Gender issues of Aeschylus's Agamemnon and Euripides's Media

Aeschylus's Agamemnon and Euripides's Media are such kind of characters which are rare to find in the history of literature. There is certainly no doubt about the greatness of these authors and their respective characters. The characters of Medea and Agamemnon, are breaking with the traditions of other plays written during this time period in Greek history. Not only are both of these main women, strong and well-spoken, they both wield considerable political power during a period in which women were sidelines from affairs of the state.

Gender Issues with Medea are some of the following:

Nurse tells us that Medea has been a dutiful wife ever since coming to Greece.

Medea criticizes the Greek sex-gender system (Denys, 190)

Medea claims that childbirth is worse than battle

Medea focuses on her strength, not her victimization

On the other hand, Agamemnon describes his death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, who was angry both at Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and at his keeping the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as a concubine. Cassandra enters the palace even though she knows she will be murdered by Clytemnestra as well, knowing that she cannot avoid her gruesome fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will surely avenge his father. (Hamilton, 284)

The dramatic text Medea allows an exploration into the politics of gender within patriarchal Ancient Greek society. Medea who is the protagonist of the dramatic play, challenges and confronts the existing power relationship, gender constructions and patriarchal ideologies within ancient Greek society. In doing so she is able to steadily empower herself and shift gender constructions through using traditional patriarchal construction of her femininity, appropriating masculine strategies and striking at symbols of patriarchal power. (Denys, 190)

Aeschylus' Agamemnon is influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University) wrote extensively on Wagner's relationship reverence of Aeschylus and the ensuing effect on his works. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The 'Ring' and the 'Oresteia' (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct comparison, character by character, of Wagner's 'Ring' and Aeschylus' 'Orestia.' Reviews of his book, while not denying Lloyd-Jones' views that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, refute Ewans' arguments on the grounds that they seem unreasonable and forced.

Medea, the female protagonist is able to challenge the existing dominant patriarchal society of ancient Greece by using the traditional patriarchal society of ancient Greece by using the traditional patriarchal construction of her femininity as a strategy to turn against men and manipulate them therefore, enabling to empower her own self, by her manipulation of certain situations. (Denys, 190) This is first exemplified in her encounter with Kreon, King of Corinth. Initially in the play, Kreon assumes a traditional masculine dominant stance over Medea, characterized by his dominant modes of behaviour and language.

By reverting to the patriarchal construction of femininity and adopting a traditional feminine discourse, ...