Sorrow & Violence in a Play & a Poem

Sorrow and violence pervade Euripides' tragedy Medea and T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Medea's sorrow over her husband Jason's rejection manifests itself in murderous rage. Prufrock's sorrow over the lack of human connection and love also manifests itself in violence but of a different kind than Medea's homicidal acts. Prufrock's violence is directed at the self, with the speaker damning himself to an isolation hell of misery in the absence of love and the omnipresence of aging.

After helping Jason murder his brother to further his ambitions, Medea and her two children are rejected by her husband so he can marry King Creon's daughter, Glauce, thereby furthering his ambitions. His actions fill Medea with pain and anguish, as she becomes lost in the depths of sorrow. Our first image of Media expresses this condition: "Ah, me! a wretched suffering woman I! O would that I could die!" (Euripides 431). Medea is brutally devastated by Jason's betrayal. She at first plans to murder Jason, Glauce, and Creon, but eventually her sorrow and rage will expand her murderous plans to include the two children she bore by Jason to further hurt him.

Like the speaker in Prufrock, Medea is first depressed and even suicidal from her sorrow. However, unlike the speaker in Prufrock, Medea's reaction to her sorrow becomes external. The narrator in Prufrock remains depressed, self-pitying, and isolated. Medea turns outward, fooling Jason and h

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Category: Literature - S