TRANSLATING A GREEK MYTH:

CHRISTA WOLFS MEDEA IN A CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT

PETER ARNDS

Department of Modern Languages, Kansas State University, 104 Eisenhower Hall,

Manhattan, Kansas 66506-1003, USA

Abstract

After elaborating on the theory on revisionary mythmaking the essay tries to relate this
theory to Christa Wolfs re-vision of the Medea myth. How does Wolf delegitimize
Medeas traditional roles as developed by Euripides, what does she displace through
her version, and to what extent does she emphasize what Euripides and many after him
merely hint at? Wolf displaces Euripidess view of Medea as a monster and shifts the
recipients attention from her individual conflict with Jason to two wider conflicts: the
irreconcilability of the two cultures Colchis and Corinth, and, in connection with this,
the conflict between the sexes, a central theme already in Kassandra. This essay shows
further how the clash between Colchis and Corinth can be related to East and West
Germany and to what extent Wolf translates the patriarchal myth into a matriarchal one.
Euripidess version of Medea already contains some moments in which the traditional
patriarchal gender concept is challenged and questioned. Christa Wolf builds on these early
adumbrations of feminist thought, enlarges them substantially and works them into a
contemporary context. Once again, after Die Gnderode and Kassandra, her Medea is
an alternative albeit doomed projection to the enlightened and according to
Horckheimer/Adorno therefore destructive patriarchal hero.

I want to break mankind apart in two

and live within the empty middle I
no woman and no man . . .
Heiner Mller, Medeamaterial

In 1996 Christa Wolf published Medea, after her Kassandra (1983) yet
another translation of a patriarchal myth into a contemporary context.
I understand the term translation in the broader sense of a reproduc-
tion, a re-writing of an antique text within the postmodern feminist
discourse. In the sense of the Latin term translatere, i.e. of bringing
something over to the other side, Medea is an example not only of literary
but most of all of cultural translation. It is literary translation in that
she gives her version of the antique myth a new generic form: she trans-
lates the play Medea into prose and uses the technique of polyphony.
Six characters from the myth are given individual voices, which form the
chapters of the book. Although we hear Medea more often than other
voices, we also hear Jason, Agameda, who is one of Medeas pupils,

Neophilologus 85: 415428, 2001.

2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
416 Peter Arnds

Akamas and Leukon Corinths astronomers and Glauke, King Kreons

daughter. Seemingly, Medea takes on the form of a fabric rather than
proceeding linearly.1 Despite the different voices, however, the text can
only be called a polyphonic novel on a very superficial level. Medea
always remains the focus of everyone elses perspective and all the
different voices confirm one and the same view on events: Medea has
done no wrong.
Christa Wolfs novel is above all an example of cultural translation.
Although it preserves the Greek costume, the text projects its antique
time and places into a contemporary context. After elaborating on some
of the theory on revisionary mythmaking I will discuss a) how this theory
can be applied to Christa Wolfs re-vision of the Medea myth, b) what
are the traditional roles of Medea in a version that reflects the perspec-
tive of a male author; I chose Euripides, c) whether Colchis and Corinth,
the two cultures in conflict, can be related to a contemporary context,
and d) to what extent Wolf translates the patriarchal myth into a
matriarchal one.

I
In his Mythologies (1957), Roland Barthes approaches myth from the
perspective of semiology and applies Saussures pair of signified and
signifier to the mythical concept (Barthes 10959). He concludes that
it has at its disposal an unlimited mass of signifiers (120) and that
there is no fixity in mythical concepts: they can come into being, alter,
disintegrate, disappear completely (120), in fact myth often does
nothing but re-present itself (120). Barthess concept of the unstable
myth shows that myth is indeed open to translation in the sense of a
re-interpretation. In her remarkable book Writing beyond the Ending,
Rachel Blau DuPlessis discusses the tactics of revisionary mythopoesis,
particularly the difficulties that women writers face in rewriting myth:
When a woman writer chooses myth as her subject, she is faced with
material that is indifferent or, more often, actively hostile to historical
considerations of gender, claiming as it does universal, humanistic,
natural, or even archetypal status (DuPlessis 106). In rewriting myth the
woman poet enters a relationship with a culture that has through the
centuries been dominantly male. By asserting her own culture, or in
DuPlessiss words by rehearsing her own colonization, she can . . . attain
a maximum tension with and maximum seduction by dominant stories
(DuPlessis 106). Women poets, she argues, invent revisionary myths
in the attempt to forge an anticolonial mythopoesis, an attack on cultural
hegemony as it is (DuPlessis 107). In Alicia Ostrikers words, such a
woman writer deconstructs a prior myth or story and constructs a
new one which includes, instead of excluding, herself (Ostriker 72).
Adrienne Rich describes this act of revisionary mythmaking in even
Christa Wolfs Medea 417

stronger terms, emphasizing that for women it becomes an act of

survival:

