Medea is a wise and powerful woman with the capability to get herself out of almost any situation. She primarily uses trickery and cunning to defeat her enemies. She has a very clear ruthless side, since she was able to kill and cut up her own younger brother and even kill her own two children. She has a lot of pride, and therefore she is unwilling to let go of anything that could ruin her reputation. She has a thirst for revenge towards her enemies. Nevertheless, she is also shown to have loved Jason deeply, and had acted as a perfect wife who never disagreed with him before he betrayed her. This shows she is prone to feeling strong emotions, whether these be love or hate. She also loved her children, but just not as much as she loved getting her revenge.
When Medea argues against Jason, she is abandoning one of her traditional roles. This is because as a woman, she should obey men. In particular, she should obey her male guardian: if a woman is not married, this is her father or closest male relative; if she is married, it is her husband. Therefore, Jason is Medea’s male guardian and Medea is arguing with him – rebelling against her traditional role. A wife was often expected to put her own happiness below that of her children and husband. Jason and his children would both have their status raised were Jason to marry the princess, so Medea should be happy for the marriage to take place. However, by conflicting with Jason over his marriage to the princess, she is going against her traditional role as a woman.
Another of the ways Medea goes against her role as a woman is by killing her children to get revenge on Jason. A woman’s major role was to give birth to boys, who could continue the family line, and to raise them so that they survive into adulthood. Even the chorus, who have previously supported Medea’s desire for revenge, see killing her own children as going too far. (Chorus: “How could you even think you could kill your own children, woman?”) Medea places her own happiness and desire for revenge above her duty to care for her children, therefore rebelling against her traditional role as a woman.
While it’s easy to see how Medea is going against her expected role as a woman, it should also be remembered that throughout the play Medea's actions are solely motivated by her husband. Women were often expected to see their husbands as their whole world, and this is certainly what Medea is doing by being prepared to sacrifice her home, her children and even, if necessary, her life, just to get revenge on Jason. (Medea: “I’ll take the matter to the very end and raise the sword with my own hands; and if it’s written by the gods that I shall die, die I will after I will kill the newly married couple.”) So, could Medea actually be fulfilling her role as a woman?
Medea disobeys her husband when she refuses to let him bury the bodies of her children. This may suggest that she is going against her traditional role. However, it must also be remembered that burying family members was the role of women, so by taking the children with her to bury in Athens, it could also be argued that she was complying with her traditional role as a woman.
One of Medea’s arguments against Jason is that she helped her husband in his major heroic quest, retrieving the Golden Fleece. She aided him in each of his three tasks, and even defeated the dragon guarding the fleece herself by feeding it a sleeping potion. It can be argued that Medea was more useful than all of the other heroes who accompanied Jason. Medea is also of noble birth: she was a princess, and her grandfather was a god. Her actions in the play are all so that she can get revenge and maintain her reputation and honour that Jason endangered by divorcing her – remember how important reputation is to heroes. Does all of this make Medea a hero or do the facts that she is a woman and that she did something as awful as killing her children mean that she could never be one?
Regardless, Medea’s heroism in helping Jason retrieve the Golden Fleece doesn’t lead to her long-term happiness. There is a case for it leading to her short-term happiness, since she was able to marry the man she loved. However, in the long-term being associated with Jason only led to Medea having nowhere to return to because she had abandoned her birth city and family by siding with Jason. Therefore, in the long-term this heroism only led to Medea’s unhappiness.
One of the major conflicts in the play is the conflict between Medea and the King of Corinth, Creon. Creon tells Medea that he will banish her from the city because he is afraid she will retaliate against his daughter for marrying Jason. (Creon: “I’m sending you away because I’m afraid that you might do some irreversible harm to my daughter.”) Creon has all of the power in this relationship: he is a man, he is older than Medea and, most importantly, he is the King of Corinth while Medea is only a citizen. Therefore, Medea can’t change Creon’s mind and can only beg for a day to prepare herself before she is expelled from the city. The only way she can triumph in this conflict is through trickery, because Creon holds all of the power. This conflict is generational because it occurs between people of different generations. It is hierarchical because it is between someone with no power and someone with a lot of power. Creon uses his power to ensure he comes out of the conflict on top. It may also be described as gender conflict, as it is conflict between a man in power and a woman without any power, and the argument between them is affected by this dynamic.
