ENG 103 Santa Monica College Short Q&A About the Play Medea Essay Pick any FIVE you would like to write about and write an essay question response There are a number of dichotomies in the play Medea—[sets of two]. Barbarian North [Colchis] vs. “civilized” Greece [Corinth] is one of them. In what ways does the “Dark Mother” archetype, also known as the crone or “witch” archetype fit in here with Medea’s having come from the so called “Barbarian” or uncivilized [or perhaps less rational] north? Compare Jason’s “quest” with Medea’s “quest.” Are they after the same thing? What’s different about them? In other words, what does Jason want and how does he rationalize it and what does Medea want and how does she rationalize it?Discuss the pretense of the chorus in Medea as a set of three voices: narrator, voice of conscience, voice of the gods. The chorus has these three functions. Apply Aristotle’s “Poetics” to Medea. In what ways does the play meet these standards and it what ways does it not? In other words, does Euripides produce a tragedy in Medea or does he fail to produce a tragedy? Apply Donatus’s three part structure [protasis, epistasis, catastrophe] to Medea. Can you find this structure in the play?Apply Freytag’s five part plotting “pyramid” to Medea [exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement]. Does Euripides structure the play according to these five parts? Medea is both a dark mother archetype and a damsel in distress archetype. Defend this thesis.Find as much evidence as you can in the scene between Medea and Aiegeus to defend the idea that she intends to produce children for him in Athens. Give three specific reasons for why the gods would favor Medea and take her away in a chariot at the end. Defend the answer with cited passages. Compare Medea’s experience in Corinth [a strange land] with the wilderness Kurtz has walked into. In what ways is Medea not equipped to handle Corinth and in what ways is Kurtz not equipped to handle the wilderness?
