"I tried to read this morning, but I stopped in the quest for the Golden Fleece, distracted again by

Medea, who can only think of Jason, her face red, her heart aflame, engulfed by sweet pain. The goddess struck her with love, and she had no choices. I could not concentrate. My stomach was its own animal, and thoughts of Manny kept surfacing like swimmers in my brain; I had my own tender pain"(p. 109).

This passage demonstrates how deeply Esch relates to Medea. In the myth, Hera casts a spell of Medea, causing Medea to fall madly in love with Jason. Medea cannot stop thinking about Jason, and would do anything for him, no matter the request. Esch, as well, is completely infatuated by Manny, her own Jason. His rude actions and cold attitude towards does not matter in the eyes of Esch; her love always forgives him. However, for both Medea and Esch, their love isn’t enough; they are both brutally betrayed by the men they think they love. Jason and Manny are cruel to the girls, insulting their pride and choosing another girl to love. This passage is important because reveals the pain that often comes with love and loyalty.

This is an artistic depiction of Medea, created by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan in 1889 from London. It was displayed in the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.  

A white rose was chosen to symbolize Esch. A white rose symbolizes innocence, youth, and the idea that “I am worthy of you.” Esch is young, and innocence, driven by what she thinks is love. Her youth, her innocence, causes her to want to prove her worth to Manny; she wants Manny to love her back. The rose no longer symbolizes Esch at the end of the book. She soon realizes that Manny isn’t worth it (as well as when the hurricane stips her of her youth as she tries to survive).

“In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by the throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her.” (Ward 38)

The Quest of the Golden Fleece appeals specifically to Esch because, like Medea, she has fallen for someone who doesn’t love her back. After reading about how Medea offered so much to Jason but still never received the love she sought for, Esch realized that she was in the same situation. Never once rejecting Manny’s desires, he still never came around to love her. Esch, hurting from having to watch Manny being with his girlfriend and aware that he is the father of her baby, later realizes that she is not alone and has all the men she needs in her life.

Medea

In this picture, Medea is giving Theseus the poisoned cup, who is sitting next to his father King Aegeus.

Painted by William Russell Flint

 “In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by the throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her.”

-       Esch, Page 38

In Medea, Esch sees small pieces of herself. Her situation shadows Medea’s, a girl who gives everything to help a boy she thought she loved. As ties are severed and bridges are burned with Manny, Esch’s Jason, she realizes asking Manny to act as the father is unfeasible and unrealistic. She starts out in the novel as a small, breakable girl afraid to use her voice but grows into something sturdy and fierce-willed. 

Picture of Medea ↑

This artwork was submitted to historywitch.com in 2015. The artist is unknown.

I chose a picture of a wolf to symbolize Esch’s character at the end of the novel because I think it represents the brawn and grit Esch has learned to accept as a part of her life, and additionally, her.

“When the sun rests on the rim of the trees, we leave, and Manny is on the court now with his girl. They are playing a game of one-on-one, and he is taunting her, knocking the ball out of her hand so it ricochets across the court. Her laughter carries on the softening pink wind. Big Henry closes his door. I slam mine, and Randall scoots over to the passenger side of the windshield. Junior holds the top of the door, still standing on his bike, and Big Henry folds his big paw over Junior’s. Big Henry taps the gas and then eases, and this is how we follow Skeetah and China, who are both running now, both sucking dark and blazing bright under the setting sun and the scudding clouds all the way home.”

This event is significant because it reveals similarities between Medea and Esch, and it shows Esch’s emotions and reactions to Manny’s new relationship. It reveals that Esch feels a connection to Medea because, similarly to Medea, she felt that she showed all the love she possibly could to Manny and made huge sacrifices for him (the baby). When Esch realized she had been replaced, she reacted similarly to Medea finding out that Jason did not love her back. This was seen when Esch angrily drives away, which can be compared to Medea rejecting the gold Jason offered, and Medea completely cutting Jason off.

This allusion also revealed a central theme of jealousy. Jealousy made both Medea and Esch have different attitudes towards having children than most people. In Medea’s case, jealousy and hatred ultimately resulted in her killing the children, while Esch dreaded having the child and wished she could have gotten an abortion. This theme is significant and was revealed by this allusion because it showed Esch's feelings of regret and hatred.

