Analysis Of The Bacchae

The Bacchae, is a late tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, and it is considered one of his best works and one of the greatest of all Greek tragedies. It was written around 410 BCE, but it only premiered after his death at the City Dionysia festival of 405 BCE, where it won first prize (Euripides). The story is based on the myth of King Pentheus of Thebes, who are punished by the god Dionysus for refusing to worship him, and his mother, one of the women worshippers. Euripides had a unique versatility, this characteristic is reflected in his play The Bacchae where he offers an innovative outlook on women and their roles in Greek mythology.

Euripides became one of the best-known for his famous tragedies that reinvented Greek myths. Because of his innovative form of writing he was not very successful in contest during his lifetime, his success came came during the fourth century. Women are particularly prominent in Euripides works, many of his pieces contain allusions to sexual boundary crossing. Euripides acknowledges and even exaggerates the role and power of women, something that had not yet been recognized in the Greek theatre. At this period women

Women are the devoted worshippers of Dionysus and when they take to the hills, they abandon their duties within the cultural order of the city. At the beginning their sabbatical into the woods they still embrace a nurturing function, but when a group of herdsmen pursue them, the women begin to mimic masculine behavior by hunting animals, ransack villages, and defeat men in a pitch battle. Conversely, their persecutor, King Pentheus, is intrigued by womens strange behavior yet determined to suppress them. He agrees to dress up as a woman so that he can spy on their rituals, there he is mistaken for a wild animal and his own mother, Agave, leads the manic women who tear his limbs off like hunters, his reversal was ultimately his