Amor ou loucura? Eu e o outro, por Medeia, de Eurípedes, e Elize Matsunaga

Abstract

Two beautiful women, skillful at the arts of magic and healing – sorcery and nursery – engage themselves in a relationship with foreign men and abandon the house of their fathers to follow them. Both women are overwhelmed by the power of love and completely driven by jealously: they act by the impulse of pure rage. Both of them are worried about their children’s safety: one of them would rather kill them instead of seeing them in the hands of strange people (her enemies); the other one assassinates her own husband when he humiliates her and threatens to take her daughter’s custody. They both fall before the betrayal and outrage of the Other One – a strange and ambivalent relationship. Both women are emotionally out of control but nevertheless they act in a rational and meticulous way: from the planning stage to the very execution of their crimes. They are experts on their criminal actions, but each outcome is different. They caused unease among their people and others as well. They are seen as monsters. How does each of these women (Euripedes’ Medea and Elize Matsunaga) see the Other One and what does the Other One see in them? What does identify them? This article intends to find the answers to these questions.