Medea and New Media: Analyzing Euripides’ Tragedy through the Medium of Video Games

Abstract

Women play an astonishingly prominent role as characters in ancient Athenian tragedy; we have only one extant tragedy—Philoctetes—which does not feature at least one female character. The number, and perhaps more importantly the depiction, of these characters has given rise to a search for proto-feminism in tragedy, with Euripides as an especially prominent target. As our understanding of the history of the Medea myth stands, it appears that Euripides was the first to write a Medea who murders her own children. Therein lies the ambiguity behind the of the play: for Euripides portrays a strong, intelligent woman challenged by unjust forces beyond her control; and he has this same woman commit one of the worst offenses in the Hellenic world—the murder of one’s own blood. Can the classic be enjoyed by modern women, or does the misogyny of Euripides' Athens imbed its patriarchal values too deeply into the text? In my research I analyze Euripides’ Medea through a new lens: comparing and contrasting Medea’s depiction to those of female characters in modern entertainment, specifically, video games.