Aly Lorefice
Mrs. Vanbrocklin
AP Literature
11.17.14
In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and in Euripides Medea both are scripted as the tragic characters. In both stories the women are out casted from society and react in similar violent actions. This theme of violence and reaction relates to both women by their tragedies, reactions to the situations they are put in, and the violence each girl contains. Medea and Anna have to deal with society and being out casted. Society in both stories plays a role on how both Anna and Medea handle their situations they are put in and the mental influences that society creates over the two women. The influences that society creates over the two girls makes them do deadly actions that they would not normally do if society’s opinions and actions were not so powerful. The reason society outcasts Anna, is not because they do not like her but because of her affairs and people following along with the crowd. Tolstoy creates society to be ready to outcast its members quickly and mean fully to the point where the person being out casted reacts violently. Like Anna, she sees that the only way out of all of her issues and societal problems is to be violent with herself by the choice of death. The mental influences society puts on a person can cost a life. In Medea’s out casted situation it is the same choice of people following along with the crowd and then Medea’s decision on how to deal with the situation; deadly violence. Both girls see that death is the solution to their issues. Their mental state drastically changes throughout the stories due to being out casted from everyone around them. Society causes Medea to react the situation violently because of how she was treated. When both women are being compared, they share the same deadly mental way of thinking and behaving. Another price that being out casted costs is the loss of each woman’s children, with Medea having to loss her son and daughter in a violent way and Anna loosing hers due to the social standards, it is another factor that makes the woman choose to do violent actions. The children are a figurative line in each mother’s head that when crossed leads to dangerous paths created by Medea and Anna. The author uses the mother and child relationship to help foreshadow future events. Tolstoy uses Anna’s son as a threat towards her and also tries to make the child a tool to prevent Anna from doing certain life changing events. The same goes for Medea, the children are used against her to try and make her think or act differently. And so when the children are being affected in the stories it creates a mental breaking point for both Medea and Anna and it adds to the anger and need for revenge building up inside each girl. With both Anna and Medea possessing the motherly qualities of protectiveness over their children and willingness to give anything for them to be sparred or to be able to see their child, the anger inside them continues to build.
