Questions for “Medea”
Background:
- What is the name of the playwright?
- During what years did he live?
- In what year was “Medea” first produced?
- Which war began that same year?
- According to your book, Medea has an “iconoclastic” approach. What does that mean?
- What are “established canons”?
- What three characterizations of the title character stand out?
- How does the play attack the audience’s deepest prejudices?
- What does the play say about the dangers of oppression?
- Who will give Medea refuge? Where?
Play (through line 267):
1. In this play, the chorus is made up of .
2. The nurse reveals details about Medea’s history, including the gruesome ones involving characters and places we have already discussed. Know them, including:
a. Argo
b. Symplegades
c. Pelias
3. What does the Nurse say about the value of Medea’s assistance to Jason?
4. How does Medea literally react to her husband’s desertion?
5. Who is the daughter of Kreon?
6. Whose name, according to the Nurse, does Medea cry out?
7. Does the nurse feel any sympathy for Medea? Explain. Give me a direct quote.
8. What else does the nurse feel about Medea? Give me a direct quote or two.
9. How has Medea been acting around her children?
10. Why does the Tutor call his mistress a “poor fool”?
11. What has the Tutor just overheard about Medea’s fate (70-71)?
12. What does the Tutor mean when he says, “Old ties give place to new ones”?
13. Who says the following: “Have you only just discovered / That everyone loves himself more than his neighbor? / Some have good reason, others get something out of it.”
14. Who is getting something out of it and what is that person getting?
15. Note what the Nurse says and how it echoes something in Agamemnon: “Great people’s tempers are terrible, always / Having their own way, seldom checked, / Dangerous they shift from mood to mood./ How much better to have been accustomed / To live on equal terms with one’s neighbors./ I would like to be safe and grow old in a / Humble way. What is moderate sounds best,/ Also in practice is best for everyone. / Greatness brings no profit to people./ God indeed, when in anger, brings / Greater ruin to great men’s houses” (118-129). How can this philosophy be applied to Agamemnon?
16. What advice does the Chorus give to the grieving Medea?
17. For what does Medea pray (p.439)?
18. Who says the following, and what is ironic about the words: “Such a look she will flash on her servants/ If any comes near with a message,/ Like a lioness guarding her cubs.”
19. Who is the god of oaths? What does this have to do with Medea?
20. Pay close attention to Medea’s speech to the chorus. I want you to react to it in class—lines 211-264.
