For tomorrow you will get a little break as you will be exempt from the journal entry. Please make a comment here on how the reading is going but no journal necessary.
I felt we needed to continue with tragedy here because it is the realm if Dionysus and directly inspired by him. The tragic stories we will read emphasize the suffering attached to the human condition as opposed to comedy which focuses on the human spirits triumph over suffering. It is very interesting to think about Medea as a heroine, albeit a tragic one. She was prone to lose control as we will see, but her power as a woman was not respected. There were definitely two sets of rules for men and women. Medea was not the usual character depicted by the Greeks and her bold action would even catch attention, and possibly scorn, today.
As you begin to read the play keep in mind that the Greeks did not allow violence to occur onstage. Therefore the gruesome acts you read about are embellished simply because they cannot be shown. As the text suggests, this allows violence to retain its noble character when the context is "appropriate". However, in this case the descriptions you will read will hardly ennoble anything or anyone. In fact the story of Medea remind a little of the story of Job who could not catch a break by following his heart. Sometimes heroes are ahead of their time, or even not of this world and their actions attract censure because they are not understood. We will get more into that next week when we begin our exploration of the monomyth and talk more about Joseph Campbell and his work. For now, keep your eye on Medea and stay focused on tragedy.
Also think about why this might have been as popular as it was: The festival of Dionysus attracted as many people as a modern NFL game would attract. This was thousands of years before flush toilets, modern food convenience etc. Why would people come from all over Greece for this festival and to see this theater?
I found it interesting that Euripides' Madea gave a female perspective, and portrayed women in a sympathetic way. The storyline is sad though, how Madea does everything under the sun for Jason, giving up her whole life and saving his, and he leaves her for a younger, prettier woman.
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting that Madea thought or knew she had the gods on her side. Although this is true, she ends up killing her brother and her children, and landing Jason in exile. I thought it was really sad how Madea could go through so much hurt, and then bring more hurt on herself by killing or hurting the ones she loved
What a very sad story of Madea. She is the heroine and the victim. To be treated by Jason in the way he did after all she did to help him obtain the gold fleece- how horrible. No wonder why she became irrational and in the end even killed her children! I think that this sort of thing even happens today in the modern world. It only takes that one thing more to make someone snap like Jason did to Madea. I can see why they call it a tragedy.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the story of Madea, I noticed alot of myself in here. I am constantly putting my needs and wants aside to be able to better support my boyfriend when it comes to his goals, both emotionally.... and of course financially. I find that though I do so much for him, he doesn't appreciate alot of it, much like Madea's other half Jason. I sometimes feel like he wants to find someone else.
ReplyDeleteThe story of Madea also reminds me of modern horror stories that have become a grotesque reality today. It seems that everyday that cases of child abuse and horriffic stories of women who have never had a case of mentsl disorder before in their lives end up going completely off the wall due to their significant others. For example they may feel unloved or lonely while their partners are out or working to support the family... in a desperate measure to gain attention, they seem to hurt the children, even kill them.... I find it sad that they put themselves through this, however I find it ten times worse to do this to children because they are nothing but innocent in the situation and thye have their whole lives ahead of them...
I found the story of medea to be depresseing. It is a tale of a woman getting used and what results from such maltreatment. Though this is a myth, tragic things like this do occur in real life. When someone puts thier trust in someone else only to find that they have been being lied to the entire time, that tends to make people react in a dramatic way.
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