Re-vision the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text
from a new critical direction is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it
is an act of survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched
we cannot know ourselves. . . . We need to know the writing of the past, and know it
differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold
over us. (Rich 35)

The necessity of female revisionary mythmaking has also been stressed

by some women writers in Germany and Austria. In a series of univer-
sity lectures, the so-called Poetikvorlesungen, these female writers have
recently given students the opportunity to gain insight into the poets
workshop.2 With regard to the rewriting of myth, the Austrian writer
Barbara Frischmuth, for example, remarked in her Munich lectures on
poetics: Das Wunderbare an der Beschftigung mit einem Mythos ist,
da es keinen streng vorgegebenen, kanonisierten Originaltext gibt. Der
Mythos war immer schon da, und welche Version wir auch hren oder
fr ursprnglich halten, schon der nchste Mythograph wird die
Geschichte anders erzhlen . . . (Frischmuth 65). Like Barbara
Frischmuth, Christa Wolf discusses the myths she is rewriting from a
feminist angle. Her Frankfurt lectures on poetics, Voraussetzungen einer
Erzhlung: Kassandra (1983), testify to this spirit of feminism when
she says: Wenige, sehr wenige Stimmen von Frauen dringen zu uns, seit
um 600 vor unserer Zeitrechnung Sappho sang (Voraussetzungen 146).
The lectures as well as the text on which they comment are aimed against
those institutions, such as literature and aesthetics, that are shaped by
the dominant male self-understanding (Voraussetzungen 149). Like these
lectures and Kassandra, her Medea version can be interpreted as the very
act of survival to which Adrienne Rich has referred, in that Christa
Wolf is bringing a mythical womans memory back to life: Das
lebendige Gedchtnis wird der Frau entwunden, ein Bild, das andere
von ihr sich machen, wird ihr untergeschoben: der entsetzliche Vorgang
der Versteinerung, Verdinglichung am lebendigen Leib (Voraussetzungen
148). The purpose of womens depetrification is therefore behind Wolfs
rcriture of both myths. At the same time, Wolf follows the Thomas
Mann formula of myth plus psychology to revive the heroines of her
myths. Psychologizing the Joseph myth was Thomas Manns reaction
to the abuse of myth practised by the Nazis. Similarly, with Kassandra
Wolf was able to direct a subtle protest against the GDR regime (whose
official opinion was that myth and the present exclude one another3),
as Rolf Renner discusses in his fascinating article: the nacherzhlte,
umerzhlte oder erfundene Mythos erhlt . . . eine zugleich kritische
und produktive Kraft. Er erweist sich als ein Verfahren, Erfahrungen
418 Peter Arnds

und Wnsche mitzuteilen, die sonst anarchisch oder unausdrckbar

wren (Renner 135). The difference between Thomas Manns mythical
figure Joseph and those of Wolf, however, is that Thomas Manns Joseph
overcomes the mythical world while Wolfs Cassandra and Medea are
destroyed by it.
The Medea myth has been rewritten throughout the ages. The
twentieth century in particular has been captivated by it, as Sarah Iles
Johnston has shown in her introduction to a recent publication on the
Medea Cult. She argues that the most interesting phenomenon about the
twentieth centurys reaction to Medea . . . is the way in which her struggle
and sufferings have been used to express the problems of many dif-
ferent cultures and groups (Johnston, Introduction 4). Johnston
mentions the black Agnes Straub, for example, who used Grillparzers
Medea trilogy in 1933 to make a statement about Nazi racist politics,
as well as Brendan Kennelly, whose Medea personifies the Irish, while
Jason stands for the English colonizers (Johnston, Introduction 4). In
German literature alone, Medea has been recycled time and again:
Lessings Miss Sara Sampson, Maximilian Klingers Die Kindesmrderin,
Grillparzers Das goldene Vlie, and Heiner Mllers three Medea
adaptations come to mind.
Many of the above theorems on female revisionary mythopoesis can
be applied to Christa Wolfs Medea. It is anticolonial mythopoesis
(DuPlessis 107), in that prior male versions of the myth are deconstructed
in order to enable a female author to include herself (Ostriker 72): through
Medeas self-defensive voice Wolf can voice her own feminist ideas.
Thus, instead of passing on a tradition Wolf can break its hold over us
(Rich 35). Moreover, DuPlessis has discussed two principal types of
revisionary mythmaking that can be applied to Wolfs Medea: dis-
placement and delegitimation (DuPlessis 108). She defines displacement
as a shifting of attention to the other side of the story, as a com-
mitted identification with Otherness . . . with those parts of culture and
personality that are taboo, despised, marginalized (DuPlessis 108).
Delegitimation on the other hand affects the whole known tale and
represents a critique even unto sequences and priorities of narrative
(DuPlessis 108). Applied to Wolfs Medea, this means that a) Medeas
perspective is centralized, which entails the displacement of the male
(Jasons) perspective and b) Medea is re-evaluated in her various roles
that determine the plot, a delegitimation of the male version such as
that of Euripides.

