How does medea end

In Greek mythology, it was known that Medea killed her children, left her husband Jason, and escaped to Athens. If Euripides decided to follow the original story of Medea, it was almost impossible for him to create a sense of catharsis with his ending.

While using familiar myths allowed playwrights to spin the stories in their own way, Medea is a perfect example of the limitations of using stories that were already written out. If I was to write an ending to the story, I would use the oath Aegius makes with Adea as the base.

I would have Media escape from Corinth and head to Athens. Once the Corinthians found out she was at Athens they would begin to seek her back from Athens in order to punish her for the murder of the royal family. Aegius would have two options: 1. I want to start off by saying I absolutely agree that this ending was abrupt and doesn't fit in with the Aristotelian definition of catharsis, but I would like to offer up some possibilities of why this badly written ending may be.

As mentioned in the beginning our discussion of Medea in class, Medea as a play is akin Hamlet. This is because they are revenge tragedies, and they don't follow all of the rules of tragedies as set out by Aristotle. This might explain why there is no catharsis at the end.

It is also important to note that Euripides was known to be more eccentric in his playwriting, and he was disliked by the majority of his audience for the confrontational and shocking manner of his plays. He was more prone to experimentation than other playwriters such as Sophocles, and was more comfortable with bending the rules. I feel like the ending was one of his experimentations that didn't come out quite right, but could be much better with some tweaks.

Now she only has one thing left to do, in order to leave Jason totally devastated — kill their sons. The murder of her children isn't easy for Medea. She struggles with her motherly instincts, but in the end her revenge is more important. Medea drags the boys inside the house and kills them with a sword. Jason arrives too late to save his sons.

Just as he's banging on the door to stop his wife, Medea erupts into the sky in a chariot drawn by dragons. Jason curses his wife, and she curses him back.

He begs to have the children's bodies so that he can bury them. She refuses him even this, and takes their corpses away with her as she flies away triumphant. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Euripides. Previous Next. Medea Summary At the beginning of the play, Medea's in dire straights. Appearing by chance in Corinth, Aegeus, King of Athens, offers Medea sanctuary in his home city in exchange for her knowledge of certain drugs that can cure his sterility.

Now guaranteed an eventual haven in Athens, Medea has cleared all obstacles to completing her revenge, a plan which grows to include the murder of her own children; the pain their loss will cause her does not outweigh the satisfaction she will feel in making Jason suffer. For the balance of the play, Medea engages in a ruse; she pretends to sympathize with Jason bringing him into her confidence and offers his wife "gifts," a coronet and dress. Ostensibly, the gifts are meant to convince Glauce to ask her father to allow the children to stay in Corinth.

The coronet and dress are actually poisoned, however, and their delivery causes Glauce's death. Seeing his daughter ravaged by the poison, Creon chooses to die by her side by dramatically embracing her and absorbing the poison himself. A messenger recounts the gruesome details of these deaths, which Medea absorbs with cool attentiveness.

Her earlier state of anxiety, which intensified as she struggled with the decision to commit infanticide, has now given way to an assured determination to fulfill her plans. Against the protests of the chorus, Medea murders her children and flees the scene in a dragon-pulled chariot provided by her grandfather, the Sun-God.

Jason is left cursing his lot; his hope of advancing his station by abandoning Medea and marrying Glauce, the conflict which opened the play, has been annihilated, and everything he values has been lost through the deaths that conclude the tragedy.