In Euripides’ Medea, towards the end Medea find out that Jason has cheated on her and started a new life with a new wife. She is quite hurt and upset by all of this and acts out in fits of jealousy and rage. In Carrie Underwoods’ “Before He Cheats,” she sings of a man that has cheated on her and the acts of rage she carried out against him. They both highlight this feeling that is, unfortunately, known to some (maybe even many) of wanting to hurt the person that hurt you and wanting to embarrass them in the way that you have been embarrassed. They both portray the women threatening someone else. Medea threatens to do terrible things to Jason’s new wife and children and Underwood threatens that the guy should think before he ever does this again and is setting an example for what to expect should he.
A major difference between these two works, though, is that Medea caused much more detrimental harm than the woman Underwood portrays in her song. Medea goes onto murder people and destroy peoples’ lives whereas Underwood’s character merely breaks a few things causing some embarrassment and probably expensive damage. She is not, however, murdering the woman he cheated on her with.
“Since you are base, your death will be fittingly mean: you’ll be struck on the head by a piece of your ship, Argo, a bitter termination to your marriage with me.” (1386-1387)