Confused about Medea Essay Question

[Confusedprincess]

Hi, so I'm going back to school after dropping out and this is the first time I'm writing an essay in a while.

I'm quite confused about my essay prompt for Medea, as I'm not sure how to respond to it. I feel it's a quite limiting question as it only specifically asks about Medea and Jason. The prompt is "Euripides is not interested in morality but only power as it evolves in Medea and ebbs in Jason". Unusually the prompt also doesn't end in a typical "Discuss" or "Do you agree" making it unclear as to whether I can challenge the prompt...

Any advice would be much appreciated <3

[literally lauren]

Hi, so I'm going back to school after dropping out and this is the first time I'm writing an essay in a while.

I'm quite confused about my essay prompt for Medea, as I'm not sure how to respond to it. I feel it's a quite limiting question as it only specifically asks about Medea and Jason. The prompt is "Euripides is not interested in morality but only power as it evolves in Medea and ebbs in Jason". Unusually the prompt also doesn't end in a typical "Discuss" or "Do you agree" making it unclear as to whether I can challenge the prompt...

Any advice would be much appreciated <3

If in doubt, always challenge the prompt! But we probably need to unpack and paraphrase this one first since it's quite complex...

Euripides is not interested in morality but only power as it evolves in Medea and ebbs in Jason.

Let's leave the morality part to one side for now. This prompt is saying that the play shows Medea becoming more powerful and Jason becoming less powerful, right? So a good place to start would be talking about whether their power is inversely proportionate (i.e. is it correct to say that Medea's power grows in inverse proportion to Jason's? - perhaps you could challenge this by noting the different kinds of power that are presented in the text?)

Then, coming back to that idea of morality, it seems like the prompt is implying that the characters are powerful in immoral ways (i.e. Euripides focuses on the power of the characters since that's the more dominant/influential factor) so you could also talk about that aspect of both Medea and Jason.

This is a pretty convoluted one, but it's essentially asking you to compare the different types and extents of power evident in Medea and Jason, so breaking up your body paragraphs by different forms of power and discussing both characters in each paragraph would make for a great integrated approach here

Hope that makes sense!

[Confusedprincess]

If in doubt, always challenge the prompt! But we probably need to unpack and paraphrase this one first since it's quite complex...

Euripides is not interested in morality but only power as it evolves in Medea and ebbs in Jason.

Let's leave the morality part to one side for now. This prompt is saying that the play shows Medea becoming more powerful and Jason becoming less powerful, right? So a good place to start would be talking about whether their power is inversely proportionate (i.e. is it correct to say that Medea's power grows in inverse proportion to Jason's? - perhaps you could challenge this by noting the different kinds of power that are presented in the text?)

Then, coming back to that idea of morality, it seems like the prompt is implying that the characters are powerful in immoral ways (i.e. Euripides focuses on the power of the characters since that's the more dominant/influential factor) so you could also talk about that aspect of both Medea and Jason.

This is a pretty convoluted one, but it's essentially asking you to compare the different types and extents of power evident in Medea and Jason, so breaking up your body paragraphs by different forms of power and discussing both characters in each paragraph would make for a great integrated approach here

Hope that makes sense!

Thank you! That really helps with understanding the question 

[deStudent]

If in doubt, always challenge the prompt! But we probably need to unpack and paraphrase this one first since it's quite complex...

Euripides is not interested in morality but only power as it evolves in Medea and ebbs in Jason.

Let's leave the morality part to one side for now. This prompt is saying that the play shows Medea becoming more powerful and Jason becoming less powerful, right? So a good place to start would be talking about whether their power is inversely proportionate (i.e. is it correct to say that Medea's power grows in inverse proportion to Jason's? - perhaps you could challenge this by noting the different kinds of power that are presented in the text?)

Then, coming back to that idea of morality, it seems like the prompt is implying that the characters are powerful in immoral ways (i.e. Euripides focuses on the power of the characters since that's the more dominant/influential factor) so you could also talk about that aspect of both Medea and Jason.

This is a pretty convoluted one, but it's essentially asking you to compare the different types and extents of power evident in Medea and Jason, so breaking up your body paragraphs by different forms of power and discussing both characters in each paragraph would make for a great integrated approach here

Hope that makes sense!

Hopefully no one minds me tagging along, but to double check, you don't need to address every component of the prompt in all of your body paragraphs right? So here, you don't need to include discussion on the "morality" part of the prompt for every BP?

[LOVEPHYSICS]

No you don't. Your essay must answer the question though, which means the morality part needs to be discussed. One possible way of approaching this prompt is to disagree - by first examining the ebbs and flow of power between the characters as the play progresses, and then arguing that Euripides is as engaged with the normative uses of power by the characters in response to say, perceived immorality or injustice.