Throughout the play, Jason is extremely self-assured – he is certain that his actions are the correct ones. He is not entirely unsympathetic towards Medea in the beginning, as he offers to help her a number of times, but he is unyielding in his desire to marry the princess and seems to hold no sense of responsibility towards Medea’s predicament (he believes she has brought it upon herself). He can be seen as a proud or even arrogant character, particularly since he was egotistic enough to believe he could divorce Medea without any consequences. It is reasonable to suggest this pride was partly caused by the adoration he received because of his heroic actions.
Jason severely underestimates both what Medea is capable of, and what she is willing to sacrifice in order to get her revenge. He believes that, as a woman, Medea should quietly accept the divorce. He also believes he owes nothing to Medea for her help, since it was Aphrodite who made Medea fall in love with him. Even after his children and wife have been killed he doesn’t feel any responsibility for driving his wife to such lengths, and blames everything on Medea.
Jason’s main act of heroism in his life was the retrieval of the Golden Fleece. Had he not performed this act of heroism, it is unlikely he would have met or become married to Medea. Medea was a powerful ally to Jason, however she also proved herself to be a powerful enemy. She was the reason for the murder of Jason’s children, his new wife and his father-in-law, and could therefore be seen as the cause of his downfall. (Jason: “You’ve destroyed me!”) This seems to suggest that Jason’s heroism did not lead to happiness. On the other hand, it is perhaps not Jason’s heroism that caused Medea’s revenge, but rather his arrogant belief that he could betray a powerful and cunning sorceress with no repercussions. (Medea: “Did you think that I’d let you live and go on mocking me? No!”) Therefore, it is perhaps Jason’s pride that ultimately leads to his downfall, rather than his heroism directly.
The only conflict Jason has in the play is with Medea. This conflict is caused by Jason choosing to marry someone else other than Medea. Jason argues that Medea should be grateful he is doing this, since it will give he and their children a higher status, and this will benefit her as well. (Jason: ”I have not married into royalty out of love. I did so because I wanted to save you and to give to my children royal siblings, from the same blood, siblings who will protect our household.”) Medea, on the other hand, thinks that Jason is forsaking her because she no longer has any value. (Medea: “That’s not it at all! What, in fact bothered you was that you would be entering your old age still married to a foreigner.”) Medea thinks Jason’s actions are particularly bad because she has helped Jason so much and he is repaying her loyalty with dishonour. Jason, however, thinks he should be grateful only to Aphrodite, because it was Aphrodite who made Medea fall for him. This is, technically, family conflict, because it is between a husband and wife. However, there may be a distinction drawn between this type of family conflict and family conflict between people who share the same bloodline (since Medea and Jason aren’t actually related). It can also be regarded as gender conflict, as the conflict is about what Medea’s role as a woman should be. Jason thinks she shouldn’t complain about her husband marrying another wife because it will improve the lives of her husband and children, but Medea thinks his betrayal of her is unforgivable and that even though she is a woman she must have revenge. It could also be a hierarchical conflict because Jason, as a native Greek, a man and a husband to the princess of Corinth, has much more power than Medea, who is only a foreigner and a woman.
At the end of the play, Medea and Jason conflict over who should be allowed to bury their children: Jason wants to be allowed to bury them himself, but Medea disagrees and instead takes them with her to Athens, where she will bury them. (Jason: “Let me bury the children. Let me bury them and grieve for them.” Medea: “Never! Never! They will be buried by my own hands at the temple of Hera of the Cape, at the mountain, so that none of my enemies will be able to open their tombs and scorn them, mock them.”) This is a religious conflict, because where, how and if people are buried is a very religious matter. This is also a gender conflict, because it involves conflict over a woman’s traditional role: women were expected to be in charge of burying dead family members.