II
In order to understand what Wolf has changed, displaced or delegitimized,
we need to be aware of Medeas traditional roles as they were largely
laid down by the Euripidean version. Following the dominantly male
Christa Wolfs Medea 419

perspective in Euripidess play, authors have throughout the ages and

to varying degrees given Medea a set of negative roles. Although she has
had the role of helper-maiden in that she assists Jason in stealing the
fleece and in escaping from Colchis, antiquity tended to see this deed
as wicked because of her use of magic and herbal poisons (Johnston,
Introduction 6). Above all, however, she has been described as a
murderess, a vindictive and bloodthirsty woman, who first kills her
brother Absyrtos, then kills King Kreons daughter Glauke by giving
her a poisoned robe, murders her own children, and finally tricks the
Athenian king Aegeus into nearly murdering his son Theseus.
Euripidess play highlights the male fear of the uncontrollable beast
in woman, the fear of her foreignness and her demonic powers. Compared
to Grillparzer and Christa Wolf, Euripides equips Medea with a weaker
voice, which does not allow her to defend herself against the male view
that [s]he hates her own children and has no pleasure at the sight of
them (Euripides 191). In his play she ultimately turns into a fury
consumed with passion and hatred: Beware of her fierce manner, her
implacable temper. Hers is a self-willed nature. . . . Soon, it is clear,
her sorrow like a gathering cloud will burst in a tempest of fury. What
deed will she do then, that impetuous, indomitable heart, poisoned by
injustice? (Euripides 192). Medeas character, which strays so much
from the accustomed image that Greek society had of women, leads to
her banishment because the Greek men are afraid of her temper. Although
Euripidess version centers on the myth of infanticide and fratricide,
his play does contain ironical passages, in which he seems to take sides
with Medeas fate. He must have been well aware of his male contem-
poraries practise of colonizing women, because he allows Medeas
voice to surface at times: Of all creatures that feel and think, we women
are the unhappiest species. In the first place, we must pay a great dowry
to a husband who will be the tyrant of our bodies . . . (Euripides 195).
In order to carry out her vindictive plans Medea has to gain time and
make sure that Jason does not discover her true nature. To achieve this
she pretends to be his obedient and remorseful wife: Jason please forgive
me for all I said. After all, the services of love you have rendered me
before, I can count on you to put up with my fits of temper (Euripides
209). For a brief moment, she seems entirely to fit the traditional image
that Greek society has of its women and with authorial irony Euripides
has Jason answer: That is the talk I like to hear, woman. The past I
can forgive. It is only natural for your sex to show resentment when
their husbands contract another marriage. But your heart has now changed
for the better. It took time, to be sure, but you have now seen the light
of reason (Euripides 209). It becomes evident that despite his insis-
tence on the murder motifs Euripides already tried to reveal the arrogance
of the Greek patriarchy and its contempt for women.
420 Peter Arnds

