Oedipus and Medea

Paper Summary:

The paper examines how both Oedipus and Medea are unfortunate, and ultimately tragic, main characters. The paper further examines how their respective their motivations, circumstances, behavior, and relationships, are entirely different: Oedipus is motivated by pride and Medea by revenge. The paper discusses how Oedipus' behavior is excessively, sometimes comically prideful while Medea's behavior is cunning and manipulative, alternately rational and irrational, and ultimately evilly terrifying. The paper concludes that despite these many differences, both characters ultimately destroy everything around them that they love most.

From the Paper:

"Medea is a careful observer of others, with an uncannily accurate sense of which sorts of ruses they will fall for. Next, after talking Aegeus into giving her refuge in Athens, she convinces Jason to have Glauce to make the request to Creon that her and Jason's two children not be exiled from Corinth along with their mother. In exchange for this, Medea promises, the children will present Glauce personally with two gifts, a cornet and a dress: ". . . by the children's hand I will send to her gifts that far surpass in beauty, I well know, aught that now is seen 'mongst men, a robe of finest tissue and a chaplet of chased gold. But one of my attendants must haste and bring the ornaments hither" (Euripides, Medea [online text])."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Euripides. Medea. [Online text]. The Internet Classics. Retrieved March 21,2006, from: <http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/medea.html>.
• Sophocles. Oedipus the King. The Bedford Introduction to World Literature. Ed. S. Barnet et al. New York: Bedford, 2003. 986-1027

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