Durham, Carolyn A.. "Medea: Hero or Heroine?" Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 8.1 (1984): 54-59. JSTOR. Web. 2 Nov. 2015. .
In her writing “Medea: Hero or Heroine,” Carolyn Durham analyzes Euripides’ “The Medea” through the lens of feminist criticism. Her main argument is that women protagonists are always “societal facts” as opposed to “tragic heroes.” She utilizes the character Medea as an example of this claim, stating “the treatment of Medea in the play of Euripides suggests that the limitations associated with women somehow never seem to be those inherent in being human.”
The bulk of Durham’s feminist criticism deals with how Medea is depicted before and after Jason leaves her for a new wife. She claims Euripides “uses Medea to illustrate by contrast the Greek ideal of moderation,” but does so by describing her as a “treacherous …show more content…
She analyzes Euripides’ character of Medea, and determines his description of her before and after her conflict with Jason closely aligns with the male view of females during the time of his writing. Through this, she is able to argue that female characters are never going to be viewed as “tragic heroes” until a gender-free value system is instilled in the real world. The necessity to meet the demand of the audience, which is a reflection of the community’s culture, is the driving force which presses writers to keep oppressing females and making them below the male characters in the same writing. With this stated, it is clear that women characters will continue to be viewed as lesser, and therefore never reach the higher status of their male counterparts, as long as gender inequality remains amongst the lives of the authors and audience