The return of the Medea: Bridging dichotomies in contemporary German culture (Ula Stoeckl, Christa Wolf)

"The Return of the Medea" addresses the question of why a mythological figure like Medea, whose literary and artistic fame has been based on the representation of female aggression, has become the focus of artistic expression in contemporary German culture. Specifically, my study examines the psychoanalytic notion surrounding the return of the repressed in the human psyche, which Medea in many ways represents, from a cultural-historical perspective. The change in the representation of Medea at different historical moments can be read as an indication of larger cultural shifts. These shifts have always been accompanied by major reassessments of national identity. The formation of national and cultural identities throughout the history of Western civilization was, and still is, based on the dualistic and hierarchical principle of self versus other, which both Euripides and contemporary German authors try to expand and to overcome.; The first chapter is devoted to an examination of the ancient Greek cultural and philosophical context in which Euripides' drama Medea is situated. A discussion of mimesis as well as of cultural politics in contemporary Germany follows as part of the attempt to deconstruct traditional patriarchal binarisms, and to explain Medea's recent return to the cultural and artistic scene in Germany. An analysis of Christa Wolf's novel Medea. Stimmen (1996) and Ula Stockl's film Der Schlaf der Vernunft (1986) concludes the discussion of German post-Wall national and cultural identity.; My study shows that Medea is representative of the return of the repressed feminine side of Western culture and, as such, mimetically occupies an in-between space, indicating the breakdown of old binaries as well as the emergence of a new consciousness for all of Western civilization.