In Christa Wolfs version, Medea does not murder her two sons.
Instead, they are stoned to death by the Greek mob. At the end of the
book, we hear Medea one last time defending herself against the
Corinthians, who try to blame her for the murder of her children: Was
reden sie. Ich, Medea, htte meine Kinder umgebracht. Ich Medea, htte
mich an dem ungetreuen Jason rchen wollen. Wer soll das glauben,
fragte ich. . . . Sie sorgen dafr, da auch die Spteren mich
Kindsmrderin nennen sollen. . . . Wohin mit mir. Ist eine Welt zu denken,
eine Zeit, in die ich passen wrde (Medea 236).4 With regard to the issue
of infanticide, Christa Wolf departs not only from Euripidess play but
also from the pre-Euripidean versions of the myth, the folk beliefs of
Greece and many other Mediterranean cultures according to which
pregnant women and young children were persecuted and often murdered
by reproductive demons.5 By blaming the Greeks for murdering the two
children Wolf offers a completely different version, in which she
demonstrates that heinous crimes are often the result of male politics.
This message is also contained in her other changes. Her Medea denies
having killed her own brother, although the Greek people are made to
believe that she did kill him (9091). Medeas only guilt lies in having
discovered Corinths darkest secret, the murder of King Kreons daughter
Iphinoe, who was ritually sacrificed as a child. Wolfs Medea clearly
becomes the victim of intrigues. Rather than being the truth, the
Euripidean plot elements of infanticide and fratricide are used as rumors
by men in power in order to condemn her. In Wolfs version, it is Aietes
who has his own son Absyrtos killed, while Medea merely collects the
bones and decides to leave Colchis because of this nefarious deed (102).
Despite the many differences between the two cultures Colchis and
Corinth, they share the fact that male politics are the cause of murder.
As Kreon has Iphinoe killed, so Aietes kills his own son to guarantee
the continuation of his rule over Colchis.
Christa Wolf also deconstructs the murder of Glauke, Kreons other
daughter. Medea tries to heal Glaukes epilepsy note that Wolfs
Kassandra was an epileptic, too which results from the gruesome
murder of her sister Iphinoe and the general repression of that guilt.
Her healing powers are therefore not of an evil nature. Glauke later
commits suicide. Wolf delegitimizes Medeas role as an evil witch. She
contrasts the female (Agamedas) understanding of Medea as a healer
with the male (Jasons) view of her as a witch well-versed in the
use of magic. Her magic is entirely a figment of the Corinthians
imagination. Although when he first sees her Jason is attracted to Medea
drinking blood, at the same time he notices her vampiric appearance,
schrecklich und schn, ich begehrte sie, wie ich noch nie eine Frau
begehrt hatte (65). Medeas healing power initially fascinates Jason
during his sojourn in Colchis. In retrospect and from the perspective
Christa Wolfs Medea 421

of his own cultural surroundings, however, he interprets these healing

scenes as entirely demonic and consequently uses them against Medea.
In his memory, her healing takes on the form of witchcraft with its tra-
ditional folkloric implications: es war Nacht . . . sie rhrte in einem
Kessel, der auf drei Beinen ber einer Feuerstelle stand, das flackernde
Licht lie sie uralt erscheinen. . . . Sie schpfte eine Kelle von dem
Sud, den sie zusammengebraut hatte, und hie mich trinken. Es
schmeckte widerwrtig und rann mir glhend durch die Adern (6566).
Wolfs version contrasts the male mythical fear of womens magic with
the female reality of healing. Jasons fear of her demonic powers is
especially linked to the remembrance of her as a priestess performing
blood sacrifice: Jetzt berfllt mich das Bild wieder, das ich all die Jahre
unter der Oberflche gehalten habe. Das grausamste und unwider-
stehlichste Bild, das ich von ihr habe. Medea als Opferpriesterin . . . ,
die das Recht hat, Schlachtopfer zu vollziehen. (64). Ironically and
subconsciously, Jason condemns Medea precisely for his own cultures
misdeeds: its ritualistic and barbaric blood sacrifice. While Medea
sacrifices young bulls, however, the male rulers of Colchis and Corinth
sacrifice humans. Particularly the murder of Iphinoe is a crime that
testifies to the in Wolfs eyes typically male art of repressing
unwanted memories and distorting their reality according to the dictates
of circumstances. Here lies the hypocrisy of Medeas condemnation for
her alleged bloodthirstiness.

III
After having outlined how Wolf delegitimizes Medeas traditional roles
it is time to demonstrate what she displaces through her version, to
what extent she emphasizes what Euripides and many after him merely
hint at. Wolf displaces Euripidess view of Medea as a monster and shifts
the recipients attention from her individual conflict with Jason to two
wider conflicts: a) the irreconcilability of the two cultures Colchis and
Corinth and in connection with this b) the conflict between men and
women in general, a central theme already in Kassandra.6

Conflict of two cultures. The distance between both cultures, the

intolerance of Corinth toward Colchis, propels the plot in Wolfs version.
As an idea it already exists in Euripidess play. Greek arrogance vis
vis other cultures anyone not Greek was considered Barbarian in Greek
eyes reveals itself above all in Jasons long speech in which he tries
to defend his ruthless behavior toward Medea: In the first place you
have your home in Greece, instead of in a barbarian land. . . . And all
the Greeks have realized your wisdom, and you have won great fame.
If you had been living on the edges of the earth, nobody would ever have
heard of you (Euripides 201). By means of the voice chapters in her
422 Peter Arnds

