Medea, by Euripides: Betrayal and Loyalty

Medea, by Euripides: Betrayal and Loyalty Throughout Greek dramas there is always an underlying message of opposing values. This message allows the audience to learn about human nature, and life lessons. The play Medea, by Euripides, is no exception to this overall pattern in Greek dramas. The play exhibits the conflict between the opposing values betrayal and loyalty through characters and their shifting sympathies. Euripides seems to value loyalty over betrayal through his demonstrations of the dangers of one who lets their emotions take over reason in his tragedy Medea. He shows this through elucidation of secondary characters, a vivid pathos, and clear logos. The play uses pathos, or emotional appeal, to emphasize the importance of loyalty. Medea, in the beginning of the play, was suffering, because Jason did not have the loyalty to stay with her, so the people felt sympathy towards her. Her emotional state was caused by how important loyalty was to her, and now she is completely broken psychologically, Oh I wish That lightning from heaven would split my head open (6). That quote reflects how she is truly feeling, hopeless. Emotionally, Medea brings up the fact that she betrayed her country, her father, and killed her own brother to how emotionally connected she is with her loyalty to Jason, Oh, my father! Oh, my country! In what dishonor I left you, killing my own brother for it (6). From that quote, Medea does not use any words of retribution, which has given her enough emotional appeal that the chorus truly believes that she is the victim of the situation. Logos, or logical appeal, is used in the play to show that Medeas acts of violence were centered more on revenge rather than the prosperity of her children. Medea has had numerous opportunities to obtain a secure lifestyle for herself and her children. Medea is faced with an opportunity to make her and her childrens life better from Jason, and she turns him down saying she doesnt want his pity, I shall never accept favorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Nor take a thing from youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ There is no benefit in the gifts of a bad man (20). Jason was making a logical argument, but Medea lets her emotions cloud her judgment and refuses Jasons offering, But you refuse what is good for youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ You are sure to suffer for it (20). This is showing that Medea is more focused on betraying Jason than her childrens well being, because Jason had offered a logical argument that would have benefited her. If she had accepted Jasons offer, her children would have had some kind of support when they go t into exile. Furthermore, if Jason had been able to marry again, her children would have been considered royalty and would have had a claim for the throne. Medeas avaricious hunger for revenge eventually brings her to slaughter her children. She kills them out of her own benefit not their own, because she is blinded by her own emotions, I know indeed what evil I intend to do, But stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, Fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils (35). That quote reveals her true desires when she is on stage alone. The logical argument here comes from the chorus whose position is that there is no reason good enough for her to slaughter her own children. The chorus eventually had to beg the Gods for Medea to stop and have her reconsider logically about her decision to murder her children, O heavenly light, hold her hand, Check her, and drive from out the house The bloody Fury raised by fiends of Hell (41). That quote shows that Medea has truly gone mad in that she has thrown away all of her sense of reasoning, and is focused entirely on getting revenge. Through logos, Euripides shifts the audiences sympathies from Medea to the victims of her plans. This shows that Loyalty is being emphasized more, because of Jasons offering of help, and the chorus plea to help the children. Some would argue that Euripides makes a strong case for the dangers of betrayal, and that there is not a case for loyalty. They may claim that Medea killed her children because she wanted to betray Jason. Another claim would be that the chorus betrayed Medea because she was going to kill her children. Though, that argument fails when the audience looks at the emotional and logical claims presented by the chorus and Jason. Despite the arguments the Jason presented were callous and anti feminist, the truth is that they support the value of loyalty. Jason believes that Medeas suffering was caused by her own hand, and that if she had been loyal and less emotional the whole epidemic could have been averted. An example would be Medeas exile, which was caused by her cursing the royal family, and thirst for revenge and betrayal, You called down wicked curses on the Kings family (20). Another example would be the death of the princess, which was justified by the chorus whose still loyal to Me dea, Heaven, it seems on this day has fastened many Evils on Jason, and Jason deserved them (40). During the entire play of Medea, Euripides is advocating loyalty by displaying the dangers of uncontrollable betrayal. Through the use of elucidation of secondary characters, a vivid pathos, and clear logos Euripides demonstrates the consequences of one who lets their emotions interfere with their reasoning. He is able to presents that by chasing loyalty, one could never their eyes on the path of retribution. Technological Progress Essay | IT in the Last Decade Technological Progress Essay | IT in the Last Decade Some technological inventions have affected our life greatly for the past decades, especially computers. Its true that computers really provide us more convenient life. With computers, we can deal with many documents even faster, we can use computer to control machines to work, and we can also buy what we want through the Internet on computers. Nevertheless, computers also brought some bad effects to our life; here are some examples of the bad effects that computers have brought to us. One of the bad effects is the impact for art. There are more people tend to create art works by computers, for, those created by computers are neat and tidy. In my opinion, however, they are only squares, straight lines, and other boring things, which are supposed to be called art works. From art works, we can see what an artist wants to deliver to us; we can feel the passion, the eager or even the suffer just like what the artist felt from his/her work. For example, in Renoirs paintings, we can easily find the tenderness and his pity for people because he had given his spirits to his paintings. Even though computers can also make paintings in Renoirs style, we cant see any emotion or spirit in them at all since computers can only imitate rather than create. Another bad effect is that computers have brought much solitude into peoples life. For instance, there are more and more people would like to stay home using computers rather than going out to have interaction with people. This is because these people are poorly educated in a holistic manner. Thus, your viewpoint has caused some misunderstanding. Its not a good phenomenon, for everyone has to know how to get along with others; theres no one can live on his/her own. Whats more, we cant deny that, with the help of computers, we become lazier than we used to be. For example, many students tend to find information simply on the Internet instead of going to libraries for their homework, and if their teachers ask them to hand their homework in type form, the only thing they have to do is copy the information. Therefore, students wont get anything from their assignments. When it comes to technology, some people will lose the original treasure in human beings, like diligence and sociability. We cant rely on technology too much. After all, technology is used to help us. We should take advantage of technology instead of being taken advantage of by technology. References: Karsten Bjerring Olsen, 2006. Productivity Impacts of Offshoring and Outsourcing: A Review, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2006/1, OECD, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. Robert J. Barro Jong-Wha Lee, 2000. 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