Narcissism In Medea

There is no noise so heinous and bone-chilling as the shrill wail of a child’s scream. Something about it rouses the tear ducts and chills the heart to its core. But, what is even more disheartening is when the hand that struck the child, the perpetrator who made him cry out, is the one who should be shielding him: his mother. Unfortunately, this is exactly the case in Euripides’ Medea wherein he elucidates that greed and egoism are the greatest factors leading to unhappiness; blind self-interest lays the foundation for tragedy. And in Medea’s case, cruelty goes hand in hand with this all-consuming greed for revenge on her unfaithful husband, Jason. Through her acts of blind brutality, Medea becomes a tool through which Euripides illuminates the drastic detriments resulting from narcissism and an ignorance of the needs of others.
Perhaps the most poignant and needlessly violent death in the play is that of the princess of Corinth, who is consumed in the golden tendrils of a poisoned diadem before collapsing with foam still bubbling from her lifeless lips. Because the princess was betrothed to Jason, Medea felt …show more content…
Because of the nature of her callous acts, a father and daughter being engulfed in fiery tendrils of gold and a mother stabbing a dagger through her own sons’ hearts, there is no hope of reparation or amends on Medea’s behalf: her egoism ruins not only herself, but all those around her as well. At the end of the novel, as she glides away into the sunset, it is clear that she survived, but she did not escape unscathed: she could not evade suffering. Even then, as all her plans succeeded and she rose triumphant over Jason, the corpses of her children literally trailed behind her; the strident cries which escaped their lips still ringing in her ears, reminding her that she, and she alone, was the instrument of her

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