Medea. Stimmen, Christa Wolf can give equal weight to the depiction
of the two divergent cultures and each characters self-involvement with
his or her own culture. Markers of cultural otherness are, for example,
the interment of the dead (63) or the different architectural styles. In
Colchis, the Kings palace is made of wood, a fact that makes the
Corinthians feel superior. The Colchians, who live as a minority among
the Corinthians, end up seeking refuge within the fortifications of their
own culture. As exiles they found Little Colchis where they celebrate
their own culture almost entirely through memory (191). The controversy
between Colchis and Corinth in Wolfs novel has been compared to
that between East and West Germany respectively.7 The Colchian
idealization of their own lost culture (Verlust der Heimat . . . die ihnen
nachtrglich in ungetrbtem Glanz erstrahlt [32]), its preservation
through memory, the exaggeration of past exploits (Ihre Legenden
werden ausufern, wenn unsere Lage sich weiter verschlechtert, und es
wird nichts ntzen, ihnen die Tatsachen entgegenzuhalten.[33])8 are
all very reminiscent of the phenomenon of Ostalgie observable in
present-day Germany. The distance between the two cultures seems
unbridgeable, diese[r] schwer zu beschreibende[n] Distanz, die die
Korinther von Anfang an uns Kolchern gegenber angenommen haben
und die, wie nahe einer oder eine von uns ihnen auch zu kommen glaubt,
niemals zu berwinden ist. Sie werden ja mit der unerschtterlichen
berzeugung geboren, da sie den kleinwchsigen braunhutigen
Menschen berlegen sind . . . (78). Christa Wolfs discussion of the
irreconcilability of these two different cultures clearly transcends the
boundaries of myth and can be read as a reference to the differences
between countries of the so-called first and third world, between Turks
as a minority and Germans in one and the same country, but primarily
this parallel can hardly be banished from the text between arrogant
overbearing Wessis on one side and all those Ossis who may still see
themselves as second class citizens. That she is indeed talking about East
and West Germany can be seen in a number of passages. Not only does
she write about the wilden Osten (56) contrasted with den Lndern
der untergehenden Sonne (64), Corinth is also described as being
obsessed with gold and the parallel with the Capitalist West versus the
Socialist East becomes obvious if one looks at the following passage:
Und was uns [the Colchians] am meisten befremdete: Man mit den
Wert eines Brgers von Korinth nach der Menge des Goldes, die er
besitzt, und berechnet nach ihr die Abgaben, die er dem Palast zu leisten
hat. Ganze Heerscharen von Beamten beschftigen sich mit diesen
Berechnungen and they are responsible fr die Einteilung der Korinther
in verschiedene Schichten (38). In contrast, Medeas eulogy on the early
history of Colchis every Colchians dream in Corinth conjures up
the ideals of Socialism:
Christa Wolfs Medea 423

Wir in Kolchis waren beseelt von unseren uralten Legenden, in denen unser Land von
gerechten Kniginnen und Knigen regiert wurde, bewohnt von Menschen, die in Eintracht
miteinander lebten und unter denen der Besitz so gleichmig verteilt war, da keiner
den anderen beneidete oder ihm nach seinem Gut oder gar nach dem Leben trachtete.
Wenn ich, noch unbelehrt, in der ersten Zeit in Korinth von diesem Traum der Kolcher
erzhlte, erschien auf dem Gesicht meiner Zuhrer immer derselbe Ausdruck, Unglauben
vermischt mit Mitleid, schlielich berdru und Abneigung, soda ich es aufgab zu
erklren, da uns Kolchern dieses Wunschbild so greifbar vor Augen stand, da wir
unser Leben daran maen. Wir sahen, wir entfernten uns davon von Jahr zu Jahr mehr,
und unser alter verkncherter Knig war das grte Hindernis (99100).

This is the history of the former GDR in a nutshell, from the initial
Marxist ideals to the peoples gradual disappointment in the failure of
these ideals. Erich Honecker, as Manfred Fuhrmann has pointed out, then
corresponds to the old inflexible (ossified) King Aietes, who because
of the way he governed Colchis

immer mehr Kolcher gegen [sich] aufbrachte. . . . Sie stieen sich am Starrsinn des Aietes,
an der unntzen Prachtentfaltung des Hofes und verlangten, der Knig solle die Schtze
des Landes, unser Gold verwenden, um unserem Handel einen Aufschwung zu geben,
das elende Leben unserer Bauern zu erleichtern. Sie wollten, der Knig und sein Clan
sollten sich auf die Pflichten besinnen, die ihnen von alters her in Kolchis zufielen. Ach
Absyrtos! Was wir Unwissende fr Pracht hielten! Seit ich in Korinth bin, wei ich,
was Prachtentfaltung ist (100).

