In Euripides' Medea, Plutarch's Words of Spartan Women, Lycurgus and Xenophon's Spartan Society, it is clear that filicide is a a byproduct of the dichotomy between honor and honor. shame society. Medea, the barbarian wife of a man who remarries to obtain citizenship, decides to inflict what she believes to be the same amount of pain and shame on those who have wronged her. On the other hand, in Plutarch's more historical approach, although still saturated with rhetoric and a kind of mythic esteem, the Words of the Spartan Women tell individual accounts of the pride that several Spartan female citizens felt in raising young men brave and ready for battle, as if opposed to their deep horror for any offspring whose fear and timidity in war brought them home. Nevertheless, in Lycurgus, Plutarch discusses Sparta as a whole and illustrates how the city's laws and practices took preemptive measures to avoid any acquisition of shame through a cowardly Spartan. Xenophon culminates the aforementioned notions of honor versus shame and therefore demonstrates how these actions lead to the obedience and fluidity of Spartan society. Contextually, this theme is approached in different ways, but the causal link between all of these readings is the retribution or prevention of shame. The following paragraphs explore how the intertwining of cultivated honor and shame mentally enabled and perhaps justified one of humanity's most despicable actions and the reasoning behind it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Dishonored by her husband after betraying her homeland for him (p. 74. 31-32), Medea laments the sequence of events that led to her current feelings of shame and humiliation. Many thoughts of death and uselessness consume her. According to her nurse (p 74. 24-26), “…she abandons her body to pain and exhausts the nights and days in tears, since she first discovered that she had been mistreated by her man .” Knowing the complexity of her character and her scheming nature, Medea's nurse could foresee that the children's lives were at stake simply by the way their mother looked at them whenever they were nearby. To Medea, her two sons represented the life she and Jason had built and what he was so quick to reject. Her sons were fresh, young, and fragile, as was the new, quieter lifestyle she and her husband were beginning to develop in Corinth. Even though they were not citizens of the city, Medea was able to succeed for herself and her family while supporting him. She undoubtedly clung to Jason as her only source of familiarity, and at this point of desperation, she felt like her life was meaningless without him. After the loss of her most precious possession, Jason, Medea was fearless and therefore took whatever she wanted. she ran the risk of wreaking as much havoc in his life as he had so innocently done in hers. When we find ourselves in a situation where we have nothing to lose, we tend to carry out the most drastic actions without remorse or repentance. In this case, Medea felt that the only way to punish the public shame of Jason's actions was to destroy his entire house (p. 106, 794), culminating in the murder of his own children. Adding insult to injury, she not only slaughtered the boys, but she also took away any chance Jason had of giving them a proper burial, something she knew he would so desperately demand. The shame that Jason.