Medea: Christa Wolf

In the book, Medea: A Modern Retelling tells the story of Medea in a more modern view. Using different character narratives and having those narratives connect within the underlying story, a modern psychological explanation of the characters’ motivations are displayed. The theme of the book can explained by Margaret Atwood, “[This book] is a study of power, and of the operations of power, and of the behavior of human beings under pressure when power squeezes them tight”. The book goes beyond that simple explanation. Wolf presents a new, personal, feminist, and stirring interpretation of the Greek mythological figure of Medea, who lives on as the sorceress who slaughtered her own children in her adopted homeland of Corinth in order to take revenge on her unfaithful husband Jason. The book consists of eleven monologues by six characters, with Media’s own voice as the most persistent one (chapters 1, 4, 8, and 11). Though deep in mood and monotonous in tone, these monologues b...