Arguably, Medea is a victim of just such arbitrary distinctions. Jason, who is welcomed into the Corinthian court, is complicit in and the beneficiary of actions for which she is judged to be a bad character deserving of exile. This imbalance is key to understanding Medea’s actions and recasts the play’s conclusion. Consider a version of Medea in which she simply slunk off into the wilds to die, leaving Jason in his prominent position in Corinth, their sons at his side. That ending would also enact an injustice because Jason would not be punished. This is not to suggest that Medea’s vengeful actions are justifiable or proportionate. Nor should it be taken to mean that her miraculous escape to Athens is just. However, it does reframe the conclusion of the play which, precisely because it is so unsatisfying, prompts the question, “What should have happened?” What would a satisfying ending look like? Audience members in Ancient Greece, might feel justice would be better served had Jason caught and killed Medea. The pretext of their satisfaction, however, would be that Jason is the “good” victim of “bad” Medea’s womanly, barbarian wrongdoings. Euripides’ conclusion is shocking precisely because it flies in the face of such reductive characterization. It is as confounding and unresolved as Medea’s and Jason’s devastating entanglement. It prompts us to examine how the habits by which we judge a character's immorality relate to our desire to punish them and to ask the more difficult questions true justice demands. Works Cited Aristotle. Aristotle's Poetics, Norton, Canada, 1982. Bartel, H., Simon, A., & Hall, E. (2010). Chapter 1. In Unbinding Medea: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth from Antiquity to the 21st Century (pp. 16–24). essay, Legenda. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://classics.domains.skidmore.edu/lit-campus-only/secondary/ Euripides/Hall%202010.pdf. Burnet t, Anne. “Medea and the Tragedy of Revenge.” Classical Philology, vol. 68, no. 1, 1973, pp. 1–24, http://www.jstor.org/stable/268785. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022. Cowhe rd, Carrie E. “The Ending of the ‘Medea.’” The Classical World, vol. 76, no. 3, 1983, pp. 129–35, https://doi.org/10.2307/4349445. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022. Cunnin gham, Maurice P. “Medea ΑΠΟ ΜΗΧΑΝΗΣ.” Classical Philology, vol. 49, no. 3, 1954, pp. 151–60, http://www.jstor.org/stable/265931. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022. Etzioni, Amitai, and David E. Carney, and Jeffrie Murphy, “Repentance: A Comparative Perspective” Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1997, p.157 Euripid es, Medea. Oxford University Press, 2006. ________. Hecuba. Oxford University Press, 1991. 39
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