Medea: Guilty Without A Doubt

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Term Paper Title	Medea: Guilty Without A Doubt
# of Words	855
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.42

Medea: Guilty Without a Doubt


     In Medea, the Greek tragedy by Euripides, the main character Medea, kills a princess, her father, and her own two children.  In this situation, guilt and innocence can be disputed.  In society we see many cases of evil crimes such as children killing parents, wives killing husbands, and so on.  In some of these cases the justice system decides not to punish the people who commit the crimes.   Two main reasons this happens is because of insanity and self defense.  These criminals also can escape severe punishment due to mitigating circumstances.   The court system can look at events leading up to the crime, and in some cases, criminals will serve a lighter sentence because of what happen in their past.  Heinous crimes, such as the ones performed be Medea, deserve punishments equal to the crime.  However,  justice is not always served, as in the case of Medea.  Medea knowingly and willingly committed murder, and should be put to death, due to first degree murder, for her actions.
     Despite the fact that Medea committed murder, it is still argued that Medea should not be punished for her actions.  I disagree with this completely.  The main argument given for Medea's innocence, is her psychiatric condition.   When the legal system looks at cases where the accused state of mind is in question, they must determine if that person is insane of not.  Insanity is, "a legal status indicating that a person cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because of mental illness,"(Weiten, 593).  The most popular rule used in court is the M'naghten rule, which is, "insanity exists when a mental disorder makes a person unable to distinguish from right and wrong,"(Weiten, 593).  When reading the text by Euripides, one can clearly see that Medea knew what she was doing was wrong.  Medea states, "We must not hesitate to do this deed, this terrible yet necessary deed!"(Euripides, 79).  She knows this is terrible yet she does it anyway.
     While Medea lived in Aea, she was a princess and a priestess of Hecate (Parada,115).  While Medea is praying to Hecate, she states, "we are women, quite helpless in doing good but surpassing any master craftsman in working evil."(Euripides, 58).  In the same soliloquy,   Medea also states, "I'll take a sword in my own hands and kill them, even if I am to die for it,"(Euripides,  59).  Medea describes the actions of killing her children as, "bloody deeds,"(Euripides, 58). Medea knows killing her children ...

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