Reexamining Medea’s Monstrosity in Greek Mythology and Eilish Quin’s Medea

Abstract

In 2024, Eilish Quin published the novel Medea, which is a feminist approach to the Medea myth from Greek mythology. Medea’s myth is heavily influenced by Euripides’ play Medea, a play in which she kills her children to enact revenge on her cheating husband Jason. Quin’s novel is a reimagining of the myth, which explores Medea’s monstrosity and attempts to make her more sympathetic and less monstrous than the source text. I argue that Quin’s novel pulls from established characteristics of Medea that depict her as a monster and attempts to shift the narrative perspective. Using monster theory, I examine Medea’s monstrosity by looking at Euripides’ play and Quin’s novel. Quin attempts to recast Medea as a sympathetic woman instead of a monster through Medea’s anti-woman sentiments and monstrous power, along with her status as an outsider; moreover, Medea’s villainous nature is removed by changing the story surrounding the murder of her brother and children while stressing Jason’s excessively violent nature. Quin’s novel reflects a contemporary concern with female autonomy and victimization, but the novel’s approach highlights the issues with trying to remove Medea’s monstrosity.