Medea And Antigone example essay topic

Medea and Antigone are two stories of women fighting back for what they want, or what they feel is right. These stories take place in ancient Greece, around the time of its rise to power. Medea and Antigone are both strong, sometimes-manipulative characters but have different moral settings that control what they do. Medea is often very demanding in getting what it is that she wants; Antigone, will do what she need to do in order to get what she wants. With Antigone she is defies the law of a king to uphold the law of her spiritual belief. In the middle of the night she lives the house and sneaks into a field to bury her dead brother.

Medea killed many people, including her own sons and a princess, in order to only spite her unlawful and cheating husband. The two women are like alligators, waiting motionless for the right time to strike. In the case of Medea, swift, violent strikes. And with Antigone, a cool collected precise one.

These women are always determined to get what they want. In classic works being a strong woman seems to run hand in hand with being manipulative. Medea lied and cheated friends to try to acquire time in order to get what she wants. In this case what she wants is revenge agents her ex-husband. She tricks a friend to give her asylum in Athens after she has committed her insane task. Medea even goes so far as to be able to con Kroon, the king himself into giving her an extra day.

This unwittingly gives her exactly what she needs. Antigone tries her hand at manipulation but is not as successful as Medea. Antigone tries, with no avail, to persuade her sister, Is mene, to help her give their brother Polynices a proper burial. In this way they are more like foxes, cunning but not always getting it right.

Their deceitful nature is their strength. While both women do wrong by the law of man, and Medea against the law of the gods, they do it for different reasons. In the beginning Medea kills many people and monsters with little or no concern of the consequence. When the story deals with modern times Medea kills out of pure revenge and spite for Jason. She plots for weeks to kill Jason's new bride and poisons her, and then before she leaves the country she murders her two sons, she had with Jason, before she rides off in her bright white chariot.

Antigone broke the law for far more clear reasons. She is breaking the law by burying him so as to honor him and not violate her morals. You can tell that she is doing this for spiritual reasons when she says You may do what you like since apparently the law of the gods means nothing to you. They can be independent, and act on their own to get what they. The two characters are (pardon the over used term) larger than life for their time in history. The women do what must be done in order to obtain their objective whether it calls for breaking the law falling, or out of favor in public opinion.

They may do things for different reasons but in the end they get it. These women are the ultimate middle management workers with their skills.