Euripides sets the scene by describing that Medea had fallen madly in love with Jason of Argonauts, and helped him retrieve the golden fleece using her sorcery. The tale depicts the two of them immigrating to Corinth and her bearing two sons and shows how much Medea loves Jason. As the tale continues, Jason falls in love with the Princess of Corinth and eventually tells Medea and she becomes exiled. Because of her emotional reaction, she goes to great lengths to get revenge on not only Jason, but everyone who is affected by Jason's new love. She gets revenge on everyone that is associated with not only her and her sons, but also Jason and the Princess of Corinth. Euripides shows this tale set during his time period, relating to the people of ancient Greece.

Female empowerment

Euripides comments on the status of women in Greek society, showing how they were considered to be inferior than their male counterparts. He mostly shows these stark comparisons within his writing when writing about Medea as a powerful and independent woman. In ancient Greece women were expected to be submissive and loyal and Euripides defied the norm when he wrote Medea saying, "Now you want them! Now you want to kiss them. Back then you were simply sending them away" (Euripides 27)., after she had killed her children. Her defiance against Jason touching his children one last time was incredibly controversial because men were to be respected and obeyed. Euripides writing about Medea being independent and standing firm in her beliefs gives into the original stereotype of Medea being the cold hearted killer that is jealous. As he wrote in other parts of the tale, he relates to the women in the ancient Greek society, by writing Medea as proud. When he wrote, "Then people also say that while we live quietly and without any danger at home, the men go off to war. Wrong! One birth alone is worse than three times in the battlefield behind a shield" (Euripides 6)., he is relating women to men in a sense of their strength. Women and men were not considered equals at all in Greece and when Medea said this, it changed the view of her as just a normal female immigrant to just a female relating to women everywhere. By putting the pain that men go through with war on the same playing field as women giving birth, it brought a greater awareness to the challenges that women go through. He deliberately brought up the pain of childbirth because it is the only way that the bloodline of men can continue and places women on a more equal playing field as men in Ancient Greece.

Greek interpretation of immigrants

Euripides comments on the stereotype of immigrants in ancient Greece through Medea who brings up topics that are common amongst immigrants. He uses her to show the feelings and emotions of immigrants at this time, especially those who are women. Throughout the entire story Euripides brings the feelings of being out of place, lonely, and saudade (deep nostalgia or melancholy for someone or something, originally Portuguese) for family members which is a usual way for immigrants to feel after they have moved to a new place. When Euripides wrote Medea saying, “My husband deceives me and treats me like a prize he has just ripped out of some barbarous country; I have no mother, no brother, no relative at all to whom I can turn for support at this dreadful hour of mine” (Euripides 6)., he references the feeling of loneliness that Medea is vocalizing for the immigrant population in Greece. Euripides takes the expected feelings of immigrants and puts them into words, which was not often done in this time period, and shows the general, non immigrant public how to better understand immigrants. By making the upper class become more acquainted with the problems of more lower class citizens, it helped break down the enormous barriers that stood between them. Although the barriers between classes never fully broke, Euripides took another approach to make the immigrant experience more widely known and somewhat understood. When he wrote about Medea's plan to kill her former family, she says, “Let’s say my plan had succeeded. The enemies are dead. Which city will then receive me? What stranger will give me asylum, a house where I may feel safe?” (Euripides 9). Her plead that she makes internally is the struggle that most immigrants go through as they travel from their homeland to a new place. Euripides makes the immigrant struggle more approachable than before, although a fictional story, he uses Medea as a vehicle to make the immigrant experience more palatable for citizens in ancient Greece. He takes this known myth and adds characteristics that makes struggles seen more by the lower class and turns them into an empowering story that makes immigration seem real and understanding for the people of ancient Greece.

Medea was written to portray the myth of Jason and Medea and to change the original narrative that has been passed down for generations. Euripides changed the view of Medea from a killer and jealous woman, to a suffering mother who was heart broken. He took the view that women were full of wrath and revenge and changed how the public viewed it. The main point of writing this version of Medea was to show the audience that women are not only independent from their husbands and can make their own decisions, but also to show the tenacity of immigrant women in Ancient Greece. By showing that Medea travelling so her family can have a better life and trying to make a name for herself in this new place, and failing, Euripides shows the difficulty it is for women to be respected in Ancient Greece. Most of what Euripides wrote in Medea was a social commentary on how poorly women were treated in Greece, and wanted to show women as powerful and that they can take charge of their own fate. Euripides comments on how society views a man who is unfaithful, with Jason, and barely even touches on that fact and how it is acceptable for him to leave the woman who travelled so far with him and bore him sons. Socially, this was acceptable based on the lack of offense or interjection about his new marriage once Jason becomes public with the daughter of King Creon. The real social unrest is Medea's response to wanting to keep the kids that she birthed, which is seen as radical based on the King's response. All of the different commentaries that Euripides is making when writing Medea, challenges the status quo of how women should be seen in Greece and changes how this myth should be seen, causing unrest and for this tale to be now told in a way that views Medea as a powerful, not harsh, woman.