Christa Wolf's "Medea" & Rene Girard

Dragging through Wolf's Medea (loved her City of Angels, the last book I read by her, but this one is so-so), but I thought I'd see what she had to say before I dipped into Euripides' version.

Anyway, each chapter is a "voice," and each chapter/voice has an epigraph. This is where I first ran into the name of Rene Girard (both quotes are from his text: Violence and the Sacred).

From Chapter Seven: Leukon:

People want to convince themselves that their misfortunes come from one single responsible person who can easily be got rid of.

From Chapter Eight: Medea:

The festival has lost all of its ritual characteristics, and it ends badly insofar as it finds its way back to its violent beginnings. It is no longer a hindrance to the forces of evil, but their ally.

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