Medea - A Feminist Perspective

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could not teach her, how to treat the man
Whose bed she shares….If a man grows tired
Of the company at home, he can go out, and find
A cure for tediousness. We wives are forced to look
To one man only. (232-248)
Her bitter experiences as the ill-fated wife to an unfaithful husband in a foreign land have taught her to be sceptical of all men. She possesses a strictly independent approach towards the female situation in the Greek society, which brings her quite close to the modern Feminist perspective. While all the other portrayals show those women as ‘men’ have traditionally seen ‘women’. Those characters have been analysed from the standpoint of a man hailing from a patriarchal society. Clytemnestra is condemned because she stands up against her husband in the most ghastly manner. (‘Ghastly’ of course from the perspective of male chauvinists!) The fact that she launches an intense protest against her husband Agamemnon’s cruel decision to sacrifice their daughter Iphigenia holds no ground to the Greek audience and the other characters of the play. Her own son Orestes later kills her. To him, avenging his father’s murder is all-important and the hideous crime of matricide is only secondary! So much so that Athene , the daughter of Zeus, successfully persuades the Furies to pardon Orestes. It is as if Agamemnon’s life holds greater worth than Clytemnestra’s.

Secondly, Medea is not dependant on any other character for her dramatic significance. She appears to an extremely potent character that has the potential to survive in her own capacity.
“…Let no one think of me
As humble or weak or passive: let them understand
I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies,
Loyal to my friends. To such life glory belongs. (805-8)
She aspires for all those things, which have traditionally been the undisputed domain of men. Whereas, almost all the other female characters live under the shadow of...