Compair And Contrast Of Medea And Hedda Essay

The connecting elements between Hedda and Medea are the way they were both raised and forced to live in a world designed to be controlled by men. While Hedda is often referred to as the modern Medea, the concept of the role of women in society was hardly adequate to satisfy the needs of each woman, during either time. On the other hand, Hedda Gabbler points to the subject of individualism, especially towards women and their petty role in society. Medea is the victim of a more traditional suffering experienced by women that of being dependent on the extreme love felt towards a man that ironically, in the end, was not mutual. Another coinciding element found in Medea was vengeance. She seeks out the one who hurt her and did whatever she could to make sure he felt worse than she ever did, even at the expense of her own children. While both women crave independence, they are denied the environment in which to successfully follow through with this need.

In each of the stories one can feel a sense of sympathy for each woman because they were not raised to survive successfully in their respective societies. Neither were able to deal with relationships, and rely instead on their innermost qualities of their character to get through. It seemed Medea possesses strength, and determination but her most severe quality, which one can argue was her downfall, was her conscious. It takes a special kind of person to be able to cope with a twisted and sadistic mind such as Medea. This would eventually lead her to the most unthinkable and difficult of all actions. She fights feelings of compassion and her deepest instinctual feelings in order to murder her own children. Medea is also a very smart person; this can be seen in her actions preceding the opening of this story. During her escape from her homeland of Colchis, in order to live with Jason in his homeland of Iolcus, she kills her brother and dumps is body overboard and dumps his body in the Mediterranean, so those who are perusing her will be forced to stop and bury his body. When they arrive in the Loucis, she again devises a plan. Medea convinces the daughters of the local king who is a rival, Pelias , to murder their father. This leads to Medea and Jasons exile and their settling in Corinth. This is where Euripidess story begins, with Medea still using her plans to control her destiny and that of Jason. The incredible pragmatism, coupled with the fact that she is a very intelligent woman allows her to keep an overall control of situations, something that Hedda in the end does not manage. Hedda may not possess the great self control that Medea does, and may even be viewed as weak, however she is similarly clever. Hedda possess and uses a distorted femininity. She does not know how to be a wife or a mother nor does she possess the comfort of qualities such as compassion, and gentleness. Her fascinating persona is, instead, a mixture of things quiet different of those who made any other woman desirable in that time period. Hedda knows how to be demanding, controlling, and manipulative. She does not tolerate submissiveness nor does she manage to be fragile or forgiving.

While both womens qualities are similar their motives and thought are drastically different. Medea seeks to avenge Jasons betrayal with murder, concluding with the death of her own children. She searches for Jason to feel the same suffering watching his children die as her own justification. That feeling of accomplishment from Medea seemed to block out the guilt and suffering she knows she would soon endure. Hedda Gabler faces the great obstacle in her life, she seeks and craves control and fights compliance with social conventions. It seems she is torn between her aimless desire for control and her commitment to standards of social acceptance. She had an abnormal need to control others. One can argue that this was caused by having an overbearing father , but in the eyes of her society she was extremely spoiled. Medea feels wronged and will not quit even after murdering her sons, because her need to control is, in her mind, acceptable. Hedda feels she must control because she has no other entertainment or outlet, she has no other way of satisfying the void left by her insistence to be true to herself. To be true to herself and her gut instinct was to be controlling.

The men in each womans lives find themselves subjects to these womens violent outbursts because of very different reasons. Jason leaves Medea for another woman. His actions are selfish and unacceptable. Medea is too smart to let the same love that led her to give up everything go unpunished. While she continues to love Jason she seeks to control every aspect of his life, including his emotions. She savors the moment during which Jason faces the death of their children, even while knowing that she will too suffer the same feeling. Hedda looks to destroy whatever she has no control over. Her husband is merely another element to provide entertainment, and economic security. She never actually felt a love and passion for him. She controls and undermines him while also destroying Lovbergs creative product, all in an effort to satisfy her need to control destiny. Having married a husband who makes no demands of her emotionally or otherwise, poses no internal enjoyment found outside her marriage. However she soon finds her hopes disrupted by a series of events that she has no control over, including her pregnancy. She loses control ending not only in Eilerts shameful death, but in her own last resort, to end her life in what she claims as a beautiful death.

The characters in Medea live to face the consequences of their actions. In Medeas case, while her actions can be considered the more savage and cruel of the two it is also possible to say that they are also more justified. In accordance with the complexity of these characters emotions and the extremely painful suffering that they have been subject to, and caused to others, at the end of the story the characters are left to live their lives. Both Medea and Jason must live to face their actions, to suffer a punishment a million times more meaningful than death. Hedda and Lovberg both face death, a punishment more cowardly and fit comparatively with their more superficial conflicts. For Lovberg the escape from death allows him an escape from having to face people after his night with Tesman and Brack. Hedda benefits from the illusion that even after loosing control of almost every situation, and even through her suicide is mostly her way of escaping scandal, she is still the one controlling her own destiny as she pulls that trigger. It is in no one elses hands but hers as she takes her own life. In the end it will be her not society, dictating all actions, especially her own.