The Differences Of Dionysus's 'The Bacchae'

789 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Dionysus'influence on modern culture

The Bacchae indicates that Dionysus is not concerned with morality since his way of controlling people and seeking revenge is viewed as corrupt. Dionysus is a god born of a mortal mother, therefore the people of Thebes deny he’s a god. He sought revenge against those who denied him as a god by murdering and driving them insane. Pentheus denied his status as a god and failed to honor him as such. Dionysus got revenge by forcing Pentheus’s mother to kill his own son. The women of Thebes denied his status as a god, therefore, he drove them insane. The way the women worshipped Dionysus is viewed as immoral and cruel since they are controlled without their own will. Dionysus is the god of wine; wine represents celebration and festivities. Although wine can help people relieve their worries, it can cause them to experience drunkenness. Once someone is drunk they can be destructive and lose control of their thoughts and judgment. Once they are controlled by Dionysus they do not always know the difference between what is …show more content…

Although, he is the god of wine who gives festivities and tranquil state of mind. He causes people lose control of their sanity which leads to negative consequences. These actions contradict the norms of society, specifically targeting the role of women who are supposed to be civil. Instead, they dance and worship Dionysus out of their own will. He has a wicked way of punishing those who denied his existence as a god by driving them crazy. His powers lead from being peaceful to destructive. If Dionysus was concerned with morality he will not lead others to lose their sanity or control them against their own will. His actions of seeking revenge are viewed as cruel for murdering those who claim he is not a god. The way he sought revenge to punish those who believed he was not a god shows that he is not concerned with

Show More
Related

  • Public Validation of Gender in Euripides’ "The Bacchae"

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Euripides: Bacchae, Alcestis, And Medea

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Euripides was born in Athens, Greece, around 485 B.C, with parents Cleito and Mnesarchus. He married a woman named Melito and had three sons. Euripides was raised in an ambience of culture, he was witnessed to the rebuilding of the Athenian walls after the Persian Wars, but above all belonged to the period of the Peloponnesian War. Over his career, he has written about 90 plays, but only 19 have survived through manuscripts. Euripides has been named as the most intellectual poet of his time. He has been called the philosopher of the theater. In addition to his literary expertise, he is said to have been a great athlete and painter. Like all the major playwrights of his time, Euripides participated in the annual Athenian dramatic festivals held in honor of the god Dionysus. He first entered the festival in 455, and he

    Read More

  • The Honorable Odysseus of Homer's Odyssey

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    Indeed those who occupied the lord’s manor during his absence did so with no honor.  But one may argue that Odysseus’ method of punishment was far too brutal, especially for the murder of the ladies who had dishonored his household.  How could a man of respectable qualities do such a horrid thing, how could he soak his own home in blood?  Even after Odysseus had killed Atinoos, those who begged mercy saying that Antinoos had led them to their dishonor, were slain brutally.  All this harshness to others because Odysseus desired revenge on the number of men lusting for Penelope.  This seems unjustifiable, and very inhumane.  Odysseus was so overcome with his hate that he lost control, perhaps it was his years of denying the power of the gods that led him to brutality.  Odysseus’s actions are indeed aggressive and morality at this point in his life seems to have faded.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dionysos

    2481 Words  | 5 Pages

    3 & 4. 27 B.C – A.D 68 by unknown artist, but restored by Pacetti Vincenzo

    Read More

  • Dionysus and the Unraveling of Ideologies in The Bacchae

    1916 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ty since "things could happen in the real life of Athens which were virtually unthinkable in tragedy, and vice versa." Perhaps the safest assessment of Dionysus is that while not a direct opponent of the traditional ways, his presence, and especially his effect on other characters, serves to highlight many social norms. According to Bernad Knox, "From start to finish, Euripides was 'attempting to show citizens bred in the traditional views...that such conceptions of the gods should offend them.'" Perhaps we as readers will never fully understand the Dionysus that appears in this play, but a closing look at a remark of the Chorus may bring us a step closer to this understanding:

    Read More

  • The Indian Triumph of Dionysus

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...t is also important to notice that every character seems to have wide eyes and dark circles drawn under their eyes. This is perhaps one of the most important aspects because the eyes show the underlying theme of complete inebriation. This in turn, proves the impact that Dionysus had on his followers as well as those who he conquered. Wine brought great power to its creator, and made a lasting impact on history. With these devices of communication, we are able to see that the follower wanted to capture Dionysus’s legacy by creating a sarcophagus of remembrance in his honor.

