Throughout Euripides’ Bacchae, there are plot elements which seem out of place for tragedy. However, these out of place plot elements serve as a comedic relief and a way to further the underlying thematic elements of the play. One of these seemingly out of place plot elements is the comedic way Agave handles the death of her child, which indirectly furthers the theme of feminism in the play. Without the comedic elements, such as Agave, the audience would cease paying attention after uncomfortable situations, such as the brutal death of Pentheus. Therefore, the way Agave handles the death of her son emphasizes the underlying theme of feminism, because her behavior helps to refocus the audience’s attention to the play. Pentheus’ death is drastically …show more content…
Consider Pentheus’ rejection to “put on a woman's outfit,” because he claims that putting on a woman's outfit is “disgusting” (Bacchae 828/36). Pentheus’ rejection of putting on a woman’s outfit stems from his desire to be known as masculine and strong, which is the opposite of how he views women: feminine and weak. Pentheus also desires to be “able to sneak through the city without being seen” when he finally succumbs and wears a women’s outfit (Bacchae 840). This desire suggests that Pentheus views the women who don’t belong out in the city and rather belong in the household. This stark difference in how Pentheus views each gender, instills the audience with an expectation of women’s femininity and submissiveness to men. Euripides perhaps instills this false expectation to shock the audience when the women behave in a masculine and strong manner, such as ripping Pentheus limb from limb. Therefore, a mood of seriousness develops through the audience’s expectations flipped expectations and unfamiliarity with the gruesome death of Pentheus. This sudden change of mood also shifts the focus of the audience from viewing the play trying to comprehend what they just
In The Bacchae, I believe that Euripides uses the relationship of male and female to explore the alluring concept of feminine empowerment in a patriarchal society and to demonstrate the cost this empowerment subsequently has on ordered civilization. In this paper, I will argue that Euripides uses the conflictual relation between the genders to criticize the role of women in Greek society while also showing the consequences of a total feminine revolt. Through developing this conflict, Euripides is demonstrating how the path to the most successful civilization is through a balance of masculine rationality and feminine emotional freedom. I will prove this by analyzing the positions of Pentheus, the Bacchants, and Dionysus throughout the play. The character Pentheus
In her essay on, “Athenian Women,” Sarah Ruden points out that Aristophanes in Lysistrata portray women as supportive of Athenian institutions and eager to save them. But she cautions, “To do this now they must flout law, religion, and every notion of public decency – and this is definitely no reflection on women’s attitudes, but mere satirical farce and fantasy” (Ruden 107). An important element of “satirical farce” in this spirit would be a heavy use of repetition to make people laugh at the weakness being satirized. One example would not be enough, and the audience might not be amused by less than three or four examples. So in important episodes that fill out the action of the play, we have 4 examples of women beating guards,
This distinction between men and women is emphasized in Euripides’ The Bacchae. It is the women, and not the men, who are allured to follow Dionysus and practice his rituals: dancing, drinking, etc. It is seen as problematic to Pentheus and something must be done: “Women are laving home / to follow Bacchus, they say, to honor him in sacred rites. / Our women run wild upon the wooded hills, dancing to honor this new God, Bacchus, whoever he is” (215-218). There is a sense of lost, a need to retrieve the women, and return them to their place. “Our women run wild” creates the comparison of what their women would do amongst men and their society, as well as a sense of possession of the women (217). Agave recognizes the freedom from her daily confinements of her home when amongst the Bacchantes: “I quit my shuttle at the loom / for a higher calling, the hunting of wild beasts / with my bare hands” (1214-1218). There is a contrast of sitting behind the machine, the loom, and creating, or in this case destroying, by her own hands. Is it this contrast what drives the women of Thebes towards Dionysus? For what better creates a feeling of accomplishment then achieving a finished product by one’s power alone? The women are consequently pushed towards Dionysus because of the freedom he offers.
Examination of Dionysus's challenges should begin with The Bacchae's most obvious perversion of custom, the question of gender. As Dionysus indicates early in the play, the enraptured band of Bacchant followers is comprised only of females: "Every woman in Thebes-but the women only- / I drove from home" (35-36). Though Cadmus further illuminates the matter by raising the question, "Are we the only men / who will dance for Bacchus?" (195-196), the text offers no definitive explanation for why Dionysus calls solely upon the women. A superficial reading might suggest that Euripides attempted to portray the stereotypical "weaker sex" as the one "more susceptible to invasive passions than men, especially eros and daemonic possession," but more is probably at stake.
Euripdies' The Bacchae is known for its celebration of women's rebellion and patriarchial overthrow, claims which hold truth if not supremely. The Thebans, along with other women, pursue the rituals and culture of Dionysus’s cult which enacts their rebellion against men and the laws of their community. However, this motion to go aginst feminine norms is short lived as they lose power. When Agave comes to her epiphany, Dionysus is the one who is triumphant over Pentheus's death, not Agave or her sisters These women must be punished for their rebellion against both men and community. This female power is weakened and the rebellion muted in order to bring back social order and also to provide the story with a close. Female rebellion actually becomes oppressed through The Bacchae due to its conseqences and leading events of the play. This alludes to the message that women who do not follow traditional roles of femininity are subject to the destruction of an established society.
