Euripides's Medea is merely a work of pathetic tragedy from Aristotle's point of view. Through the entire play, we see the rising culmination of the thoughts of anger and hate to the main point where an anticlimactic resolution is achieved through the accumulation of the central passion of revenge by the main protagonist, Medea. This is a shortcoming as a bit of tragedy as it generally does not reach the best degree of complexity and quality that Aristotle would expect. The main aspect in tragedy is plot, what Aristotle terms as, "the imitation of an action" (mimesis). Due to the faulty treatment of the subject in hand, Euripides in the end fails in attaining a complex plot in Medea. When Aristotle plunges into the components of a plot which make it complex, he cites three necessary elements that should lead in one to another in a successive manner; reversal of intention (peripeteia), recognition (anagnorisis) and the change of fortune (catastrophe). According to Aristotle, both peripeteia and anagnorisis must go hand at hand in a cause-and effect chain that in the end lead up subsequently to produce the catastrophe in they play for the best effect. However in Medea, no real peripeteia can be observed because of the proven fact that Medea is well determined and ready to take revenge from Jason is some way or the other, right from the very beginning. Although you can say that the function where Medea directs her anger towards her children in the prologue, "Boys, your mothers's hatred. Cursed boys, I wish you dead" (P9, Lines 103-104) is Euripides's attempt at including peripeteia, this occurs in such an abrupt and unexpected manner that means it is difficult to consider it as a reversal of intention because there is no reasonable explanation or anagnorisis for it to come afterwards in follow-up. This unquestionably results Medea lacking an anagnorisis as there is no peripeteia that precedes it. Medea is already well aware that she can't do anything to improve the marriage between Jason and Creon's daughter, and there is absolutely no other anagnorisis that can be said to change the fortune of the protagonist. Although one could argue that Aegeus's assurance of security in Athens for Medea is a discovery that allowed her to help expand proceed with her plans, this is somewhat questionable as we can clearly see that she fully determined to execute her planned scenario if Aegeus's sudden appearance was included. As a matter of fact, the only real surprising event that people can find exceptional in the play is when Medea does indeed kill her own children. This step is the one and only tragic incident that has the component that Aristotle would consider as tragic. If this one and only tragic action was not included, it is hardly the truth that Euripides's Medea is even classable as a tragedy even with the simple plot. But once again, it must be strongly stressed that a surprising event consequently can be only favorable under the conditions where it offers relevance in a cause-and effect manner that is linked to the plot. This isn't the case for Medea's judgment to kill her own children. Nevertheless, her intentions are indeed executed in the end by the tragic heroine, an act that may be given credit as it is better than if Medea designed to kill her own children but finished up not doing this. Aristotle strongly emphasizes the value in skill of filing down the complication (desis) and unraveling (lusis) of the plot leading towards a denouement for a tragedian to make a play of unified perfection. To him, the best tragedian is person who can succeed in laying down these two parts either well. But so long as there is absolutely no peripeteia with an anagnorisis in success except for the simple plot in Medea, the unraveling lacks the magnitude of the complication where Medea strategically develops plans, prepares for revenge, and is ready to withstand the consequences and pain of her actions.
Moreover, the denouement of the play by the use of a Deus ex Machina, an unexpected interference of any God which allows Medea to flee on a chariot is incredibly irrational for Aristotle as there is absolutely no connection of relevance that could allow the event to arise from the plot naturally. The use of the Deus ex Machina in Medea can be seen as faulty from another perspective which attributes to Aristotle's moral understanding. The act of Medea's escape and survival is morally not acceptable as it is nearly impossible to justify the sin of murder, especially the murder of the protagonist's own children. We realize that she's from a well-known family, being the granddaughter of sunlight and the daughter of any king. But apart from such hereditary circumstances, she actually is in fact no much better than us. Her extreme thoughts of anger and hatred surpass the idea to which we can consider them as frailties nevertheless they are more rather like vices. Although we do see Medea's feelings of suffering through the obvious evils of Jason, it isn't possible for the audience to sympathize with a child murderess. Additionally, the past life of Medea is also full with atrocities of blood and sin that are reminded to us every once in awhile both by the Chorus and by even Medea herself. This in the end results in the significant problem of Medea as a tragedy as it fails in invoking katharsis into the audience. It is very difficult for feelings of pity and fear to be aroused by us towards the downfall of an utter villain.
