Altruistic and Egocentric Medeas
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
In Apollonius of Rhodes' The Voyage of the Argo, and Euripides' Medea, the character Medea has such a divergent portrayal that she doesn't seem to be the same woman, when in fact she is, a topic that I will touch on later. The main reason for this transformation between the two plays is due mainly to the conspiracy of Hera and Athena, by means of Aphrodite, in Apollonius' The Voyage of the Argo. Once love is bestowed upon Medea, she is captive to her heart's desire. This forces her to disobey her mental formulations and follow the paramount will of her heart. Here, we have an altruistic Medea. On the opposite side of the Medea spectrum, in Euripides' Medea, we find a woman who has lost all consciousness of love. When Medea becomes clouded with jealousy, she deviates from following the will of her heart, to following her wicked and devious mental formulations. Here, we have our egocentric Medea.
Throughout Apollonius' The Voyage of the Argo and Euripides' Medea, the two Medeas have a plethora of differences contrasted with only a few tidbits of similarities. The roles in which they are perceived are incongruent with one another along with their opposing private, personal desires and let us not forget the formulation and destruction of becoming a typical/atypical Greek female...