FREE ESSAY ON MEDEA AS A HEROINE

MEDEA AS A HEROINE

In Euripides' Medea, the main character of the same name is a controversial heroine. Medea
takes whatever steps necessary to achieve what she believes is right and fair. She lived
in a time when women were expected to sit in the shadows and take the hand that life
dealt them without a blink of their eye. Medea took very radical steps to liberate
herself and destroys the life of the man who ruined hers. She refused to accept the
boundaries that a patriarchal society set upon her. Medea was a very wise and calculated
woman who was brave enough to leave her homeland, along with everything she knew and
loved, in order to follow her heart down the path of what she expected to be eternal
happiness. 
Medea, a princess and sorceress, was from a small island in the Black Sea called Colchis.
She met her husband Jason when she used her powers to help him secure the Golden Fleece.
It was during this time that she fell in love with him and decided to leave her family
and home so that she could be with Jason. The fact that Medea was willing to leave all
that she knew for Jason is very brave. Women in Medea's time were normally given away to
the men that they married. Medea, on the other hand, married Jason because she wanted to.
That was a large risk for her to take and many women probably looked at it as a
liberating and heroic act. 
When Jason left Medea to marry Glauce, Medea was plagued with sadness and then with
anger. The man she loved, the man that she gave up her life for, had betrayed her. In the
patriarchal society that Medea lived in, it was not acceptable for a woman to protest any
decision made by her husband. Medea went against all social standards and took revenge on
Jason for the wrongs that he had committed. She was willing to take any chance and
sacrifice even her most valued possessions. Medea knew that the best way to avenge the
wrongs of Jason was to kill Glauce and the children. It was a huge sacrifice for Medea to
kill the children that she loved, but she allowed herself to look past that love and only
see her hate and contempt for Jason. Medea was willing to go against every rule that
society set, so that her husband wouldn't get away with leaving her for political
reasons. Medea is once again a heroine. 
If Medea were alive today, many people would not consider her a heroine. She found a way
to satisfy her own needs, which were supposed to be secondary to her husband's. Medea was
a leader of women, and although the men may not have appreciated it, it was an act that
was guaranteed to catch the attention of every oppressed woman alive at the time. Medea
was a heroine ahead of her time.