I have taught Euripides' Medea to my AP students for several years, because I love her passion as well as her willingness to destroy Jason in retribution for cavalierly tossing her aside for political expedience. I also find myself drawn to Medea because of the power she possesses by way of her connection to Hecate and so I am as equally wary as I am enthralled. Jason, completely seduced by Medea when he needed her, now diminishes her by discounting her contributions; a bit of revisionist history that my students astutely noted. Yet even worse, he damns her "cleverness," an insult that resonated with students of both genders. Medea's journey from exaltation to condemnation is swift and devastating, and derives as much from Jason's--and society's--misogyny as it does from Medea's penchant to ride the crest of her emotions. Medea is seductive and I and my students are drawn to this cthonic woman who summons the power of the dark arts. I hope that, unlike Jason, we will remember how easy and destructive it is to lose our "zugos," the Greek's word for the beam that balances the yoke or a pair of scales, should we choose to deny the incredible power we possess.
From Medea to “dumb blond” stereotypes, women have been vilified for using their intelligence and wit. Zeus swallowed Metis, whose name means “cunning intelligence,” because she would bear his successor. Instead of a male usurper, Zeus and Metis’ sole offspring was Athena, who, although sagacious, could never equal to her father in power or influence; instead she balances his overweening emotions with her (sometimes) overweening logic and reason. Medea, living among the mortals rather than on rarified Olympus, acknowledges that a clever female invites trouble and that to succumb to the marriage yoke is a wife's safest path; but she cannot resign herself to the rule of intolerant and self-satisfied men such as Jason and Creon. Thus the play teaches us to never become too comfortable in our power nor so sure of ourselves that we become oblivious to the obvious. Shame a woman for her cleverness and she will prove herself the man's better in her machinations. Allow passion to usurp all logic and reason and risk regret and resentment.
I introduced my students to Medea in the usual way, reviewing the culture in which Medea lived, one in which human life was not valued, and emphasized that Euripides was rather sympathetic towards women and the powerless. The initial class discussion proceeded along a predictable trajectory, with some students unable to look beyond the obviously inexcusable infanticide. But looking beyond is essential, for if classical drama illuminates any truth it is that the horrors of exceeding boundaries leads to epic disasters. My students clearly realized the flaws inherent in the ongoing relationship between the genders. My young ladies were distraught that nothing had seemingly changed since Medea flew out of Corinth on a dragon-drawn chariot, that the men who run around are still glorified as "players" and the women are still seen as whores. They also acknowledged that while children born out of wedlock today are not shunned as Medea’s sons would have been, their mothers are still judged in ways their fathers are not. They noted that "childbirth was dangerous on so many levels and that men are not at risk." While some students continued to deny the possibility of love or rage so enveloping they might consume a person, others began to understand the inherent danger in becoming lost to a relationship. They pointed to Briseis, fought over by Agamemnon and Achilles until she no longer seemed to exist except as their political football. And not one of them believed either warrior's claims to have not known her in the carnal sense.
There are eight young women and four young men in my class, and while they were all somewhat sympathetic to Medea, students of both genders seemed to excuse Jason. No one thought it was a good idea for him to leave Medea for Glauce, yet after the first reading some still felt Jason had tried to do the right thing in a difficult situation. Medea’s stalwart supporters were outraged. So I asked them to redirect their focus towards Jason--leaving Medea and the infanticide for the moment--and the discussion shifted toward the double standard. It was one of the moments teachers live for: when we do not have to interject a breath, let alone a syllable, as the students defended, jockeyed, jostled and retrenched their positions. It was a beautiful moving picture of what true learning looks like and once the passion receded, students acknowledged and respected each other’s positions.
My inspired students had more to say than a 67 minute period could hold, so they continued their discussion online in an artful weaving of classical threads on a contemporary loom, shuttling back and forth in despair that gender inequality has persisted for at least 3000 years--yet they wanted to hope something might change in their lifetime. Comparisons of Medea with Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Penelope and Hecuba brought both optimism and resignation. They mused whether fairy tales and romance films perpetuate the concept of a woman's inability to live contentedly without a man. They returned again and again to that archetypal tragic flaw, hubris, which condemns so many to a prison or grave constructed by overreaching emotions--the failure to yoke oneself to both reason and passion.
I wonder if we respond to Medea on a visceral level, that in admitting we possess the power to ruin our creations--those that are most precious to us-- we must admit to our destructive potential. Medea cannot simply eliminate Glauce, Creon, or even Jason, for all three characters deserve their fates for their arrogance, hubris, cruelty and selfishness. She annihilates her old life in order to gain a new one; there is no integration, no balance, of the old and the new.
My students have learned from Medea's losses and inflexibility. One young man wrote that Jason's problem was his inability to view Medea as his equal. He recognized that relationships thrive when both parties are in balance. I would like to think this young man is not an anomaly. What I do know for sure is that the discussions we begin will not end in my classroom, and that all of us will be more conscious of ourselves and the ways in which we interact—ever mindful that we possess the power of our emotions to create or destroy.
