MEDEA:  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS


"Honour remains no more

In the wide Greek world, but is flown to the sky."

-- The Chorus in Euripides' Medea

 

Some Questions

Who is the hero of this play?  Is there a hero?

How would you begin to describe Medea?  In what ways is she an outsider and how important is this to the story?  To what degree is she different and to what degree is she "one of us?"  How significant is it that she is descended from the gods?

"A time has come," announces the Chorus, "for the female sex to be honoured."  Does the play Medea honour women?  What image of women is conveyed by the play?  How, if at all, does the play distinguish between male and female?  To what extent should Medea's suffering be seen as a metaphor for women's status in the ancient Greek world?  Should we see her as a powerful/dangerous deviant or instead as an everywoman?

To what extent is Medea "manly" and to what extent is Jason "unmanly?"

To what extent does the relationship between "Greekness" and the "Barbarian" structure the play?

What  does the play have to say about  the human condition?  About happiness?  About power and fortune?  About the comforts to be found in family life and children?

To what extent are the central characters victims of circumstance, fate and the gods, and to what extent do they control their own destiny?  How do they grow and/or become wiser as events unfold?  What characters, if any, seem to remain rooted in a state of denial?

What insights are offered through the words and actions of any of the minor characters (the Nurse, the Tutor, Jason's new wife, King Creon, Aegeus, the Messenger, Medea's children)?

What connections might you make between the events Euripides describes at Corinth and the earlier parts of the Jason and the Argonauts myth?  How does Euripides use this back-story (that would have been familiar to his audience) and how does this part of the myth add to our understanding of the main characters in the play?

What connections and/or comparisons would you make between the story of Medea as portrayed by Euripides and the Labyrinth myth?  How would you compare and contrast Jason as "hero" with Theseus?  How would you compare Medea with both Ariadne and Pasiphae?

How would you compare and contrast the character of Medea with the Achilles of the Iliad?

Euripides has alternately been described over the centuries as a feminist, as a misogynist, as a social critic or as a champion of "Greekness."  To what extent do you think he identifies with  Medea and how, based upon your reading of this play, would you begin to characterize him?

Sophocles once said that Euripides depicts people as they are rather than as they ought to be.  Do you agree?  Can this play still speak to us from across the centuries?


The Seminar Note

General instructions for seminar notes are on the Assignments Page or can be accessed HERE.

If you choose to write a seminar note on Medea, I would like you to complete a short Assignment Wrapper and attach that at the very end of your Seminar Note.

The Specifications For The Assignment Wrapper

Your wrapper should include answers to two questions and then a few sentences in which you respond to the prompts below to reflect upon this mini-assignment.

The Questions:

1)  Did you base your seminar note upon your reading of Euripides' Medea from our Greek Tragedy text?

2)  Did you use any other resources and/or tools in completing your seminar note than the play itself?  If so, please describe.

The Prompts:

In a very few sentences, offer some self-reflection after completing this mini-assignment.  What were the steps you took in completing this seminar note?  How and why did you choose your topic and structure?  Did you connect to this play?  How interesting or uninteresting was it for you?  What difficulties, if any, did you experience in completing your seminar note?  How would you begin to evaluate your own work here?  Are you pleased with what you have written?

The Purpose Of The Assignment Wrapper

The purpose of the Assignment Wrapper is two-fold.

It is designed in part as an accountability measure.  I want to emphasize that seminar notes should represent your own direct engagement with the course's core texts and to ask you whether this is indeed the case.  In recent semesters, I've often received work that leaves me completely baffled as to what it represents and how it was completed.  The Assignment Wrapper will provide at least a clear statement from you in this regard.

The Wrapper is also intended to serve as a small exercise in self-reflection.  I would like you to move beyond a reliance upon my feedback to actively reflect upon your own processes and your own academic output.  Your own self-appraisal here may well be more valuable to you than the evaluation you receive from me.


 

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