Comparison Journal (Medea vs. Oedipus)

Journal: Compare the elements of tragedy in Medea and Oedipus. Look specifically at the use of catharsis. Pay attention to how you organize your comparison. Be sure you start with a thesis/topic sentence.

Medea and Oedipus both have elements of tradegy that are interpretted/felt differently by each person who reads or sees this play. The reader/audience feels remorse and pity for Oedipus becuase he does not realize that he killed his father and married his mother. That pity is purged or at least very faint at the beginning becuase the audience knows the story and probably feels this emotion of why would he do that. They probably feel some digust as Jocasta is introduced into the story because she was the one, along with her husband, who decided to kill baby Oedipus, thus pity for Oedipus is created, but then purged at the same time while thinking of the fact that he had kids with his mom. There are so many twisted elements to Sophocles' Oedipus, but it is most certainly a tragedy in that the reader/audience feels pity for the different characters at different times. Then in Medea, once again, the audience/reader knows the story so therefore they have this preexitsting expectation and feeling of pity and fear. They pity Medea who they know loses everything in the end and they feel fear for the other characters because they know how powerful Medea is. Although pity might be felt in the beginning for Medea, the feelings shift to the different characters. First the reader/audience pities the boys, knowing that they will die and then there is even some pity for the Princess Jason makes his second wife in how brutally she died along with her father. Then the pity gets brought back to the boys once they are dead and surprisingly also to Jason a little because of how he loses everything. These two plays both have characters that are pitied and pity that might move from character to character keeping the reader/audience intrigued and motivated to see the story progress.