Aidan O'Loughlin Esch & Medea

By: "I try to read the entire mythology book, but I can't. I am stuck in the middle... Medea kills her brother. In the beginning, she is known by her nephew, who tells the Argonauts about her, for having power, for helping her family, just like I tried to help Skeet on the day China first got sick from the Ivomec. But for Medea, love makes help turn wrong. The author says that there are a couple of versions of how it happened. Ones says she lies to her brother and invites him onto the ship with the Argonauts as they were fleeing, and that Jason ambushes him. That she watched her brother die, her own face on his being sliced open like a chicken: pink skin cut to bloody meat. The other version says that she kills her brother herself... I read it over and over again. It is like she is under the covers with me, both of us sweating to water. To get away from her, from the smell of Manny still on me a night and morning afterward. I get up." (Ward, 154)

In this quote Esch is comparing herself to Medea. How she gave everything to Manny, she loved him and would have done anything for him. Just as Medea gave everything to Jason: the fleece, her brother, her love, her power, all of it. She felt she could really relate to Medea, who had fallen in love with someone and given everything, only to be betrayed. Just as Esch had been betrayed by manny when he found out she was pregnant. At this point in the text Esch is heartbroken, and because of this, she sees herself in Medea. She is stuck in the book and can't get passed it, because at this point she can't get over manny. Due to the fact that Medea ended as a woman in exile with helpless little children and no protection, and this is what Esch thought she had become.
This is a picture of Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse in 1907. A painter who went to the Royal academy of Art and now has his work displayed in several major British art galleries. He was born in 1849 and died in 1917 because of Cancer.

This is a picture of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the end of the book, after all the craziness and pain finally finds her place with her family and friends. As she goes towards the future no longer suffering alone, but with the support of her loved ones. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 30, 2017 at 11:16 AM

    The strongest point in your post is how you respond to the quote and describe how similar Esch feels towards Medea explaining why she can't read on to the book since she is "stuck in the book because of her heartbreak." To build off of what your were saying, I agree that she is stuck in her heartbreak and feels incapable to move on from Manny especially since she is pregnant and her pregnancy is kind of a metaphor of her being stuck to Manny since a child connects people together even if they try to disconnect from each other. Even though a pregnancy is a happy thing, her pregnancy is like another reminder of her heartbreak which is another reason she cant go on in the book.

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