Week 2: Origin Stories of Medea and Jason

Hi, welcome to the second week of my blog! Due to a few scheduling issues, I didn’t have much time to work on the senior project. I spent most of this week reading some of Medea and reaching out to potential advisors. 

So far, I’ve read the introduction and a little less than half of Medea. The introduction primarily discusses the impact of Athenian ideals on Medea, as well as the impact Medea had on later tragedies, such as Hecabe, Elektra, and Heracles. The author of the introduction, Philip Vellacott, also provides a brief description of the main characters, Medea and Jason. Along with Vellacott’s writing on Medea and Jason, I decided to do some additional research of my own to make sure I had the proper context. 

In Argonautica, an epic poem by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century BC, the mythological hero Jason was sent to steal the Golden Fleece from King Aeetes of Colchis. To do this, Jason sought help from Medea, the granddaughter of Helios, the Sun God. Medea betrayed her family and killed her brother in order to help Jason, and in return, he promised to marry her and take her back to Greece. However, he then turned on her and married a Greek princess instead. Having been exiled from her home and now Greece, and having no husband, Medea is driven by anger as she tries to get revenge for what Jason did to her. So far, what I’ve read in Medea has been Medea planning out her revenge after being exiled from Greece.

Additionally, I began reaching out to potential advisors. I hope to hear back soon, but in the meantime, I’ll continue adding to my list of potential advisors. 

Next week, I hope to finish Medea and start reading a few scholarly articles on Medea. Later on, I’ll do more research connecting Medea to horror films from the 1980s to the 1990s, but for right now, I’m focusing on how Medea reflects perceptions of women in Ancient Greek society. Thanks for reading my week two blog post!