East German mismanagement, the neglect of Socialist ideals and West

German pomp are all reflected in this passage.
The impossibility of a cultural synthesis seems to be momentarily
suspended, if one considers that in Medeas two sons both cultures
come together. One of them is blond, blue-eyed and tall like his Greek
father. For that reason Jason loves him more than the other boy, who
is short and dark, like the Colchians, like Medea (192193). Despite
the difference in their appearance they are of the same stock and loved
equally strongly by their mother. Thus in the mothers love of both
children the two cultures symbolically merge. Due to the fathers pref-
erence of the boy in whose appearance his own culture is reflected and
his consequent neglect of the other boy, whose appearance reflects
Medeas culture, the synthesis of both cultures is once again prevented.
Ultimately, in the childrens murder a rapprochement between the two
cultures is definitively thwarted.9 If Colchis and Corinth are read as
a reference to East and West Germany, then this thwarting of the
synthesis of the two antique cultures bodes no hopeful future for
Germany.

Conflict of gender. In Wolfs text the divergence between the Colchians

and the Corinthians are not only cultural, they are also gender related.
Corinth is the place that stands for male dominance. In contrast, Colchis
424 Peter Arnds

and Little Colchis as an enclave within Corinth signify the spaces in

which women Medea in particular are allowed rights and freedoms
denied to the Greek women, because such liberties would pose a threat
to their patriarchal society. The wild Colchian women are contrasted with
the tame Corinthian women (18). Their wild nature, for example, shows
itself in Medeas provocative gait:
Wie sie schon geht. Herausfordernd, das ist das Wort. Die meisten Kolcherinnen gehen
so. Es gefllt mir ja. Aber man kann doch die Frauen der Korinther auch verstehen,
wenn sie sich beschweren: Wieso sollten Fremde, Flchtlinge [spielt Christa Wolf etwa
auf die Asylanten in Deutschland an?], in ihrer eigenen Stadt selbstbewuter gehen
drfen als sie selbst. (50)

These womens emancipation also reveals itself in the fact that Medea
wears her wild unkempt hair open and not tied in a braid like the
Corinthians (67). The Greek women are restricted also through their black
clothes, which are meant to confine them in the movements of their
arms and legs. Hence they are figuratively constrained in their emanci-
patory urges. They are deprived not only of their free movements but
also of their free thinking: sie [Medea] war es ja, die mir [Glauke]
einreden wollte, ich knne ruhig denken: Ich hasse meinen Vater, nichts
wrde ihm dadurch passieren, ich brauchte mich dafr nicht schuldig
zu fhlen (144). In Corinth, the women are expected to weep during
funeral ceremonies, while the men are not allowed to show their emotions
(31). Unlike in Colchis, where the women are allowed to express their
opinions (59), in Corinth the men always speak for the women (79). Like
in Kassandra, the Greek men and above all Jason form the rigid and
destructive half of mankind, who are incapable of enjoying life, there-
fore wage war and destroy the lives of others, men and women alike:
berhaupt, Medea ruminates at the end of the narrative (215), frage
ich mich, ob die Lust, andere Leben zu zerstren, nicht daher kommt,
da man am eigenen Leben so wenig Lust und Freude hat. The bodies
of the Greek men reflect how hardened and incapable they are of showing
emotion. Medea: Von Anfang an habe ich mich gewundert ber die
Verhrtungen an ihren Krpern. Da ich nichts sprte, wenn ich meine
Hand auf ihren Nacken, ihren Arm, ihren Bauch legte, kein Flieen,
Strmen. Nichts als Hrte. Wie lange ich brauchte, diese Hrte aufzu-
tauen, wie unwillig sie waren, wie sie sich wehrten. Wie sie sich gegen
Mitgefhl wehrten (111). Medeas view of Greek men differs widely
from the way in which these view women in general. This is shown
through quotations that precede the books single voice chapters. Wolf
quotes Cato: Sobald die Weiber uns gleichgestellt sind, sind sie uns
berlegen (115). She also quotes the Euripidean Jason: Gbe es andere
Geburt, ganz ohne Frau, wie glcklich wre das Leben (211). The
conflict between the Greek men and the Colchian women climaxes at
Christa Wolfs Medea 425

the moment when the latter cut off Turons penis. The Greek men are
panic-stricken:

Gtter. Diese wahnsinnigen Kolcherinnen. Dem Manne das Geschlecht abschneiden.