There is merely a singular simple plot gives it a credit as a tragedy in Aristotelian terms. The struggle between a dishonest male and a sorceress female is the one and only simple basis of the plot. Although we don't see the degree of complexity and perfection that Aristotle would seek from a tragedy of ultimate perfection, our attention is not lost as Euripides does succeed us to remain focused on the passionate angers and feelings of Medea throughout the complete play. Thus, the effect of tragedy is to a somewhat certain extent achieved in Medea but still fails in the primary & most important purpose; the emotional cleansing of fear and pity that the audience is meant to feel towards Medea.
Bibliography: "Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy. " New York College | Catholic College | The College of New Rochelle. Web. 01 May 2010. <http://www2. cnr. edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics. html>.
Statement of Intent
Euripides's Medea revolves around the central passion of revenge towards her adversaries by the primary protagonist, Medea therefore of her husband, Jason's betrayal towards her by an engagement to the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth.
I made a decision to write a critical overview of Medea through an Aristotelian perspective as to how Aristotle would criticize the play if he had the opportunity. As Medea was different to the Aristotelian tragedies of that time period, I expected that the Athenian audience would have responded in confusion and disfavor. I took Aristotle's works of the Poetics as a backbone to my criticism.
I tried to help make the review critical in the sense which it not just only explains as to how the elements in Medea differ from Aristotle's theory of tragedy, but attempts in exploring in regards to what effects were lost and just why it mattered. In the first stages of my review, I criticize how Euripides's failure in creating a complex plot of the one that Aristotle would expect results how Medea's character is portrayed in an exceedingly limited and monotone way her fate is seemingly doomed to lead to the ultimate catastrophe from the very start. By splitting up the structure and examining its insufficient Aristotelian concepts of tragedy in Medea, it allows someone to lead to the discovery that the normal understanding of Medea as a tragedy is in fact an oversimplification and you can even come to the conclusion that this barely qualifies to be a good tragedy by Aristotelian understanding. The criticisms on the structural component of plot in Medea link in to the characteristic flaws of Medea through my criticisms towards Euripides's use of the Deus ex Machina to resolve the conflict in the final occasions of the play. This sudden denouement in the play would strongly matter to Aristotle as its irrational manner would lack a unity where in fact the action of every event leads inevitably to the next in a structurally self-contained manner that is connected by internal necessity, not by external interventions such as the one utilized by Euripides. Moreover, the Deus ex Machina has the strongest effect on the audience in which it ultimately does not invoke the tragic feelings of pity and sympathy in the form of a catharsis towards protagonist despite Euripides's attempts at doing so through the easily obvious exposures of Jason's atrocities. This failure is not only just simply because of the immoral nature in which Medea kills her children, but from the fact that her life is full of atrocities which she will not seem to be to feel guilty about as she confesses in her quarrel with Jason, "I lit the way for your escape. . . I betrayed my dad and my home. . . I killed King Pelias. . . All of this I did for you. And you, foulest of men, have betrayed me". (P33, Lines 460-468)
Despite all the criticism that I've given to Euripides in my review, I really do give credit to Euripides concerning how he still manages to understand your hands on the audience's attention and involvement in the play.
Nevertheless however, I still conclude with the Aristotelian perspective that the play still lacks the magnitude and perfection that Aristotle would have expected, which in the end bring about my greatest criticism that Euripides fails in creating the result of convincement towards his audience to sympathize with Medea's feelings through katharsis.
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