The play from Moraga has many gothic, Chicano/a and Greek elements. Firstly, it is the story of Medea, beginning from her sorrow from getting divorced from Jason because he cheated on her with another woman to her having to question if she is loosing her two children to him in a custody battle. It is interesting to see how the Greek mythologies and indigenous religious practices come together in this story. “You betrayed us, Madre Coatlicue. You, anciana, you who birthed the God of War”(92). The gothic elements come through with the indigenous religious practices, such as when Medea, dressed in black stands before the altar of Coatlicue burning copal and says, “…teach me your seductive magic…make him shiver within the folds of my serpent skin”(51). Here we see the elements of what makes gothic literature like; fire, magic and darkness. Another example of darkness is when Cihuatateo says that her child was born “from the dark sea of Medea”(9).
It also has many Chicano elements because it explains their Mexican background, as in Jason’s case, and the struggles that Chicanos are faced with. Jason is described as having come from a “U.S. Air Force father, the quarter-breed mestizo-de-mestizo cousins, your mother’s coveted Spanish coat-of-arms”(70). This quote shows us that Jason was of mixed blood, Mexican, American and Spanish, making him Chicano. The struggles that the Chicano group face are in “Uniting the disenfranchised diaspora of Indian-mestizos throughout the Southwest”(23). Also in the finding a homeland, “”We seek our home” And the seeking itself became home”(24). The struggles to find land that Native American ancestors had has been very troublesome because of dual-colonization creating so much destruction and ethnic mixtures. The history of the southwest lands is seen in the play when Medea says, “I will teach her of her own embattled and embittered history”(70), which goes to tell the reader of their long history and the many battles the indigenous and mixed cultures in this region have had to go through.