comparing Oedipus Rex and Medea

OR main themes

• fate vs free will

• truth

• sight

• negative emotions

OR fate vs free will

• plot hinges on prophecy

• Ancient Greek belief in fatalism and absolute power of gods

• fate determines limits of human agency; within its scope O can act freely

• no overt presence of the divine

• paradoxical co-existence of fate and free will

• vicious cycle: attempting to avoid fate by exercising agency ultimately fulfills fate

OR truth

• (preordained) tragic fall stems from pursuit of knowledge

• conflicting identities (name etymology, feet motif)

• absence yet omnipresence of truth

• reluctance to share and speak the truth

OR sight

• blindness as a recurrent motif, whether literal or metaphorical

• dramatic irony of Athenian audience

• chorus as a foil

OR negative emotions

• guilt central to the plot

• shame + guilt causes J’s suicide and O’s maiming

• impulsivity, irrationality and pride catalyses downfall

Medea main themes

• power

• genre

• supernatural

• gender

Medea power

• assertion of female agency and activity

• no political power or protection yet emerges as the most powerful

• rejects her femininity to subvert traditional power structures (still limited by patriarchy)

Medea genre

• fourth iteration of the character of Medea

• Stoic philosophy believed extreme emotions manifested insanity

• Roman tragedy (fabula crepidata) rewrites Greek

• psychological exploration of a moral breakdown

Medea supernatural

• ambiguity as to whether she fulfills divine will or uses gods as tools

• moral collapse in the natural world; lack of rationality

• descended from sun god Helios, gives her agency to invoke chthonic forces

• god’s seeming complicity questions their role in human suffering

Medea gender

• Jason seeing women as disposable catalyses events (Creusa)

• tragic female protagonist introduces themes of autonomy + agency

• sheds her identity as a mother to enact vengeance (implied that femininity restricts power)

comparing OR + M main themes

• identity

• fate

• gods

• tragedy

comparing identity

• Medea on a mission of identity assertion

• Oedipus on a mission of identity discovery

• both harbour skewed versions of duty

• M’s identity tied to her gender but O’s tied to truth

comparing fate

• fatalism of Ancient Greece binds O

• M defies fate by acting against laws of nature

• both are victims and perpetrators of their fates

• M is directly responsible but O is indirectly responsible

comparing gods

• OR as a conflict between divinity and humanity

• M demonstrates divine authority to be more manipulable

• O’s gods as morally corrective and M’s as dangerous + dark

• both arguably follow the ouroboros structure

comparing tragedy

• Roman vs Greek

• both have tragic falls due to hamartia

• sacrifice, destruction and death as major themes

• both are arguably anti-heroes

• genre reinforces absoluteness of divine justice in O and reveals moral chaos in M