Select a novel, play, or epic poem that features a character whose origins are unusual or mysterious. Then write an essay in which you analyze how these origins shape the character and that character's relationships, and how the origins contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Original Essay:
In Medea by Euripedes, Medea is shown as a very unusual person. She goes to such extents to get "revenge" on her husband, which in turn makes her make very bad decisions. She ends up ruining her relationship with her husband and children and she ends up losing herself in this revenge.
Medea ends up ruining her relationship with her husband and children by killing them. She does this because her husband left her and married a princess. And she thought the best way to get revenge from him would be to kill their children which would internally affect her husband and break him. And then she also killed her husband and the princess also. This act of hers shows how Medea is from such unusual origins. She goes to such an extent to get revenge from her husband that she ends up taking lives of her family. Medea doesn't even realize that shes killing her own family her own blood. She is that blind in revenge, showing the depth of her hatred for her husband. This shows how the pay Medea illustrates what hatred can do to people.
Medea also ends up losing herself in this revenge because she crosses limits. She crosses the limit of a mother by killing her children, She crosses the limits of a wife by killing her husband. She crosses the limit of a human by killing family. All this contributed to her ultimately losing herself, because no one is the same after doing what Medea did. The play Medea again shows Medea's unusual origins and how that contributed to her killing her family. No sane person would do what Medea did She did not think about her family at all and just killed.
Thus, we can conclude that Medea was from unusual origins. This contributed to her ruining her relationship with her husband and children and her ultimately losing herself. Showing how she was not a sane person and very unusual.
Reflection:
Description- I was asked to analyze the unusual origins of Medea and how they shaped her and her relationships and how the origins contributed to the whole play. The unusual origins of Medea are being examined.
Scores- I would give myself a 4 because my essay responds to the assigned task. My analysis is not that detailed and sort of oversimplified but my analysis does give some examples to back it up. But I should have developed my ideas more because I have inadequate development of my ideas. I should have elaborated more on my ideas, like how she is unusual in my thesis. My teacher gave me a 4 also because she also thought that my analysis was not developed enough. And she also thought that the development of the ideas was partial.
Interpretation- The most useful or important thing about this task was it helped me gain experience in analyzing a characters unusual origins through the use of literary techniques. It can be explained with theory by the way it logically follows the open question essay prompt and addresses the prompt. This was similar to the prose and poetry essay we wrote because this essay was also a timed essay like those essays. Also it is similar to essays we wrote in AP Comp because we write timed essays in that class too.
Outcome- I learned how you can analyze a characters unusual origins through the use of literary techniques. I can improve my performance on future tasks by analyzing the play in depth by really focusing on the complexities the author uses. I can also use techniques I learned from the three-sentence thesis.
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