Blog: Medea Victim and Victimizer
In her chapter on victims and victimizers, in Greek Tragedy, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz examines Medea's murder of her children, focusing on the contradictions and dualities in Medea. Medea is a demi-mortal, a masculine woman, and a barbarian in a Greek city. Medea only plays at being the little woman when she can use the ploy to get her way. Her dowry, so to speak, was the Golden Fleece, accompanied by assorted murders. She is concerned with the masculine heroic virtues of honor, bravery, and justice, with helping friends and harming enemies, whose number chiefly includes Jason.
With her infanticide, Medea gets revenge on her enemy and shows that she is not a coward. "It takes guts" is not what we normally think of when we look at a child-killing mother.
- Medea and Athens
- Medea in Jason and the Argonauts
- Murdering Her Children
- Victim and Victimizer
