Afroditi Angelopoulou (University of Southern California)
This paper argues that Euripides’ Medea problematizes the interrelation between trauma and revenge through the antinomy of pain and pleasure, which pervades the dramatic narrative. The tragedy brings into sharp relief the hedonics of anger (Blondell 1989, 26-8), the emotion inherent in the act of vengeance, which it dramatizes as a perverted form of koufisis (“alleviation”) from the experience of pain (Med. 374). Accordingly, I demonstrate how the dynamics of pain and pleasure are implicated in the representation of trauma and the way it compounds suffering (ponos being one of the first words a yet unseen Medea utters; see Med. 96). Indeed, Brian Lush (2014) has noted the suggestive parallels between Medea’s traumatic experience and that of heroes such as the Homeric Achilles, since this heroine also suffers a “moral injury” caused by the “betrayal of what’s right” (themis; cf. Med. 160; 169; 208. See Shay 1994); I dilate upon this observation, suggesting that in the Euripidean drama this injury is principally encoded in the body, and particularly in the female, maternal, foreign body. Crucially, one of trauma’s principal symptoms is the distortion of perception (see, e.g., Van der Kolk 2014, 21), which in this context can be observed in the disruption of the pleasures of intersubjective vision (e.g., Med. 36: στυγεῖ δὲ παῖδας οὐδ᾽ὁρῶσ᾽εὐφραίνεται) and touch (see esp. 894-903; cf. 1074-5). Ultimately, Medea rejects a “happy life in pain” (Med. 598), in favor of permanent unhappiness (1250), while she foregoes the pleasure of the affective bonds of philia (see esp. 1095-9) in exchange for revenge’s “double pleasure” (1134-5), and subordinates her empathic, maternal pain (1032) to the pain of her moral injury (398: τοὐμὸν ἀλγυνεῖ κέαρ). This drama thus interrogates the notion that speaking about (e.g., Med. 28-9) and sharing grief (56; 135) can provide a cure (cf. also Boedecker 1991; Pucci 1980). In the absence of a remedy (cf. Med. 16: νοσεῖ τὰ φίλτατα), revenge will have its own enjoyment (terpsis; cf. 202-3); and since revenge, as Aristotle also observes (Rhet.1382a9-10), requires that the offender both “see” (cf. the pointed allusions to sight/witnessing at Med. 1313; 1316; 1388; 1414) and “feel” (aisthesthai) the pain in his turn, Medea imposes a perverse “feeling with” on friends and foes alike, reenacting the traumatic scenes of loss, humiliation, and helplessness. This corrupt empathy is powerfully reflected in Medea’s claim at the play’s conclusion that although she feels the same lupê as Jason (Med. 1361), the pain is nevertheless “profitable” (Med.1362: λύει δ᾽ἄλγος; cf. esp. 199-200)— as long as he experiences all the vicarious suffering and the “biting” pain of loss (1370). Overall, the Medea offers a visceral understanding of trauma and revenge as a perverse healing process, primarily by problematizing the ethics and aesthetics of sensation. Thus this drama can be read as providing a compelling platform for reflecting on the struggle to cope with traumatic experiences, which reside, first and foremost, in the body.