Medea is such a powerful tragedy, so masterful and ahead of its time. Every time I see Medea as a character in mythology retellings, I’m always inevitably disappointed, because, truth be told, no author can hold a candle to Euripides and his deeply complex portrayal. 

Medea deals with the themes of xenophobia, the collapse of a marriage, the condition of women and revenge, showing a great amount of compassion towards the woman Medea, the epitome of a woman who’s not afraid to use violence to achieve her goals, and constantly feels wronged by the world. Medea is guilty of the greatest crime of all, but the play does not cast her as the villain, leaving that honour to the men of the story, Jason and Creon. 

I think Euripides really manages to capture the nuances of conflict and human nature. Each of the characters feels entitled to their demands, completely disregarding the feelings of the others and how they’re affected by them. We as the audience can see where everyone is going wrong,  and even then it’s hard to defend any one position. 

Medea’s monologues, her slow descent towards her very lucid madness, are so incredible. She’s so unhinged, so terrifying. I have yet to read a better, more haunting monologue. 

I think the fact that Medea actually gets away with it is the perfect culmination as well. The encounter with Aegeus (who’s literally on his way to sire Theseus, such a fun Easter egg hahah) shows her much talked about cleverness at its fullest. She encounters no punishment (not for another 18 years at least) and again I think that’s a testament to Euripides. He’s not afraid to have Medea and Jason spar in that final dialogue, heart breaking as it is, with her coming out on top and absolutely destroying every absent father ever. 

But I also love how Medea is flawed. She rejects accountability for her awful actions from the day she met Jason, even though he never asked he to. In fact it’s not like she denies her agency, it’s more like she thinks she is owed a debt of gratitude because she did everything for Jason, despite ultimately dooming them, forcing them into exile, denying Jason of his rightful throne and essentially driving him into the arm of another woman, a princess with a city for dowry. And that’s to say nothing of the misguided actions that take place in the play itself. She takes it upon herself to punish Jason for breaking his marriage oath, and yet in the end she doesn’t get punished. Her win is so defiant and unexpected. The last verse of the play says to expect the unexpected, and besides the tragedy, Medea’s flaming escape is pretty shocking. 

Anyway, this is an essential read and a pretty fast one, at only 38 pages. Just wonderful.