The Mythology Of The Greek Society - 1603 Words

It’s generally agreed upon, from scholars to the average reader, that the ancient Greece society was overwhelmingly patriarchal. For this reason, 4th century B.C had views that were dominantly misogynist. Women were thought to be no more than tools to the men of the Athenian society. To explain, one can look at the archaeology of the Greeks. The towering figure of Dionysos, the God of Wine, hovering over a miniature, and at the same time powerless, women perfectly exemplifies this concept of misogynism. To further the periods misogynistic ideas, the traditional literature had no concept of centering a story around a woman. Yet despite living in this society as described, Greek playwright Euripides was the first voice of protofeminism in†¦show more content†¦Even the chorus doesn’t deny her endeavors, thus arousing some form of pity in the reader. Medea even states that she just prefers death over all else. The argument though is, can there really by pity for a child-killer and a savage whose actions have resulted in countless deaths? No matter the outcome of the play, Euripides writes it so there is a certain level of connection with Medea in the beginning of the play, so the viewer can watch as she releases herself from the male control. This in turn makes the viewer instead go through catharsis, because they related most to the tragic ending of Jason and realized that this could have been prevented if a male treated a woman in a better fashion. Even Bernard Knox, from the Johns Hopkins press, stated that the lines of Medea’s speech is a â€Å"complaint of a woman of great intellectual capacity† who lack the power for change (Knox 314). Euripides takes advantage of this fact to convey that Medea wouldn’t have mindlessly murder her children, he wanted the audience to then think about why the playwright wrote that scene. Only then did they realize it was to sympathize with Medea. Symbolically this scene conveyed women as an individual and not just a women bearer. The horrors are a coverup for Euripides so his views of proto-feminism weren’t deemed too radical. In addition, the work of Euripides