Wir alle, wir Mnner in Korinth, haben diesen Schmerz mitgefhlt. Ganz sicher wurde
in den Nchten bis zur Bestrafung der Kolcherinnen und der Verurteilung der Medea
kein Kind gezeugt, kein Mann war zeugungsfhig. Sie faten ihre Frauen hart an, manche
sollen sie geschlagen haben, und die Korintherinnen verbargen sich in den Husern oder
liefen mit gesenkten Kpfen durch die Straen, als htten sie, jede von ihnen, den armen
Turon geschndet, sie umschmeicheln ihre Mnner und begren lauthals die strenge
Bestrafung der Schuldigen und fordern fr Medea die Hchststrafe . . . (213214).

One can see clearly how the cultural conflict expands into a gender
conflict. That the texts main plot is a war between the sexes also becomes
obvious in a central metaphor. Medea reports: Als ich erwachte, kmpfte
genau ber mir am nchtlichen Himmel ein dunkles Ungeheuer mit dem
Mond, hatte sich gierig einen groen Happen herausgebissen und ging
weiter gegen ihn vor. Der Schrecken sollte kein Ende sein (205). The
dark beast devouring the moon is of course nothing other than a lunar
eclipse. On a symbolic level, however, this beast denotes the male being
that fights with the moon, woman. In Kassandra, the reader already
encountered this Jungian symbol of the fighting moon, which in Wolfs
texts stands for woman fighting for emancipation: Ich wute, es war
Nacht, doch Mond und Sonne standen gleichzeitig am Himmel und
stritten um die Vorherrschaft (Kassandra 102).10 It is interesting to
observe the different reactions to the lunar eclipse, the reaction of the
Colchians, whose women have more rights, and the reaction of the
patriarchal Corinthians:

Ein unbekanntes Entsetzen drang uns Kolchern bis in die Eingeweide und lie uns den
Untergang der Welt frchten, ein tieferes Entsetzen als das, welches die Korinther sprten,
die in dem furchterregenden Himmelsschauspiel nichts anderes sehen konnten als eine
Strafe der Gtter, die nicht sie verschuldet hatten, sondern all jene, die fremde Gtter in
ihre Stadt eingeschleppt und die eigenen dadurch erzrnt hatten. (205)

The passage combines both conflicts, that between the two cultures and
related to this the conflict between the sexes. The reactions to the
lunar eclipse reflect the two forms of thinking contrasted also in Wolfs
Kein Ort. Nirgends (1979). This novel criticized the male rational form
of thinking of the Age of Reason as opposed to its female alterna-
tive of the Romantic Age. In their section on Odysseus or Myth and
Enlightenment in Horckheimer/Adornos Dialektik der Aufklrung
(1944) (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1972]), the authors show how
the Odyssey with its male protagonist embodies the Frhgeschichte
unseres rationalistischen Zivilisationstyps (Emmerich 220). Horkheimer
and Adorno see a direct connection between this prehistory of rationalism
426 Peter Arnds

readable in the patriarchal myth and the rationalistically motivated dis-

asters of the 20th century. In the form of anti-Semitic Fascism one can
observe the actual reversion of enlightened civilization to barbarism
(Horkheimer/Adorno xvi). Wolfs heroines Gnderode, Kassandra and
Medea are alternative albeit doomed projections to the enlightened and
therefore destructive patriarchal hero. The above passage shows how
the Corinthians repression of guilt forms an ominous combination with
their sense of rationality. They end up transfering their own guilt to
others, which in Christa Wolfs eyes is a specifically male tendency. This
combination of the transference of guilt and rationality as the Odyssean,
i.e. the male principle, was also discussed by Horkheimer and Adorno
in their chapter on Nazi anti-Semitism as the peak of Enlightenment:
The portrait of the Jews that the nationalists offer to the world is in
fact their own self-portrait. They long for total possession and unlim-
ited power, at any price. They transfer their guilt for this to the Jews,
whom as masters they despise and crucify, repeating ad infinitum a
sacrifice which they cannot believe to be effective (Horkheimer/Adorno
168169). With regard to the phenomenon of guilt, Wolfs text points
beyond a clear division between East and West Germany, because it is
impossible to say that the repression of guilt as it concerns the Fascist
past and present is a West German rather than an East German tendency.
Wolf describes it as a male tendency within both Colchis and Corinth.
Hence I believe that, contrary to the former GDRs self-understanding
as the anti-Fascist part of Germany, she refers to a tendency in both
parts of Germany. I would therefore argue that in connection with guilt
and the ensuing need for Vergangenheitsbewltigung Wolfs novel shows
a wider rift between the two sexes than between political and cultural
entities.11
We have seen that even Euripidess version of Medea contained some
moments in which the traditional patriarchal gender concept was chal-
lenged and questioned. Christa Wolf builds on these early adumbrations
of feminist thought, enlarges them substantially and works them into a
contemporary context. Her version of the Medea myth reflects todays
tensions between the different cultures and ideologies of people living
in a confined space. Moreover, she demonstrates by way of the Greek
example to what extent through their petrified emotions men can bring
about wars and other catastrophes: crimes committed on women, children,
even whole ethnic groups. Wolf shares her view that the Greek myths are
still valid in a cruel world ruled by men with Barbara Frischmuth, whose
Demeter trilogy contains the same message. Whether Christa Wolfs texts
refer to GDR politicians or to those in the West, the fact that in 1996
she rewrote yet another Greek myth reveals that in her view of the male
world nothing has changed. Medea gives words to this vision at the
end of the tale. She curses mankind and, before her voice dies down,
Christa Wolfs Medea 427

