2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

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the socio-cultural contexts of the plays. In both time periods, a woman with no social standing, either through her marriage in Euripides’ time or as an outsider in Bartlett’s time, was neglected by society and left alone with their problems. Euripides’ choice to make Medea a member of upper class society allowed his audience to relate, to some degree, to her situation. He would have been unable to spread his message across as wide an audience, had Medea been less socially powerful. Due to this, Medea was able to divulge her plans with the chorus members as they were beneath her and would have been unable to action against her. Bartlett chose to make Medea a member of middle class society, as that was his audience, enabling a true perspective of the way society would react to Medea, even if she had not murdered her child. Euripides’ Medea is characterised as rational, despite the horrific, murderous nature of her actions. This rationality is disclosed throughout the play, as Medea pre-plans the murder, and reasons with Jason, establishing why she felt justified in exacting her vengeance through murder. Due to Medea’s rationality in the original play, her character appears contradictory to the audience as, near the beginning of the play, Medea reasons that, “any man of good sense should never have his children taught to be unusually clever... I myself have fallen victim to this misfortune” (294-302). The imagery of Medea ‘falling victim’ to rational reasoning characterises her intellect as her greatest flaw. Her inability to separate reason from emotion, due to her being raised to be clever, inevitably leads to her decision to murder her children. Euripides blatantly foreshadows and informs the audience of the ending of the play from the first scene; however there is still an aspect of suspense throughout as they are positioned to attempt to justify Medea’s actions. The subtle implication that her rational nature of thought – which she ‘fell victim’ to as a result of her parents who were not of ‘good sense’ – was the reason she was unable to listen to her emotions telling her not to kill her children, Euripides