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Activation Project 12 – Task 2
I’m going to talk about ‘Medea’ by Christa Wolf, one of my all-time favourite books. It is a re-telling of Medea’s myth realized thropugh stream of consciuoness. The figure and the events of Medea’s story are told as a patchwork of the point of view of the different characters, in such a way even if the purpose of the book is to clear Medea name the book still proposes different perspective to look at her.
The story follows the events of Eurypidhes’ tragedy and is told in first person by all characters involved. It is set in Corinth, around VII century B.C. The stories begins with Medea reflecting about a terrible truth about Corinth she had discovered during a dinner and then continues telling her progressive exclusion from the society.
The whole book is terribly magnificent. It is also short so I really cannot say to a favourite part, but of course I can adfirm that each chapter, each character has its own dignity in the story, also the ”villains”. Their reasons are clearly explained and their perspective on Medea becomes relatable.
It’s a book that I read for the first time at the very end of my high school years and it resonate deeply with me immediately, maybe because that was a pivotal age. The themes covered goes from the fear for the strangers to the oblivion regarding tragedies and root causes of events in mass society, but it doesn’t become didactic. Once in a while I tend to re-read it because everytime it seems to say to me something new, and to have some details I hadn’t noticed before.
I strongly reccomend this book to anyone. I don’t think there is someone who can not to apprecciate it and it presents also a set of important considerations. The only flaws someone can find is that the style can be difficult to follow and the story isn’t always linear: often flashbacks are present to give context. In my opinion it is not a difficult book to follow, but on the contrary a true masterpiece valuable by anyone.
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1 Reply
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This is really well written Lucia, well done. There are a few mistakes, but not many. I’ve sent you the corrections in a Google doc
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