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Medea and New Media: Analyzing Euripides’ Tragedy through the Medium of Video Games
Murphy, Ashton Lacy
Murphy, Ashton Lacy
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Text, Honors papers, Greek and Roman Studies, Department of
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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.