Medea and Jason: help, treason and the limits of understanding

From indispensable helper to vulnerable outsider

In the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius Medea is indispensable for Jason's company. Knowledge, resources and courage make her much more than the hero's lover. In book 4 We also see its uncertainty: the men for whom she has given up so much can make her work again in negotiations. A promise only protects her as long as others are willing to keep it.

As the Argo Crete approaches, the bronze Talos can ward off the exhausted travelers of the coast. It is Medea who intervenes. Her performance connects her directly to Cretan mythology, but the exact way Talos falls differs between traditions. It is therefore wise to put the version of Apollonius alongside other testimonies and not to combine every known peculiarity into one story.

Euripides begins after the heroic tour

Euripides' tragedy Medea was in 431 staged in BC. There Jason's new union with the Corinthian king's daughter is central. Medea not only loses her partner: her place and safety become uncertain. The tragedy makes her express the vulnerability of women and her extra isolation as a stranger. Then the disruptive revenge develops, in which her own children are also killed.

That violence must not be omitted to make Medea an unproblematic liberation hero. Her position explains part of the dramatic tension, but declaring it is not an acquittal. Conversely, it is equally poor to take off the whole piece as a portrait of a dangerous woman. It is precisely the connection between persuasive speech, genuine injustice and unacceptable action that makes the tragedy so intrusive.

Who writes the story of a successful enterprise?

Jason's journey is easily told as the leader's success. When you write Medeafen's contribution separately, the image changes. The company relies on help for which it pays a great price. Her acquaintance makes her necessary for as long as the journey lasts; thereafter, the same exceptional position can be interpreted as threatening.

This is a reading question that also works outside the myth. Which persons disappear from the picture when a success is linked to one name? What arrangements protect the person who took a risk? The comparison is not a historical similarity of a contemporary working relationship with Medeaat's fate. She does show how a well-known hero story can change through a different inventory of contributions and costs.

A clash of convincing arguments

Jason presents his choices in the tragedy with reasons aimed at the benefit and future. Medea opposes the broken oath and her sacrifices. So the audience not only gets to see emotions, but also competitive descriptions of the same relationship. An argument can sound logically organized and yet exclude an indispensable experience.

It affects the sophists and Socrates. Conviction is not automatic justice. In a strong speech, ask what she calls it, what she does not want and whose interest is taken for granted. Then you do not have to agree with the opposite speaker completely. Critical listening can mean that you recognize more than one deficit at a time.

Understanding without apology

The understanding of Medeafen's humiliation and the rejection of her violence do not need to end each other. That distinction is an important ethical exercise point. If we understand only innocent people, we don't understand much about tragedy. If we make understanding immediately for approval, we lose the responsibility of acting.

Therefore read Medea together with Antigone and the Oresteia. It's not three versions of the same morality. They investigate different ways in which family, authority, violence and justice put each other in trouble. In the knowledge universe, these differences themselves become the reason to continue reading.

Think on for yourself

Make two columns: what is Medea done to, and what does Medea do to others? What data are at the heart of both discussions, and which should be assessed separately? Then apply the same method to Jason's defense. A balanced judgment doesn't have to come to a simple hero or villain.