Blog #2: Medea and Revenge

Revenge is never healthy. When someone deeply hurts you it might seem as though the only option is to hurt them back. That emotion, however, is only in the heat of the moment and you might end up regretting your actions. An example of this is when my brother stole my favorite pencil in middle school. It was my lucky pencil that helped me ace every test so I was heartbroken when I realized it was missing. When I came home, I saw the pencil in my brothers book bag. I was furious, and instead of asking for it back, I decided to steal his English assignment for the next day. It made me feel justified in that moment, taking his assignment, but when I got home, that feeling vanished. My mother was so mad that I had stolen my brothers assignment, she grounded me. I got punished for my heated emotions. If I had just talked to my brother about the pencil, he would have given it back, but instead I decided I wanted revenge. I got punished for retaliating and not talking about the problem at hand.

I do not believe that Medea was justified in taking revenge on Jason. Medea hurt innocent people, her own children, for her own selfish reasons. While I do agree that what Jason did was wrong, it in no way should have resulted in the way that it did. Medea had a place to go after she was exiled, and could have taken her children with her. If she had decided to just leave, her future would be so much brighter and she could have been happy. Instead, she decided to let revenge ruin her by killing her own children, Jason's bride, and Creon. In the end, Medea is seen as murder of the innocent while Jason looks like the victim.