![]() One day they might not take it anymore, and you may not be able to do anything about it. It's almost as if Euripides wanted to leave his all-male Athenian audience with a note of warning – beware those you oppress. The fact that she gets away with it, makes the ending even more unsettling. In a way, she's stopping another generation of potential oppressors from gaining power. Also, notice that the children she kills are both males. By killing her children, she's rebelling against the dominant role of women in her time: motherhood. When faced with this incredibly unfair treatment, Medea responds with a shocking act of bloody resistance. She's put upon by a male dominated society and cast aside like old baggage by her husband. Medea's violence is the result of oppression. So, if we're not suppose to condone Medea's monstrous actions, what exactly are we supposed to take from all this? Is there a moral to this story? Some scholars think that Euripides's great sympathy towards women is the reason he lets Medea fly away. It's highly unlikely that the majority of audience members, modern or ancient, would think the jealous slaughter of innocent children is good. Her methods are effective Jason is decimated at the end of the play. ![]() In the end, though, revenge is more important to Medea than maternal love, and she kills her children in order "To get at heart" (233). Sure Jason did Medea wrong, but is killing their kids really the appropriate response? Even Medea recognizes this when she says, "Why damage them in trying to hurt their father?" (173). Why, oh why did you do it Euripides? What are we to make of Medea's escape? It's doubtful that an audience is supposed agree with Medea when she says she only did what was right. Euripides is infamous for such endings and has been criticized greatly for them. Medea's escape in the dragon chariot given to her by the god Helios is a classic example of deus ex machina. The term translates to "god from the machine" and has come to be used anytime a playwright resolves their play with a sudden surprise ending. Instead of making his heroine pay for her crimes, Euripides saves her using a deus ex machina. Medea commits four murders, the most horrendous being the slaughter of her own children. For one, it defies the conventions of tragedy by letting its protagonist off the hook. It's chock full of contradictions and conundrums. I can't wait for what season two will bring.The ending of Medea has caused debate for thousands of years. I get it that some people say that there is too much social justice in the story, but if it wasn't part of the plot we wouldn't have witnessed Molly Cobb going into the crater or Tracy Stevens taking command of her space craft to save a fellow astronaut, some of the many standout moments in the series. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos seem to be on to something with their space efforts, as they pick up where NASA left us in the early '70s. The International Space Station has little interest as a person can only watch a nameless astronaut entertain viewers with floating M&M candy for so long. The space shuttle program was interesting but not the same as it wasn't taking man anywhere new. For a long time there was nothing other then an electronic box being sent to the other reaches of our planetary system, or an occasional close-up photo of a planet. We thought about the possibilities for the future. ![]() Travel to Mars and beyond was around the corner. I was in high school when we landed on the moon. (I saved a lot of the articles in a scrap book.) Our school day was often interrupted as a black and white television was wheeled into our classroom so we could watch manned space mission launches. Every day there was some news about the American space effort in the paper. My father was involved with the manufacturing of guidance systems for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft. As a child growing up in the sixties, there was nothing more exciting to me and my friends than the space race. I t’s rural America v malevolent alien invaders once again in a film that could be crudely renamed A Quieter Place, an almost wordless thriller that makes John Krasinski’s monster hit seem. I don't know if the anyone involved with the show's production will read my comments, but I can't thank you enough for making this series. The series "For All Mankind" removed a dead-end in a part of my life by reliving the early days of maned space exploration and continuing on, although fictionally, to what could have become a logical sequences of events and milestones with the man's journey into space. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |