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 Medeas having come from the so called Barbarian or uncivilized [or perhaps less rational] north?
Compare Jasons quest with Medeas quest. Are they after the same thing? Whats 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 Aristotles 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 Donatuss three part structure [protasis, epistasis, catastrophe] to Medea. Can you find this structure in the play?
Apply Freytags 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 Medeas 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?
