Self-assertion: how many times does a woman, feeling the urge to be fulfilled, commit extreme acts? And how many times is society to blame, for this? How many times does a woman decide to subvert her forced gender role, even without taking all the extreme actions I am about to describe?
What I have decided to do is tell you two different stories. Or myths, as I should say. These two myths’ protagonists are two women who appear to be totally different from one another and the myths themselves appear to have nothing to deal with our present days. On the contrary, they show us how contemporary were the representations of Greek tragedies during ancient times (V century b.C.)
What I want to tell you, today, is the story of those who were, in my humble opinion, the contemporary/modern women that one may find in the Greek tragedies: Medea and Deianira.
“Of all the living things, of all those things that have a soul and a sense, we, yes we, the women, are the most pathetic”.
It’s with these words that Euripides introduces Medea in his tragedy.
This woman, after having abandoned his father to follow her husband, Jason, is living in Corinth with him and their children. The tragedy begins Medea that, in Corinth, finds out her husband is planning to leave her, in order to advance his status by remarrying with the daughter of the king of Corinth.
And that’s exactly where the transformation begins. Medea, who once was a devoted wife, ready to do whatever it takes for her husband, now becomes a betrayed and profoundly mad woman, with a calculated desire for revenge: she wants to punish Jason and, to do so, she is thinking about infanticide.
So, in this tragedy, what we see is a woman who, at first, it totally desperate and lost (due to her husband’s unexpected betrayal), but that, in just a few verses, takes her control back, becoming a sort of ‘war machine’. She is willing to punish Jason by killing their own children, carrying out one of the worst acts ever.
Before actually taking her revenge, Medea hesitates, she is not sure of what she is about to do. In the end, permeated by a sense of honor, very much appreciated by Greek society, she feels the urge to recreate the balance Jason had broken by cheating on her.
Medea takes the traditional ancient Greek sense of justice to the excess, pushing the limits of paroxysm.
Medea is the living personification of what a for typical, normal, ancient Greek is wrong. She is a barbaric foreign woman, she is nothing but the opposite of what Jason represents: the good Athenians society. Furthermore, she is also a female magician, an outsider, something that the Greeks called a pharmakòs, someone to expel from their city.
In this tragedy, Medea not only is an abandoned and betrayed woman, but she is also banished from society because she is different, not the average Athenian woman. And that’s why, in what she thinks is a self-assertive act, she decides to kill her children, breaking the rules of a society she does not want to fit in.
We also have Deianira, Heracles’ wife, brought to the stage by Sophocles around 407 b.C.
In the play Women of Trachis, Sophocles introduces the tragic event of a woman who, like Medea, is watching her marriage falling apart due to another woman. Deianira, who has been waiting for her husband to come back after 15 long months away, is now ready to hug her husband again. What she isn’t that ready for, is watching her husband coming back with plenty of young prisoners, among which there is one he wants to marry.
Unlike Medea, who dreams up revenge, when Deianira finds out about her husband’s betrayal she is moved to pity and doesn’t feel resentment nor towards Heracles, nor towards his lover. And that’s because because of Aphrodite, a powerful Goddess against whom she is powerless. Also, Deianira herself is well aware of the sense of solitude and unhappiness she has been feeling since she got married.
“Until the virgin is a woman. That’s when she gets her share of torture, her share of agony, her share of nightly fear about her own children or husband”.
Deianira mourns her virginity, and she sees nothing but troubles in being a married woman. However, she does love Heracles, and her love is total, so total that she eventually forgives Heracles. And it’s indeed the kind of desire she feels for Heracles that brings this story to next level: tragedy.
In fact, after having welcomed the young rival into her house, she decides to give Heracles a robe, which she thought had been dipped in what she thought was a love philter but that, in reality, was a powerful poison. Heracles, after having worn the robe, lies in excruciating agony, eventually dying at the end of this tragedy.
Medea punishes her husband too, but she does it intentionally, feeling no regrets.
On the contrary, when Deianira understands her terrible mistake, she decides to commit suicide, because perché “it is insufferable for a woman of long-standing virtue to live with a stained reputation”.
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Both Euripides and Sophocles represent a shame society, where dying is way more accepted rather than living in shame
Deianira is characterized by the way she commits suicide: she decides to stab herself with a dagger. This choice was considered, during ancient times, virile and heroic (a typical he-man would have chosen it), it was not the most suitable choice for a housewife, who had nothing to deal with blood, wars and dangers. A typical mother of the heart would have taken her life by hanging herself.
While Deianire commits suicide, thus behaving not like a typical woman of those times, Heracles doesn’t behave like the typical hero either. He cries (“like a woman”, which makes him even more furious) and complains about the fact that he is dying by the hand of a woman, not by the hand of a warrior, thus not like a real hero/man should have.
Furthermore, whereas Jason tries to justify himself, after having been punished by Medea, Heracles curses Deianira and would like to takes revenge; and that’s how the tragedy ends.
We may consider Deianira and Medea’s behaviours extremely contemporary: both women are considered as different from the rest of their society, and both women punish, in different ways, their husbands. Two women that, instead of living inside the oìkos, subvert the standards by living outside the traditional ancient Greek society.
Two women who, in different ways, overcome other’s typical expectations.
What’s your opinion, about these two different stories? Did you ever feel different, banished from society or anything like that? If so, what have you done, in order to beat those stereotypes?
