Euripides, at the end of his life, wrote the Bacchae while he was living in exile in Mecedonia. The city in question is Thebes but there is a sense of a dying Athens. There is evidence of cult-worship that was on the rise in Athens at the end of the war. This play is about the resistance to divine power. Dionysus, who is the central character in this play, is unlike most gods in the fact that he is in human shape. He comes in the form of man and women and because he is a god his motives are not to be questioned. For when it comes to human fate the truth lies with the divine. Dionysus is a god who lacks mercy because of the punishments he inflicts on Cadmus's family. Pentheus has been a great king but he could not comprehend a god who came in the form of a man and for this Dionysus punished him. "Euripides has often been called a rationalist, a playwright who excelled in the workings of the mind, who celebrated logic and rational argument." In this play Euripides sho!.
ws many cases of black humor. For example, when Pentheus is wearing woman's dress with his hemline all askew. .
The Bacchae opens with Dionysus grieving over his mother's death. Hera outraged by Zeus's infidelity kills Semele, Dionysus's mother, with a lightning bolt while she is pregnant with Dionysus. Hera, however, did not know that Zeus hid Dionysus in the false womb of his thigh. Dionysus was therefore born again. Once he was grown he came to Thebes after he "set all Asia dancing" and proved himself to be a god. He made the women cry of ecstasy and clothed their flesh in the "skins of fawns". In their hands he put the thyrsus, a spear clothed in ivy. They wore this in memory of his mother. Dionysus has a hatred for his mother's sisters because they said that a mortal bedded Semele. They said that Zeus "put her to death" for claiming that she was pregnant with his child. For this Dionysus drove them mad into the wild mountains, which is now their home.
The Bacchae This play begins with the impregnation of Semele, princess of Thebes, by Zeus. ... Dionysus develops a religion based upon passion and ecstasy and travels all over Asia teaching his rites to men, forming the Asian Bacchae. ... The King of Thebes, Pentheus, denounces this new religion and plans to overtake this leader of the Bacchae. ...
In the Greek play Bacchae by Euripides, many of the characters, such as Dionysus, Cadmus, and Pentheus, have at least one of these aforementioned attributes, but the one with all those characteristics who would most likely be the tragic heroine of Bacchae is Agave. ... As the drama Bacchae nears its end, Agave's fate turns out to be more and more like that of a tragic heroine. ... Thus, taking this factor into account along with Agave's tragic flaw that causes her to lose her son and go from a respected noble down to a despicable and wretched exile, one would conclude that Agave t...
Bacchae were one of Euripides many works, this particular work deals with the different relationships of theater to various aspects of society, including its relationship to art itself. Dionysus is the principle subject of Bacchae, is the god of wine and revelry. ... In Bacchae, Dionysus possess a multitude of powers and can take a variety of forms as a god born of a mortal mother, Dionysus comes from both the Olympian heights which highlights him both inside and outside of the play. ... Dionysus was also a god of illusion, in which he makes several characters in the Bacchae see things that...
In the three plays, Agamemnon, Oedipus Rex, and The Bacchae, the Chorus is used for a variety of different reasons. ... The third and final play is The Bacchae. ... The Chorus in The Bacchae is used a lot for praising the gods and worshiping them. ... In The Bacchae, the chorus is more straightforward. ...
Sophocles and Euripides have provoked audiences for centuries to question what constitutes justice. While watching the various events onstage, spectators are led to ask if a definite form of justice exists in these plays, or whether notions of justice in the world are absurd. Furthermore, by present...
He rewarded those who would listen to him and he brought madness and death to those who refuse to accept his divinity, as seen in Euripides' play, Bacchae. ... As he spread the message of his worship, Dionysus is accompanied by a band of devotees, consisting mainly of women, the Bacchae. ...
Manipulation Manipulation, are there forces strong enough change a person in such a way that they might even forget about the people that they love? Well, in modern society this question has been answered in many different ways. In our everyday lives we hear about drugs manipulating people to th...
Mikey Ritualistic Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Mythology The ritual of sacrifice in Greek literature played a prominent role in societal influence, defining many aspects of their culture. Sacrifice was the foundation of moral concern, as well as an effective means of narrative development in Greek tragedy. The thematic reoccurrence of sacrifice in Greek literature reveals its symbolic importance. At a time when politics and religion were one in the same, sacrifice was crucial in regulating governmental issues. Tragedies manipulate rituals in order to portray a community's current sense of...
