Austin Hernandez World-Lit Richmond-Garza & Jenni Medea Pt.

I One of the greatest truths of human life is war over finite resources. Euripides Medea presents this theme in the heritage of Madea the character and the ideas Medea s character stands for. It is thought by many, especially in our World Literature class (because professor Richmond-Garza is so smart and we believe everything she says about literature to be true), that Medea represents the ultimate minority and enemy in respects to Greek society during the backdrop of the grecco-persian war. Firstly, Medea was not Greek but Persian. Medea s ethnicity is significant because her character represented to the Greeks the enemy, i.e. a evil, cold-hearted, brutish person, with a thirst for Greek blood and a secret agenda to destroy Greece from within, as was propagated by Greek officials about Persian people to dehumanize Persians and gain support for the Greek armies during wars with Persia. Secondly, Madea was a clever woman and outspoken about the injustices women faced in Greek society. Medea disapproved of the way women were treated and thought of in Greek society where women were supposed to be docile, helpless, homebodies, with no friends because having kids, cooking, and loving their husbands should be enough. However, Medea frequently proved to be the opposite of this notion of what women were supposed to be. One example is the scene where Medea is speaking to Kreon, We women are the most unfortunate of creatures. Firstly, with an excess of

wealth it is required for us to buy a husband and take for our bodies a master; for not to take one is even worse Here Medea is protesting how women s lives are controlled by men and referring to how

patriarchal Greek society is at this time. This scene can be viewed as radical because Medea, as women, is breaking the ideals of what women should be in Greek society, i.e. to be docile, helpless, and for a man. Furthermore, Medea s words are more significant to the viewer because her character is a foreigner, an outsider who is standing up for the women of Greece; but it is likely she was not taken serious by a Greek audience because it is possible most audiences thought of her character to be trying to disrupt Greek society for her own evil goals.

Austin Hernandez World-Lit Richmond-Garza & Jenni Medea Pt. II As we enter the second half of Medea, we begin to see a theme of the rage of the oppressed precipitate into the reader s scope as Medea realizes her plan of revenge upon those who mock her. Medea wills the imminent destruction of her husband the murder of his royal whore, and the royal

whore s royal father (Creon). In order to understand the theme: the rage of the oppressed, one must delve into Medea s shoes to see where she is coming from. First, the tale of Medea tells the story of female gender roles in Greek society and that of the oppression of women. One example aside from Medea is that of Kreon s daughter, the princess. It is important to note that Kreon s daughter is never named in the story, and never gets a say in whether she wanted to marry Jason, whether she wanted to try on the poisonous dress, and does not get many roles in the play: the reason being the princess is a woman, and a woman s role in society is to be seen and not heard. The fact that the princess has a very little voice in the play shows howThe princess represents the ideal of what a Greek woman should be- complacent, docile, unspoken, and conservative of family norms. Chuang Chao Freewrite What is the most significant word in the text? I think the most significant word in Chuang Chao is Chi because I feel the purpose Master Tzu and The Way is essentially to get people more connected to their chi via observation of life. Master Tzu encourages his student to be more connected to his chi and to disconnect from participating in life and sometime just observe.