A Critical Analysis of Mark Buchan’s “"Too Difficult for a Single Man to Understand:" Medea's Out-Jutting Foot” written for Kent Harrelson, PhD's World Literature I course at Dalton State College during the Fall 2013 semester.

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Jackson David Reynolds
Dr. Kent Harrelson, PhD
English 2111
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Medea Speaks Upright; Aegean Seed Takes Flight
A Critical Analysis of Mark Buchan’s
“"Too Difficult for a Single Man to Understand": Medea's Out-Jutting Foot”
In Mark Buchan’s 2008 critical analysis of Euripides’ Medea, “"Too Difficult for
a Single Man to Understand": Medea's Out-Jutting Foot,” the author posits that King
Aegeus’ abrupt and (ultimately) mutually fruitless presence in Corinth serves as a quiet
illustrative parallel of Medea’s own status as a foreigner amongst Corinthians, as well as
subtly highlighting what he regards as the unfairly superficial treatment of the oracle by
other critics of this celebrated Hellenistic drama. Buchan feels that the brief interaction
between Aegeus and Medea is critically important to the overarching themes of the play,
such as nationalistic and marital fidelity, the subservient status of man to fate and the
whims of the gods, and the relative advantages and woes of childlessness versus
fecundity.
As mentioned in the title of the article, the writer also argues that the “out-jutting
foot” referred to by the oracle is most potently employed as a phallic symbol (Buchan 4)
euphemistically emblematic of the king’s lamented state of sterility and sexual frustration
(Buchan 17).

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As an extension of this, Buchan maintains that this scene further functions to
accentuate Medea’s status as a woman struggling to assert herself from male-dominate
subservience, both sexually and societally. He writes
When she [Medea] claims her enemies have wealth and a
tyrannical home ... the words not only refer to her present plight, but are
also a nod toward the future she is about to secure, and which the oath
guarantees. Indeed, the Aegeus scene functions as a kind of prenuptial
agreement, the first image of a future wife as she takes stock of the
customs at work in what will become her new home. So the seeds of a
"glorious separation" are planted, and Medea herself continues to stick out
as a woman not under male control (Buchan 16).
Buchan also brings to light many pertinent and striking parallels between Medea
and Sophocles’ dramatic masterpiece, Oedipus the King. Aegeus seeks the intervention of
Medea as a last-resort solution to his barren state only after meeting with dissatisfaction
at the oracle’s unwanted deposition. This last-ditch effort echoes that undertaken by King
Laius in Sophocles’ magnum opus, as the parents of the infant Oedipus, in their
desperation, seek to underhandedly defy the pronouncements of the oracle in attempting
(albeit ineffectively) to ensure the death of their ill-fated progeny (Buchan 5).
In the final solidification of his argument, the writer comments that the relative
desires of Jason and Aegeus serve to handily contrast one another as inverse reflections of
the ultimate fruits of superfluous “lust”:

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Aegeus and Jason are two different, male examples of the excess of desire.
Were we to translate the Chorus's advice to the specific characters of each,
their message to Aegeus would now be: "Do not want to know more, just
go home." To Jason: "Do not want to have more." And what they both lack
—for Jason, any desire to know, replaced by his desire to have; for
Aegeus, any desire to have, replaced by his desire to know—will be their
undoing (Buchan 7).
This is underscored, Buchan argues, by the unheeded and oddly enigmatic words of the
chorus regarding passions surfeit, “Loves that come to us in excess bring no good name
or goodness to men. / If Aphrodite comes in moderation, no other goddess brings such
happiness” (Buchan 7).
The critic's case is exquisite. Not only does Buchan succeed in adroitly applying
his sharp examination of one seemingly microcosmic scene in the play to each intricate
component of the overarching themes and symbolic premises of the drama, but also he
additionally manages to dexterously link the tragedy to that crowning dramatic
achievement of Sophocles, Oedipus the King.
I unreservedly agree with Buchan’s analysis. While perhaps not initially
ostensibly obvious, it is only logical that the Aegeus scene would function as more than a
space-filler. Euripides masterfully alludes to the distantly related tribulations of King
Aegeus and the drama’s tragic heroine in the poignant monologue of the ever-astute
chorus regarding progenitorial travails:

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And amongst mortals I do assert that they who are wholly without
experience and have never had children far surpass in happiness those who
are parents. The childless, because they have never proved whether
children grow up to be a blessing or curse to men are removed from all
share in many troubles; whilst those who have a sweet race of children
growing up in their houses do wear away, as I perceive, their whole life
through; first with the thought how they may train them up in virtue, next
how they shall leave their sons the means to live; and after all this ’tis far
from clear whether on good or bad children they bestow their toil. But one
last crowning woe for every mortal man I now will name; suppose that
they have found sufficient means to live, and seen their children grow to
man’s estate and walk in virtue’s path, still if fortune so befall, comes
Death and bears the children’s bodies off to Hades (Coleridge 57-58).
This ostensibly callous defenestration of all the assumedly implicit benefits of paternity
seems to underscore Medea’s filicidal contemplations, a factor which no doubt influenced
the manner of her calculated response to Aegeus’ initial beseechment. Medea bestows
upon him his desire for progeny, but only does so in a feeble and paradoxically selfish
attempt to secure salvation for her own children from her own homicidal impulsions.
Aegeus, on the other hand, appears fully impotent to recognize, much less objectively
contemplate, the darker side of the coin. The fact that his voracious longing for a royal
legatee had been eclipsed by his consuming zeal to gain understanding of the oracle’s
perplexing prognostication seems to have wholly escaped him. In light of this, Buchan’s

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macrocosmic analysis of the Aegeus scene insofar as it is pertinent to parenthood seems
superbly perceptive.
As Buchan also points out, the Aegeus scene is as much about the king’s sexual
incapacity as it is about Medea’s sexual alienation as a woman possessive of both an
independent spirit and intellectual dexterity in a society pervaded with an overtly
androcentric weltanschauung (Buchan 16). While the “out-jutting foot” of Aegeus serves
to symbolize his painful status as a man unable to fulfill the ancient world’s masculine
mandate of begetting offspring, Medea’s unorthodox womanhood functions as a two-way
mirror through which she is able to clearly identify Aegeus as a potential ally to an
imperiled foreigner such as herself, while the king is left only to stare dolefully at the
crystal reflection of his own inadequacies.
Ultimately, Buchan’s argument boils down to this: the interaction between Medea
and Aegeus is a brief yet potent inverted subsumption of the themes and philosophies
global to the drama. Without appearing as overtly fundamental or central to the work, it
serves as the perfect axis upon which the entire drama can be spun for the appropriately
deep, considerate, and multifaceted interpretative analysis that Euripides’ magnum opus
deservedly merits.

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Works Cited
Buchan, Mark. ""Too Difficult for a Single Man to Understand": Medea's Out-Jutting
Foot." Helios 35.1 (2008): 3-28. GALILEO. EBSCO Industries, Inc., Spring 2008.
Web. 6 Nov. 2013. <http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?
sid=0bd9b7e7-1767-4e52-
b580-3aa21974aaf0%40sessionmgr4&vid=1&hid=3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzL
WxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d>.
Coleridge, E. P., trans. Euripides' Medea. Cupertino: Vigo, 2011. Vigo Classics. Apple
iBook.