Medea Lesson Plan

Why does Medea feel her children must die?

Medea is motivated by her desire to exact revenge on Jason. That has been her driving motivation throughout the entire play. But she also realizes that because she has killed the princess, it is likely that her children will be hunted and killed by the people of Corinth. And because those people will be looking for vengeance, they may force her children to suffer through a long and painful death. From Medea's perspective, the only way to protect her children is thus to kill them herself.

The Chorus turns to the Sun and Earth to stop Medea from killing her children. What does this say about the setting of this play?