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Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides which is based upon the myth of Medea and Jason. The plot centres of Medea who has just been betrayed by her husband Jason for another woman and the subsequent vengeance she wreaks. Medea can be read as both a feminist tract and a misogynist tirade. As the play sympathetically explores the disadvantages faced by women in patriarchal Greek society, it can be understood to be a feminist expose. Medea’s barbarian identity and the terrible revenge she enacts however, lend the play to a misogynistic reading.

The play now occupies a private cloud in terms of the high esteem with which it is held, placed among the greatest plays of the Western canon. When it was initially shown, the Athenian audience did not react towards it very favourably and the play was only awarded third place in 431 BC at the Dionysia festival. Medea’s filicide may have been the cause of the play’s bad contemporary reception.