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
“Gender,” throughout the years has been defined and redefined by societies, and individuals. “Gender roles,” have, and still do contribute to these definitions. Literature contains prime examples of how gender roles were perceived in different time periods, showing readers the views of an author through the characters and their traits. Sophocles’ Antigone is a Greek tragedy, that heavily depicts the gender roles found in ancient Greek society, also providing insight into what would be seen as “normal” and “abnormal” behavior in relation to gender in Greece. In the play, Antigone, a daughter of the late King of Thebes, Oedipus, becomes distraught when she learns that her two brothers have killed each other, and furthermore, that her uncle and newfound king, Creon has forbidden the burial of one of her brothers.
In The Oresteia, Aeschylus encourages the importance of the male role in society over that of the female. The entire trilogy can be seen as a subtle assertion of the superiority of men over women. Yet, the women create the real interest in the plays. Their characters are the incentive that makes everything occur. The characters of Clytaemnestra, Cassandra, and the goddess Athena can demonstrate this.
Euripides is a keen witness to the human character and the father of the psychological theater. His plays were modern at the time compared to others because of the way he focused on the personal lives and motives of his characters, in a manner that was unfamiliar to Greek audiences. His plays have often been seen, in simple terms, bad because critics have been unable to comprehend his visions. The ideas and concepts that Euripides developed were not accepted until after his death.
Many different interpretations can be derived from themes in Euripides's The Bacchae, most of which assume that, in order to punish the women of Thebes for their impudence, the god Dionysus drove them mad. However, there is evidence to believe that another factor played into this confrontation. Because of the trend of male dominance in Greek society, women suffered in oppression and bore a social stigma which led to their own vulnerability in becoming Dionysus's target. In essence, the Thebian women practically fostered Dionysian insanity through their longing to rebel against social norms. Their debilitating conditions as women prompted them to search for a way to transfigure themselves with male qualities in order to abandon their social subordination.
Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ The Bacchae are indubitably plays of antitheses and conflicts, and this condition is personified in the manifestation of their characters, each completely opposed to the other. Both tragedians reveal tensions between two permanent and irreconcilable moral codes; divine law represented by Antigone and Dionysus and human law represented by Creon and Pentheus. The central purpose is evidently the association of law which has its consent in political authority and the law which has its consent in the private conscience, the association of obligations imposed on human beings as citizens and members of state, and the obligations imposed on them in the home as members of families. Both these laws presenting themselves in their most crucial form are in direct collision. Sophocles and Euripides include a great deal of controversial material, once the reader realizes the inquiries behind their work. Inquiries that pertain to the very fabric of life, that still make up the garments of society today.
Euripides shows his views on female power through Medea. As a writer of the marginalized in society, Medea is the prime example of minorities of the age. She is a single mother, with 2 illegitimate children, in a foreign place. Despite all these disadvantages, Medea is the cleverest character in the story. Medea is a warning to the consequences that follow when society underestimates the
As a ruler of the state one must be viewed as masculine and in control, however there are many examples in Euripides writing that leads one to believe deep inside he is not who he claims to be. One way in which this is evident during the play is that Pentheus is constantly negating his own viewpoints on masculinity and his outlook of women outwardly. However there are many actions he might not openly say that may lead one to believe he is confused about his gender identity. In the beginning of the play Pentheus criticizes the feminine appearance of Cadmus and Dionysus, however he finds himself dressed as a women and enjoyed it. Pentheus initially has a deep hatred for the women who abandoned their homes for the mountains to commit what he thinks are vile sex acts. Yet as the play progresses he becomes extremely curious about what the women on the mountainside are doing under Dionysus’ order and when the opportunity presents itself to spy on the women he is ecstatic. Pentheus makes it seem as if he needs to witness these women, not for the sake of the state, but for his personal voyeurism. His obsession with the women’s hidden behavior may reflect not sexual interest, but a desire to know more comprehensively a group with which he identifies himself as, but the social norms in society have restricted him from expressing. Between his
Theater was an important part of Ancient Greek Civilization. History of Greek theatre began with religious festivals which aim to honor Dionysus, a god. During the festivals some citizens sing songs and perform improvisation plays and other participants of festivals judges this performances to decide which one of them was the best. These plays form the foundation of the Greek Theatre. Because of the competition between performers to create best performances, plays gained an aesthetic perspective and became a form of art. So, theatre as a part of religious rituals took attention of people and gained an importance in Ancient Greek Society.
Women’s lives are represented by the roles they either choose or have imposed on them. This is evident in the play Medea by Euripides through the characters of Medea and the nurse. During the time period which Medea is set women have very limited social power and no political power at all, although a women’s maternal and domestic power was respected in the privacy of the home, “Our lives depend on how his lordship feels”. The limited power these women were given is different to modern society yet roles are still imposed on women to conform and be a dutiful wife.