    Read More

  • How Aristotle Would View Odysseus

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first main event that revenge occurred was when the Odysseus and his crew sailed to the land of the Cyclopes. Out of curiosity the crew wanted to make acquaintances with the Cyclopes for a little hospitality. The book describes the Cyclopes as “Lawless savages who leave everything up to the Gods…They have no assemblies or law but live in high mountain caves, ruling their own children and wives and ignoring each other” (9.105-112). Odysseus and his men decided to camp out in one of the Cyclops’s dwelling and wait for him. They really did not consider the thought that they might be harmed because during Odysseus’ time it was the law to be hospitable to strangers and guest who were foreign to your country. But as the book has already stated that these were creatures that had no laws. Now Odysseus and his men are in the cave when the Cyc...

    Read More

  • Female Rebellion and It's Impliactions in The Bacchae

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Feminine Empowerment In The Bacchae

    1765 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Theme of Justice in the Odyssey and the Bible

    2498 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Greeks in the Odyssey viewed justice as only coming from the gods.  They believed the gods punished them because they have fallen out of their favor, and not because they had really done anything wrong by human standards.  As Socrates later stated in the Euthyphro, what is holy, and perhaps then just, is what is “approved by the gods.”  Although Socrates proved this to be wrong, it still shows the view of most Greeks.  Zeus in the opening book of the Odyssey stated, “Upon my word, just see how mortal men always put the blame on us gods!  We are the source of evil, so they say- when they have only their own madness to thank if their miseries are worse than they ought to be.”   This shows that the Greeks feared justice; they felt it was negative and often undeserved.  However, each Greek deserved his punishment because he has a hand in its reason.  For example, when Odysseus’s troops killed the cattle of Helios, they deserved Zeus destroying their ships because he had warned Odysseus beforehand not to let the men eat the cattle. When the Greeks disobeyed the gods, they disrupted the right order of things, and when the gods punished them, they made the other Greeks respect them once again, and thus fixed the balance of the world.

    Read More

  • Dionysius I of Syracuse

    2825 Words  | 6 Pages

    Sources tend to portray Dionysius rule in a negative light and seemingly avoid the latter part of his reign. L. Pearson suggested that the reason for this was because Philistus was in exile at the time (since many sources rely on him for a firsthand account) meaning there was a lack of information. Diodorus provides the most compressive surviving work of Dionysius rule but follows the anti-tyrannical tradition.

    Read More

  • Repression of Women in Euripides' The Bacchae

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Bacchus And Ariadne Analysis

    183 Words  | 1 Pages

    Titian often made art that displayed religious events or classical allegory. In this painting Titian tells the love story of Bacchus and Ariadne. Ariadne seems to mourn her love that has just abandoned her, and Bacchus comes forward in a diagonal angle towards the foreground. Bacchus is the god of wine and intoxication and has his followers partying behind him as he rides his chariot led by cheetahs. The background information of Ariadne and Bacchus explains why their bodies are in such contrasting movement. The muscles in their bodies are slow in catching up with the movement of their heads causing dynamic tension. The gaze they share is dramatic and passionate because it is the only portion of the painting that is not in motion. Chiaroscuro

    Read More

  • Homer's The Odyssey

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...tested Odysseus to make sure it was him for she “feared some man might come and cheat [her] with his tale” (Homer, 226) showing how truly loyal she is to Odysseus. Although Odysseus was unfaithful there is no consequence for his actions for he is a man but for those women who were unfaithful it could be see how they are punished by men. In the case of Odysseus’ maids they were “unworthy” for they laid with the suitors and as punishment Telemachus says that “By no honorable death [their lives will be taken]” (Homer, 220). The difference in expectations between men and women when it comes to loyalty promotes gender inequality which makes the views The Odyssey has on society rather misogynistic.

    Read More

  • Greek Tragedy

    396 Words  | 1 Pages

    Greek tragedies began at a festival in honor of Dionysius, who was the god of wine. At the early festivals, drinking, quarrels, and sexual activity occurred frequently. Later on, tragedies gained much more respect and were taken very seriously. The plays dealt with man's relationship with god(s). These plays also dealt with a specific instance of life. The chorus wore goat-skins and served a great purpose in the tragedies, themselves. Thespis, the father of the tragedy, created an actor who talked with the leader of the chorus to further make the importance of the chorus seen.

    Read More

More about The Differences Of Dionysus's 'The Bacchae'

Open Document