ICT’s relevant to the book for each body paragraph
First 3 are the most relevant
Passion vs reason/rationality (2nd body paragraph)
Betrayal vs loyalty (1st body paragraph)
Justice vs revenge (3rd body paragraph)
Gender roles/ Role of women
Foreigner status/exile
Key structure (chronological) for essay writing
1st para: prologue - 2nd episode
2nd para: 3rd episode to 5th episode
3rd paragraph: episode 5 to exodus
Episode 1 key points
Medea seaks an oath from chorus & creon arrives to banish her from corinth
Stasimon 1: chrous sympathises with Medea
Episode 2 key points
Medea and Jason agon (argue)
Stasimon 2: Chorus laments at Medea’s foreigner status
Episode 3 key points
Medea and aegues (king of athens) + Medea plotting/first stating she will kill her children
Stasimon 3: Chorus urges Medea to not seek revenge/kill her sons
Episode 4 key points
Medea and Jason + offering gifts to princess
Stasimon 4: Chorus sympathises with children, Jason and princess
Episode 5 key points
Medea’s psychomachia + messanger delivers news of princess & creons death + Medea kills her children
Stasimon 5: Chorus recoils in horror + informs Jason of children’s death
Exodus key points
Medea and Jason + Medea leaves with her dead children on a golden chariot gifted by her grandfather helios.
Prologue key points
Nurse foreshadows filicide
Hamartia meaning
Fatal flaw (Medea’s excessive passion)
Catharisis meaning
Audience experiences release of emotions while watching the play, often pity and fear
Agon meaning
An argument between two characters
Psychomachia meaning
Battle of the soul, e.g medea deciding if she can kill her sons
Peripetia meaning
Turnaround/reversal of events
Episode meaning
Key part of tragedy
Chorus meaning
Group of corinthian women on stage
Stasimon meaning
Choral ode sung by the chorus following an episode
Monologue meaning
Solo speech by character
Mechane meaning
The crane that lifts Medea and her chariot up at the end of the play
Deus Ex Machina meaning
“god from the machine”, intervention from the gods, in medea, it appears as almost other-wordly and remote as if she is superior to humans.
Other key context
Euripdes wrote tragedies to do with suffering
Play first performed in 431 BC to an Athenocentric audience
Women were not deemed full citizens of ancient greece and had little power
Foreigners and slaves werent citizens either
Euripides often sympathises in the play with women and gives them a voice ie: nurse, medea, chorus
Genre: tragedy
Purpose of the play to arouse audiences compassion, pity and fear
Oaths (promises) were viewed as sacred and protected by the Gods
Gods dont intervine with Medea committing filicide and they approve of a chariot for her escape, does this mean they approve of her actions?
Athens offers Medea protection after such atrocius acts.
BP1 - Betrayal vs Loyalty prologue - episode 2 quotes and language devices
Nurse: ‘seen her glaring at [the children] like a bull’
Foreshadowing + similie
Medea: ‘but what of me? Abandoned, homeless, I am a cruel husbands plaything’
Rhetorical question, adjectives and metaphor
Medea: ‘pity me, pity this luckless woman’
Repetition, emotive language
Creon: ‘ a woman who is hot-tempered is easier to guard against one who is clever and controls her tounge’
Adjective, declarative statement, alliteration, insult
BP2 - Passion vs Reason episode 3-4 quotes and language devices
Medea: ‘come, medea, make full use of your knowledge, plan and plot! On to the dreadful deed’
Imperative, 3rd person adress, alliteration
Jason: ‘you have betrayed me, you unfeeling monster’
Accusatory tone, metaphor
Medea: ‘when it comes to men, the body carries on stamp of nature for distinguishing good from bad’
analogy, rhetorical question
Jason: ‘to abandon the anger that sears your heart’
Hyperbolic language, exclamation, verb choice
Medea: ‘Let no one think me a weak and feeble woman … but an enemy to be feared’
Adjectives, juxtaposition, verb choice
BP 3: Justice vs Revenge
Medea: ‘ I am well aware of how terrible a crime I am about to commit, but my passion is master of my reason’
Metaphor, repetition, lexeme ‘master’
Chorus: ‘we beg you not to murder your children’
verb choice, exclamation
Messanger: ‘lurched’, ‘collapsed’, ‘dripping’
Graphic imagery and verb choice
Medea: ‘So call me lioness … for I have my claws in your heart as you deserve’
Extended metaphor
Jason: ‘Arch criminal’ , ‘unspeakable, children killer’, ‘wicked mother’
Insults, use of nouns, adjectives
Chorus: ‘What men expect does not happen; for the unexpected, heaven finds a way’
Juxtaposition
