The purpose of this research is to examine the theme of mad and menacing women by means of a consideration of the characters of Medea, created by Euripides, and Dora, described by Freud. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms the problems confronted by each and then to discuss the ways in which the reactions of each differ, as well as the ways in which their predicaments and circumstances overlap and converge.
In a number of ways, the madness and menace of Medea and Dora come about because of the same thing: rejection by the one each loves best. Medea is a cast-off first wife, a casualty of her husband's careerist ambition who unexpectedly finds herself put in the role of a single mother. Dora is a daughter who is (or anyway feels) displaced in her father's affections, first by her mother, from whom Dora was alienated, and then by her father's mistress, whom Dora considered a friend. Freud explains Dora's situation in Oedipal terms, saying that "her affection for her father was a much stronger one than she knew or than she would have cared to admit: In fact, that she was in love with him" (Freud 1413).
The principal difference between the reactions of Medea and Dora to the problems they confront is that Medea projects her reactions outward and Dora, for the most part, turns them inward. But within the choices of each, complex forces are at work that demonstrate each character's vulnerability on one hand and menacing aggression on the other. Medea responds by acting according to something external to herself in ways that allow her to manipulate her social environment and to affect the experiences of others--physical in the case of the children and emotional in the case of Jason. In the process, Medea deliberately embraces emotional solitude that is consistent with her status as alien and (by Greek standards) barbarian. "Poor creature," says the Nurse of Corinthian women in the opening scene, "I am afraid sh...