This is just a practise essay, but it would be great if someone could give me some feedback. It was done pretty quickly too, and I found it a little bit hard to tackle this topic, however opted to do it in chronolical order demonstrating different audience's sympathies at different stages throughout the play.
It is Jason, not Medea, who gains the audience’s sympathy. Do you agree?
When observing the relationships and characters in Euripides’ Medea, it quickly becomes apparent that sympathy can be shifted from one character to another throughout the play as we feel pity for Jason at times and Medea at others. The level of sympathy felt by audiences may differ; 4th century Athenian men who would have been watching the play would hold the utmost sympathy for Jason, and a female audience contemporary with them as represented by the Chorus were utterly sympathetic to Medea until she articulated her full plan, while a 21st century modern audience would feel sympathy towards both Jason and Medea at different moments during the play. Euripides sets out to paint Medea as a character who is phenomenal in every way, and although it is Medea who gains majority of the audience’s sympathy at the beginning, ultimately it is Jason who garners the sympathy from all audiences at the conclusion of the play.
In the beginning of the play, as the Nurse explains the cause of Medea’s great agony, the audience is subjected to Medea’s crying and wailing from off the stage. The Nurse also provides the backstory about relationship between Medea and Jason, and highlights the fact that Medea “abandoned her native land, which she abandoned for the love of this man: who now despises her” (86). This incredible misery keeps the “wretched” Medea hidden from the audience as she expresses her sorrows off stage, emerging from the doors calm and composed as she addresses the chorus. Medea is able to physically dominate the space in which the play is performed, even occupying so much literary space that when we cannot see her, we can hear her. She is always on stage with one other character, as if they are entering her arena to battle her. The “unexpected blow of circumstance wrecked [Medea’s] confidence”, and her extreme sorrow coupled with her looming banishment from Corinth at the hands of Creon, the father of Jason’s new wife, leads all audiences to feel utmost pity for Medea, as the chorus do, with the exception of the 4th century Athenian men watching the play. It is Jason who causes problems in the beginning, as he declares he is leaving Medea’s bed to marry the daughter of Creon, leaving him only with sympathy from the Athenian male audience, many of whom may have also committed adultery, or would see his line of argument as completely reasonable. The chorus act as a voice of reason in the play, and as they are completely female, they hold respect and sympathy for Medea who represents a strong and powerful female figure, unlike anyone who has gone before her. Medea’s sheer dominance would have brought an uncomfortable feeling of displeasure and fear to the male audience of the time, as Medea illustrated power and control that men, at the time, always assumed. Medea attempts to argue against her banishment from Corinth with her two sons, as Creon decides to allow her to remain in Corinth for one more day with her children before their exile.
Towards the middle of the play, as the agon begins, the audience is presented with a heated debate between Medea and Jason, where Medea expresses her frustration at Jason, claiming he “owes [his] life to [her]” after she lifted the torch and saved him from the serpent watching the golden fleece. She sternly informs Jason of her betrayal of her own father in order to come to Iolcus with Jason, expressing her anger by stating “all this I have done for you and yet you betrayed me you unfeeling monster”, once again elucidating her lack of fear to stand up to anyone. Medea notifies Jason of her predicament, not knowing where to head after her exile - “Where am I to turn now? To my father’s house that I betrayed along with my homeland?”, leaving the Athenian female and modern 21st century audience to feel great sympathy for her. Jason states that his marriage to Glauce was simply to ensure prosperity for himself while creating brothers for his sons, and he concludes that “there should have been some other means for mankind to reproduce itself, without the need of the female sex”. The chorus intervenes, addressing Jason and acknowledging his arguments, however standing with Medea asserting that he has “betrayed [his] wife and [is] behaving unjustly”. Medea feels that as she is a foreigner, Jason’s motive for leaving was to ensure that his marriage to her wouldn’t “detract from that great name of [his] as old age grew dear”. Medea reaches out to Aegeus in a bid to gain refuge outside of Corinth, and through her manipulative nature, is able to gain the full sympathy of Aegeus.
Medea’s hatred toward Jason grows excessively as the play develops, and as Medea’s plans begin to come into fruition, her relationship with the chorus, and the audience, who sympathise with her, are tested. Medea approaches Jason and apologises with a “change of heart”, once again highlighting her ability to manipulate those she encounters. Medea informs Jason of her decision to give Glauce gifts of fine gold, not mentioning the fact that these gifts of gold are to be riddle with flesh eating poison. By allowing her children to deliver the gifts, she continues to distance herself from her decisions, while her means of poisoning Glauce and Creon were performed in a very feminine nature, similar to witchcraft. Her divine power coupled with her maternal instincts characteristic of a human means she cannot be defined, as she feels sorrow that she will have to leave her children after they escaped exile. This mortal adversity leads the chorus, along with the female audience of the time and the modern audience to feel sympathy for Medea, while the chorus’ concerns grow for the children, questioning what Medea may do to them. Medea appears to battle with herself, claiming she “could not do it [kill the children]” as they look up to her and smile, demonstrating her internal struggle between maternal instincts and divine revenge. Eventually, she declares “my passion is a master of my reason” and commits fully to the murder of her children to avenge Jason. The news of the death of Glauce and Creon seems to spur Medea on, and as the children speak for the first time, shrieking “where can I escape my mother’s hands?”, the chorus suddenly lose all sympathy for Medea and turn against the “wretched, accursed woman”. Medea’s means of killing her children were very masculine, and completely opposite to her means of murdering Creon and Glauce, and this method of murder would have once again instilled fear in the men watching. By stabbing her children to death, she immediately loses the sympathy of the modern audience and the Athenian women, while the Athenian men, who would be have been watching the play, would have completely feared Medea as she defies the role that a woman is meant to play in Greece at the time.
As the play comes to an end, all audience’s feel utmost sympathy for Jason, who has not only lost his children, but his new wife and father-in-law. Medea refuses to allow Jason to farewell his sons and hold them, instead fleeing in a chariot with her grandfather Helios, God of the sun. Her divine heritage seemingly allows her to escape without punishment, leaving Jason to mourn his losses. Medea’s sorrow and determination allows her to gain sympathy from women and a modern audience right until she kills the children, however at the conclusion of the play, it is Jason who gains full sympathy from every audience.