Femininity In Euripides The Bacchae

Euripides’ The Bacchae is the story of the punishment of Pentheus, the king of Thebes, and the city of Thebes by the god Dionysus. This psychologically invigorating narrative explores the complexities of femininity through the apparent liberations of the women in the play and Dionysus himself. Euripides challenges the Athenian norms surrounding power and democracy by challenging Athenian perceptions of equality through gender. At the beginning of the play Dionysus has come to Thebes in disguise in order to take revenge on his mother’s sisters for saying that she lied about Dionysus’s immortal conception and to “show [Pentheus] and all of Thebes” (Euripides, page 231) that he is actually a god. After a messenger relays that he’s seen a group of Dionysus’s followers, including Pentheus’s mother, in the forest where they slaughtered a herd of cattle with their bare hands, Dionysus

This element further adds to the disorder and confusion brought to Thebes. Take, for example, the chorus, or the Bacchantes, who are worshippers of Dionysus by their own volition. They cause Pentheus much discomfort at the beginning of the play, as these women are powerful and independent and pose a threat to his ideal moral code. Agave and her sisters, although driven mad by Dionysus, defeat Pentheus, the male king who is the epitome of male power in Athens. The women that Dionysus has “worked into a frenzy and driven from their homes to roam the hills, out of their minds” (Euripides, page 230) challenge Greek norms that women should stay in the home. While the liberation of the women of Thebes isn’t the ideal feminist emancipation, as the women are driven out of their home by the magic of Dionysus, Dionysus himself straddles the duality of masculine and feminine forms and still successfully challenges Athenian