12/2/07 - Classical Literature - Euripides: Bacchae (2)

Dodds' psychoanalytic reading into the Bacchae sees Pentheus as a "dark Puritan."

Dionysus appears differently to everyone. Dionysus and Pentheus are both obsessed with power and women, but their first meeting, written in stichomythia, reveals they have different views entirely. Pentheus takes Dionysus' words literally. Pentheus wants something that he can't have, as only Dionysus' followers know the rituals and Dionysus uses this against him. Dionysus tells Pentheus he doesn't know who he is or what he is doing. Everything thereafter is about Dionysiac ritual and initiation.

Dionysus goes into the palace and shouts descriptions of the magical occurrences happening inside (gods never go inside in Greek tragedy). The chorus give an emotive reaction. Ancient rituals always begin with absolute darkness to separate one from one's identity and the light appearing represents a god coming or a miracle happening. Dionysus in the palace represents this initiation. Pentheus' reaction is diametrically opposed to the chorus'; he tries to fight against it and doesn't understand it.

The messenger constantly corrects Pentheus. The messenger relates the happiness and relaxation of the Bacchae to Pentheus, but warn that they are violent when attacked (they later attack all symbols of civilisation against the shepherds). Dionysus becomes a mystagogue, leading Pentheus through the last part of the initiation process at around line 677. The stages of initiation are related - clothing, a journey. Pentheus has eros, a sexual desire, to see the women on the mountains. Pentheus surrenders his masculinity to go to the mountain, although Pentheus and Dionysus use military language, emphasising Pentheus' role as a spy rather than a woman. Dionysus' plan comes at lines 717-727. He seems to display pleasure and amusement at Pentheus' punishment (humiliation and death), and remember that Pentheus is Dionysus' cousin. The play uses black comedy.

Pentheus sees two Dionysuses at line 777. Dionysus is actually two people - Pentheus' view and his own view. Pentheus is dressed like a sacrificial animal. Black humour shows Dionysus' enjoyment of Pentheus' humiliation. Pentheus hasn't changed, however. He still believes the women are sinning (815).

The messenger scene is a doublet of the earlier messenger scene, one which describes the Bacchae.

Pentheus moves through different levels identification with Dionysus; where Dionysus pulls down the pine tree (symbol of Dionysus and thyrsus) for Pentheus to sit on, the representation is of Dionysus' erection with Pentheus at his mercy. The scapegoating ritual means taking an animal and driving it out in a representation of the cleansing of the city. The bacchants throw stones at Pentheus like the scapegoat. Euripides makes the dismemberment scene as grotesque as possible. Pentheus pleads with his mother, to no avail. The body parts are scattered. It is grotesque for the Dionysia because 1. the Greeks considered human sacrifice as vile, and 2. after ripping the animal apart they eat the meat raw (one bacchant goes to the mountain with a foot). Cannibalism was a taboo subject for the Greeks, but Dionysus relishes in this description.

Euripides makes the punishment of Agave and Cadmus as vile as possible. See Cadmus' speech, 1079-81. Other Thebans are also punished by Dionysus. The recognition scene is the epiphany of Dionysus; Pentheus' head is placed on a thyrsus, and Cadmus and Agave acknowledge why they have been punished. Cadmus brings Agave out of her madness slowly by telling her to look on something else and to relate her past to him - this is the first mention of therapy in literature. Dionysus is restored to divinity at the end, by swinging on the machina of the Greek stage. Cadmus begs for mercy but Dionysus calmly refuses and seems to feel no sympathy. Cadmus says the gods should not resemble humans in their passions; he does not think that Dionysus was fair.

Euripides does not answer any questions, but stages issues with no answers. The nature of power is called into question - what is it, who has it (society, an individual or politicians) and how to control it. The worlds of Dionysus and Pentheus represent many oppositions (binary opposites), but which is most successful? One old and discounted view is that Euripides was writing about the awesome power of divinity (1150), rather than satirising the gods as usual, because he was close to death himself. But Dionysus' too human power, the extremity of the punishment and Dionysus' enjoyment of it disputes this theory. Perhaps Euripides simply wanted to portray the gods like humans, as beings who are not rational. Possibly the play represents the danger of suppressing the Dionysiac qualities within ourselves. Is it about the struggle between old and new religion? It could be an attempt to blur the divisions between male and female by demonstrating the destruction that can happen when rigid gender constructions collide. It could be about political power being taken over by an outsider. Or it could be a tragic view of life in general.