gives full vent to her frustration: Wohin mit mir. Ist eine Welt zu denken,
eine Zeit, in die ich passen wrde. (236). It is a rhetorical question,
to which the answer could indeed be Kein Ort. Nirgends.

Notes

1. Judith Ryan has pointed out that for Christa Wolf the fabric is eine typisch
weibliche Form: das strikte einwegbesessene Vorgehn der mnnlichen Logik, behauptet
sie, sondere einen einzelnen Strang aus und beschdige somit das ganze Gewebe und
auch diesen Strang (Ryan 845).
2. In his introduction to Poetik der Autoren: Beitrge zur deutschsprachigen
Gegenwartsliteratur, Paul Michael Ltzeler has pointed out the particularly postmodern
character of these poetics lectures as a sign of increasing Subjektivierung . . . im bergang
von der Moderne zur Postmoderne (7).
3. Cf. Rohrwasser 13.
4. All following references to this novel are indicated in the text merely as page
numbers in parentheses.
5. Cf. Sarah Iles Johnston, Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia 45.
She shows that there are varying beliefs as to who invented the infanticidal Medea.
While some scholars argue that Medeas infanticide was completely Euripidess inven-
tion, several scholars have re-examined the possibility that Euripides followed the poet
Neophron in making Medea an infanticide. Johnston argues that there is no need to assume
that any single classical author invented the infanticidal Medea whom we know from
Euripides and elsewhere (6566); rather the figure evolved out of the paradigm of the
reproductive demon.
6. In her article on Christa Wolfs book, Friederike Mayer also discusses these two
conflicts of gender and culture. The effect of alienation that Medea suffers from this double
conflict Mayer calls potenzierte Fremdheit durch den doppelten Ausschlu vom Diskurs
der Macht als Wilde und als Frau zugleich. . . . Medea, die Kolcherin, ist im korinthis-
chen Exil mit einer fremden Kultur, mit anderen Hierarchien, Werten und Gebruchen
konfrontiert und wird von den Korinthern als Fremde und Flchtling betrachtet. . . .
Zugleich sucht Medea ihren Weg als Frau. . . . (Mayer 86).
7. Cf. Manfred Fuhrmann, Honecker heit jetzt Aietes, in: Deutsche Literatur 1996:
Jahresberblick 262268.
8. Cf. for example Thomas Brussigs novel Helden wie wir. In writing about his
East German protagonists successful penetration of the Berlin Wall by means of the power
of his penis Brussig ridicules the present-day tendency of East Germans bragging about
their exploits during the GDR regime.
9. Despite the obvious differences of the two cultures they also show a number of
parallels as Friederike Mayer has shown (cf. Mayer 88).
10. Wolfgang Ries correctly argues that many of Christa Wolfs heroines share a
struggle for autonomy as well as its failure that leads to death: Christa T., the Gnderode,
Kassandra (page 9). Medea is an exception to the rule of death, although her struggle
for autonomy ultimately also fails.
11. Friederike Mayer (for Medea) and Michael Rohrwasser (for Kassandra)
demonstrate that Wolfs revisionary mythopoesis can be read with more in mind than
German politics alone: Der philosophisch-sthetische Kontext [in Kassandra] ist
zumindest auf beide Teile Deutschlands, auf Nationalsozialismus und Stalinismus sowie
die Lager des Kalten Krieges beziehbar (Rohrwasser 22).
428 Peter Arnds

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