In revenge, Medea she murders Creusa with poisoned gifts. She later murders her own sons before fleeing to Athens, where she eventually marries king Aegeus. What happens afterwards varies according to several accounts.
Medea is of divine descent and had the gift of prophecy. She married Jason and used her magic powers and advice to help him find and retrieve the golden fleece.
So, by killing his children, Medea robs Jason of his pride and property and left him with no one to carry on his name. She punishes Jason by stripping him of a very important treasure that'll bring him joy in his old age.
The mythological character of Medea is well known to psychologists and psychiatrists as the 'Medea complex' described as the killing of one's own children in revenge against an abandoning husband.
Answer and Explanation: Part of the underlying message in Medea is the power of emotion to make people do things they would normally not do. Medea had a passionate relationship with Jason, but then lets her passion turn to rage when he leaves her and marries another woman.
It is suggested in the the beginning of the play Jason is seen as the betrayer because he had dishonoured a sacred oath. We later learn he wasn't betraying Medea to hurt her or get revenge for anything as he is only thinking about himself in a selfish way as he wanted higher status and more wealth.
Medea risked everything for her husband and he easily betrayed her without giving it a second thought. This betrayal led Medea onto a bloody path in which she murdered four people, including her sons. Under normal circumstances, Medea would not be deemed a tragic hero because of the fact that she committed murder.
The play is set during the time that the pair live in Corinth, when Jason deserts Medea for the daughter of King Creon of Corinth; in revenge, Medea murders her two sons by Jason as well as Creon and his daughter.
It Wasn't Happily Ever After for Hercules
Determined to make him suffer, Hera once again interfered in Hercules's life. Hera used her power to get inside Hercules's head. He fell into madness and went insane with rage. Under Hera's dark influence, he gruesomely murdered his beloved wife and children.
Probably, the most famous child killer was the great hero Heracles, who was driven insane by Hera, causing him to slaughter his little ones.
Despite this, Medea is still characterised as female. She is wrought with emotion (a feminine trait) and hatred against Jason and exhibits regret when contemplating killing her children.
Against the protests of the chorus, Medea murders her children and flees the scene in a dragon-pulled chariot provided by her grandfather, the Sun-God.
In this literary work, Medea is presented not as a powerful woman seeking justice, but as a young woman who is desperately in love with Jason. So much in love that she decides to defy her father and kill her brother in order to help him.
Medea's tragic flaw, then, is that she is a woman, yet she acts like a man. In other words, Medea's tragic flaw is her possession of the manly valor in women that Aristotle considers inappropriate.
Now, Medea's greatest fascination — before she met Jason — was with the magical arts. She is often depicted in myth as a priestess of the goddess Hecate, who had power over magic, crossroads, and doorways and who was known for her role in repelling evil spirits.
Medea ends with Medea murdering her children to get back at Jason. What shocked the audience at the time was how she did not face any repercussions for her actions. Instead, the gods send her a chariot to fly away from the situation.
This king claimed the boy and raised him as his own. When Oedipus grew to manhood, a prophet warned him that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
Sarpedon, in Greek legend, son of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Laodameia, the daughter of Bellerophon; he was a Lycian prince and a hero in the Trojan War. As recounted in Homer's Iliad, Book XVI, Sarpedon fought with distinction on the side of the Trojans but was slain by the Greek warrior Patroclus.
Oedipus, in Greek mythology, the king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
Hades had fallen head over heels for Persephone. So, one day when Persephone was picking flowers in a field, he jumped at the chance to abduct her. Hades came up from the depths of hell in his chariot and snatched Persephone, taking her back down to the underworld and forcing her to be his wife.
Hera makes Hercules believe that his wife, Megara, and his sons are his enemies Hera and Lycus. Fearing for his and his family's lives, he kills Megara and his three sons. Once Hercules realizes what he has done, he is struck with grief and full of remorse.
Agamemnon wanted to lay siege to the city of Troy, yet each time he tried to set sail there with his fleet, the wind died down. A soothsayer told him that the goddess Artemis was angry with him and that to regain her favour he would have to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia.
Medea takes horrible vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife then slaughtering their own children. The play ends like a brutal thunderclap as Medea escapes to Athens in a dragon-drawn chariot, flanked by the corpses of her sons, mocking Jason's agony and revelling in her victory.
Throughout the entirety of “Medea,” Euripides depicts Medea as hopeless to enable the audience to empathize with her. Euripides portrays this feeling in Medea's first line, where she is shown as depressed and having suicidal thoughts: “Ah wretch. Ah, lost in my sufferings. I wish, I wish I might die.” (4).
Evil, Villainess Women
Their actions however, strayed from the expectations society had of them, and as a result they were villainized. Medea became a villain after betraying Jason and killing their children but like Medusa, her villainization has more to do with her being a powerful woman in a patriarchal society.