A short time ago, I finished reading The Medea by Euripides. I had read it a long time ago, but it had a different ring to it with life's growing experience. When one has felt inner rage from the choices of men to pursue other women, it leads to sympathy for the vengeful female character of Medea. It seems so despicable that a husband should discard his wife in aims of the high standard of living provided by a new royal wife. Jason had forsaken Medea to better his position in society and it seems like an insult to injury that he should marry another woman in those pursuits. By present society's standards, this is an ironic play of gender roles. This is ironic because often today women are criticized for being gold-diggers, only out for a high standard of living and riches. In this play, this stereotype is flipped around and represented by the male character Jason.
Even though Jason argues to Medea that he was just choosing to marry a different lady in royalty to help her and his children, the reader is made skeptical of whether what he said was indeed true or just a ploy to stay in Medea's good graces. Given the history that Jason went behind Medea's back and did not consult her in his decision to pursue a royal marriage, it makes his behavior seem underhanded and his word loses merit. Additionally, considering Medea's actions to save Jason in his endeavor to obtain the Golden Fleece, it makes the audience wonder if Jason only married Medea out of a sense of obligation in the first place.
I also realized that there were aspects of The Medea that were strikingly similar to the Little Snow-White tale by the Grimm Brothers. These aspects were especially apparent in the methods of murder employed. Both tales utilized the method of poison for a scornful woman to injure her enemies. Both Medea and the Evil Queen took matters in their own hands by sending ignorant women gifts in guise of harmless messengers. In Little Snow-White, the Evil Queen disguised herself as an old woman selling wares. In The Medea, Medea sent her children bearing the poisoned gifts. The old look feeble and weak, so are not perceived as threatening. The young look innocent and unburdened by the troubles of life, so are also not perceived as threatening.
Both Medea and the Evil Queen were fueled by anger and jealousy. Medea was mad that Jason had taken to a new bed. She felt that by Jason taking a new wife, he was insulting the wedding vows they had made together when him and Medea had married. She felt that she had acted deplorably in order to ease his mind's troubles by killing members of her family and tricking others to do the same. Medea was also jealous that Jason would be with another when she was still around. She wanted Jason for herself and the state of things was driving her mad.
On the other hand, the Evil Queen was mostly jealous that Snow-White was prettier than her and angry that her efforts to kill Snow-White kept being thwarted by others. First, her murder plans were thwarted by a weak minion in the huntsman. To add insult to injury, the huntsman effectively tricked her by bringing her boar organs instead of human ones as proof of Snow-White's demise. Then, there were those infernal dwarfs who kept reviving her rival over and over again.
When you look at it, Medea was a more effective murderess. She only had to send gifts once to kill off her targets. The Evil Queen was sloppy and kept having to go back to kill her target over and over again. In the end, she ended up having to dance herself to death in hot shoes (literally hot). Yet, Medea managed to get away with a dragon-drawn chariot.
Getting back to the similarities: Not only were the motives for murder similar between the murderesses, but so were the means. In The Medea, Medea sent a poisoned dress and a poisoned tiara. In Little Snow-White, the Evil Queen sent bodice lace and a poisoned comb. A poisoned dress and bodice lace are similar in that both are made of fabric and are made to wrap around the body. In The Medea, there is added similarity because the dress is described as "fastening on the unhappy girl's fine flesh" (Euripides line 1163) which is similar to the tight bodice lace that the dwarfs had to cut off Snow-White to restore her ability to breath. Both tiaras and combs go on the head and touch the hair. Further, both the comb and tiara were poisoned in the tales. Thus, the similarity between the murder weapons of the Evil Queen and Medea is assured.
As such, I'm fairly certain that the Grimm Brothers were inspired by Medea when they wrote Little Snow-White. Even so, both stories have their differences and stand alone as being fine pieces of literature wrought with creativity. Therefore, it is good to remember literary works of old and make comparisons with newer works. The reflection of how works were derived often expands our knowledge and perspective on how connected societal beliefs can shape literature. Past literature influences future literature, leading to enhancement when used correctly.
Little Snow-White can be read on http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html.
The Medea I read was translated by Rex Warner, but a different translation can be read on http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/medea.html.
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