon allows her to enact a deal with Aegeus and therefore secure her safety, in addition to giving her time to enact her revenge. The uberfeminine act she puts on is her way of assuring safety from the men around her. The suggestion, then, is that women act like proper Greek women not only because men want them to and have dictated how proper women behave, but also out of self-preservation. It's the only way for women to be safe in a world ruled by men and their dictates.
(We aren't reading Seneca's version of Medea, but my teacher mentioned that in his version Medea seems aware of her own myth. I think that self-awareness of her mythological status fits very well with her self-awareness of her role as a woman; in both cases, she knows how she is supposed to act, and dons or sheds those roles as her goals require.)
As a final side note, I think Medea killing her children is what sends her actions over the edge, as it were, but I think that edge is needed. Her revenge is both masculine and divine in its overtones, and I think if she'd just killed Glauke and Creon it would not have been nearly as devastatingly either of those things. To be masculine means she needs to spill blood by the sword (a male hero's method of killing); to be divine she must destroy everything except Jason. Her murder of her children is horrific, but it makes her vengeance total and complete. Like a god, she ascends at the end of the play, and the bodies of her children become the markers of her presence, like Herakles' club and lion skin.
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