Medea Journal 1:

Sophocles inflicts fear and pity in the audience with medea's situation. Medea is a daughter of a son of Helios. Here Medea kills her brother to run away with this man that she has fallen in love with. The man who loved her she has had children with married another woman. Now she is stuck with these children that remind her of Jason. She wishes she could kill her sons. This invokes fear on the audience that something similar to this could happen to them. They also have pitty for her for running away with this man and being considered a savage.