If Medea Had Read Wuthering Heights

One of Medea’s most prominent characteristics is her insatiable need for vengeance, a characteristic that I believe she shares with Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Throughout both of these stories, the characters are driven by a revenge that has come about as a result of what appears to them to be unrequited love.

Interestingly, I think Heathcliff’s story could have almost served as a cautionary tale for Medea. Heathcliff’s need for revenge, which comes about from a young age, ultimately tears apart all of his personal connections, and it comes to serve as a focal point in his character and temperament. Still, life continues around him, and the parallel lives of the children in the novel (whom, like Medea, Heathcliff tries to use as an outlet for vengeance, although doesn’t kill them) serve to show just how futile his efforts really are.

Medea would hate that result. Yes, her revenge was clever, planned, and entirely horrific, but ultimately damage is the only thing that can be reaped from vengeance. Though the play doesn’t show this, Medea would never get the finality that she sought after. Jason would be grief-stricken for the rest of his life, but he would live on in some fashion or another, and Medea herself doesn’t exactly end up on the moral high ground with people looking up to her. Like Heathcliff, she is damaged, and maybe even worse, stagnant. Though in Wuthering Heights, you can see how Heathcliff ends up in an endless cycle retaliation, and even more, how he never stops loving Catherine. While he remains in this cycle, others move on. I feel like this awful permanency would be Medea’s worst nightmare, and if she had known of this consequence she may have acted less rash. In her life, she had been seen as this incredible force of love and cleverness that could do brilliant things, but after her revenge has been exacted, she will be stuck, still in love, but seen instead as hateful and vengeful, all the while Jason will be hurt, but not caught in an endless cycle.