This is an oil painting on canvas that was painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1828. It shows Medea killing her children and performing spells with the spell recipes laying on the ground around her.

I think that a lifeboat symbolizes Esch. This is because lifeboats are always used in times of danger when a boat is sinking and people need to be saved. The events that happen right before the book ends can be symbolized by a sinking boat. Since Esch survived these terrible events (harmful both emotionally and physically) and has to pull her life back together, she can be represented as a lifeboat because lifeboats provide order like she did in the end by attempting to keep her family calm and safe, and saving her baby.

Medea and Esch comparison

"I wondered if Medea felt this way before she walked out to meet Jason for the first time, like a hard wind come through her and set her to shaking (p. 7)."  Esch says this before going out to see Manny at the time of the birth of the puppies.  She feels this way because in her mind she's deeply in love with him even though he just views her as an object who he can have sex with whenever he wants (but she doesn't know this).  This is similar to how Medea felt, very excited to meet Jason, but at the same time feeling very uncomfortable, so much so that she even felt like she might not have even been able to do it.

This is a picture of Medea killing her brother in order to help Jason.  She felt like she was so in love with Jason that she would do anything.

This is a picture of a tree in the middle of the dessert because it symbolizes how even though almost everything around Esch is virtually gone of seriously damaged by the hurricane, she manages to stay strong.

"He is looking. He is seeing me, and his hands are coming around to feel the honeydew curve, the swell that is more than a swell, the fat that is not fat, the budding baby, and his eyes are so black they are all black, and they are a night without stars. All I have ever wanted. He knows. "Fuck!" Manny yells, and he is throwing me up and off of him. I hit the door behind me, the rough cat tongue of his face gone, and I grip steel, air, northing." (p.146)

Much like how Jason accepts Medea's help and companionship, but rejects her love, Manny wants to hook up with Esch but rejects her love and her pregnancy. This is a pivotal moment in Esch's character development because she goes from wanting Manny more than anything else to hating him, similar to the one-eighty Medea has when Jason gets engaged to the daughter of the King of Corinth. For the setting of modern day Mississippi having a child is when one has to commit to a relationship fully, and in the setting of ancient Greece that point was marriage. When both Medea and Esch get rejected at this point they have lost what they wanted most. This connection between Esch and Medea is important to the novel because it shifts from the perspective of trying to achieve a goal to trying to recover from the failure to reach that goal. This is the point where Esch's and Medea's paths start to differ, because while Medea dedicates herself to revenge after being rejected by Jason, Esch is able to move on and recover from being rejected by Manny, although it is a slow and painful process.

This representation of Medea was done in 1898 by Alfons Mucha as a poster for a French play telling the story of Medea.

At the end of the novel, Bois Sauvage lies in ruins, all of Skeets dogs are dead, Randall can't pursue his basketball career, Esch is pregnant and has been rejected by the father of the baby. Despite all the chaos and destruction around her, Esch remains calm and fights through it all, like this guy on the boat.

"In ancient Greece, for all her heroes, for Medea and her mutilated brother and her devastated father, water meant death. I heard the clanking of metal on metal outside, some broken machine tilting like a sinking headstone against another, and I knew it was the wind pushing a heavy rain." (Ward 216).

With all the drama going on, it is easy to forget that this is not just a love story but a chronicle of Hurricane Katrina too, and vice versa. In the myth, the Argonauts face many trials and tribulations getting from one place to another: The water itself with its currents, waves, and ability to pull anyone to their deaths; Charybdis who was also a challenge in The Odyssey; storms, magical rocks, the wrath of gods and everything in between. The heavy rain is a harbinger of what's to come when the hurricane hits full-on, the flooding, the water, and the desperation pull apart the lives of many living in Mississippi, take the lives of so many. With Esch at the center of her own personal storm, it was incredibly insightful for Jesmyn Ward to include that very bit to remind us that this is both a story of unrequited love and pain, and at the same time nature's treachery that no mortal can control. 

This image represents Esch at the end of the book because she has finally let go of her love or what she thought was love, and realized she has more ("this baby got plenty daddies") that is worth keeping close to herself. She is recovering from devastating events, both nature and the war going on inside herself and with Manny.

Jason and Medea Charming the Sleepless Dragon by C.G. Battista

In the above painting, we can see Medea leading the way and Jason gladly taking her help.