Justice for Pentheus He is stripped of his authority. He isn’t in his right mind. He watches his palace go up in flames. He is ripped apart by his own mother. Poor Pentheus is toyed and tinkered with until his very last breath by none other than his own cousin, Dionysus. His choice, as king of Thebes, to repress the all-powerful god not only lost him his kingdom but ultimately his life. The Bacchae of Euripides is a battle between the strength of a king and the power of a god, but it also reveals the great lengths that family rivalries can go to. Dionysus sought revenge, and revenge he obtained. He announces to the city of Thebes, “Your lives will wear away like sand” (83). Cruelty and suffering came barreling at Pentheus and his family faster …show more content…
As ruler of the city, Pentheus is only fulfilling his duties and tries to protect his people from danger. He does not want his laws and traditions to go to hell because of a stranger who showed up out of nowhere and wreaked havoc on the city. Pentheus is rightful to say, “I don’t know who this stranger is, / but doesn’t such insulting outrage deserve hanging?” (20). Appearing unannounced and unwelcome and brainwashing all the women of Thebes does not help Dionysus’ argument that he is a god or help convince Pentheus and his …show more content…
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He lashes out at Pentheus to subdue his embarrassment and drives all the women mad and running to the mountainside.
Who is Dionysus’ reprisal really meant for? I presume that this hate is directed towards his own mother, yet Pentheus and his family are the target. Pentheus is wise to not trust Dionysus. Dionysus messes with him repeatedly and torments him, while Pentheus stays completely blind to his near fate. Dionysus leaves Pentheus weak, confused, and gullible. Dionysus confesses part of his plan,
Make him insane. Give him ecstasy, and madness.
In his right mind, he’d never wear that woman’s dress, but driven from his sense, he’ll slide right into it.
I want him to be the laughingstock of Thebes, led through the streets, costumed as a woman, after all the bragging that made him seem so fearsome.
And how smart Odysseus was “And no one could there hope to rival Odysseus, not for sheer cunning-at every twist of strategy he excelled us all.” (p.111 134-136). After talking with old King Nestor Telemachus and Athena sailed off toward Sparta to meet with King Menelaus. They arrived during a double wedding for the king’s two children, where King Menelaus tells them his story “No man alive could rival Zeus, ...but among men, I must say, few if any could rival me in riches.” (p.127 87-90). Then he starts grieving for Odysseus “That man who makes sleep hateful, even food, as I pour over his memory. No one, no Achaean labored as hard as Odysseus…how they mourn him too, Laertes, Penelope, and Telemachus as well.” (p. 127-128 120-126) as well as Telemachus.
Odysseus returns home and seeks revenge on the suitors that plague his wife. In order for him to be successful with the revenge he must use his cunning, knowledge of battle and his desire to be with his wife Penelope.
Electra is saturated with the Dionysian quest for vengeance that prevails also in The Bacchae. It is found again in Frankenstein, a work bubbling over with vengeful deaths. This Dionysian pursuit for vengeance is carried out on family offenders, whether they are of the family in question or not. Dionysus, a member of Cadmus' family, causes the death of his cousin Pentheus. Pentheus commits a deadly mistake when he denies Dionysus as a god and attempts to capture him, thus invoking the wrath of Dionysus. This is the same type of vengeance found in Electra's family. In Electra's family, if one commits a family offense, an unending cycle of the Dionysian principle of vengeance ensues: vengeance takes precedent over family ties, thus forsaking them. With Victor Frankenstein and his monster, the principle is also at work, though it exists for each of them in response to the other.
In The Bacchae, Euripedes portrays the character of Pentheus as an ignorant, stubborn, and arrogant ruler. These character flaws accompanied with his foolish decisions set the stage for his tragic downfall. Pentheus' blatant disregard to all warnings and incidents, which prove that Dionysus is truly a god, lead him to his own death. In the end, his mistakes are unforgiving and his punishment is just.
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound portrays a greek god detained by a superior for disobedience against the latter’s rule. On the other hand in Euripides’ Hippolytus portrays lust and vengeance of the gods and the extent that they can go to to avenge it.
In this essay, I hope to provide answers to how the actions of Hippolytus and Phaedra relate to the gods, whether or not the characters concern themselves with the reaction of the gods to their behavior, what the characters expect from the gods, how the gods treat the humans, and whether or not the gods gain anything from making the humans suffer. Before we can discuss the play, however, a few terms need to be defined. Most important would be the nature of the gods. They have divine powers, but what exactly makes the Greek gods unique should be explored. The Greek gods, since they are anthropomorphic, have many of the same characteristics as humans.
The play's plot, in a nutshell, develops like this. After solving the riddle of the Sphynx, who had kept Thebes under a curse of some kind, Oedipus is invited to become king of the city. He marries Jocasta, the widow of the previous king, and they have two children. When the play begins, Thebes is again under some sort of curse, and Oedipus tries to find out its cause so that he can rescue the city. He is told that the cause of the curse is that the murderer of the previous king is still in the city and has gone unpunished. In the process of searching for the murderer, Oedipus discovers that it is he, himself, who is responsible and that he is actually the son of Jocasta and her previous husband. Horrified by his sins of incest and murder, Oedipus claws out his eyes. Jocasta commits suicide because she is so disgraced.
Even though Pentheus death at the hands of his own mother is more atrocious Dionysus gave Pentheus various opportunities to make up for his mistakes while in Ovid’s version it is set in prophecy by Tiresias. We hardly get to learn about Dionysus in Ovid’s version unlike in Euripides where Dionysus plays a much larger role in the demise of
Born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta in the city of Thebes, Oedipus is surrounded with controversy after a prophecy shows that Oedipus will be destined to murder his father and marry his mother. Fearing the potential consequences of the prophecy, Oedipus’ parents made the decision to abandon their baby at the top of a mountain to die using one of their servants. The servant’s consciousness, however, causes him to instead deliver the baby to a shepherd, who in turn sends him to King Polybius and Queen Merope of the kingdom Corinth. After raising the child as their own, Oedipus becomes suspicious that these weren’t his biological parents and leaves Corinth upon hearing the prophecy by the oracle Delphi. As he unknowingly travels to his birth city, Thebes, Oedipus murdered a man along with his servants after a dispute between them. Before entering Thebes, Oedipus is confronted by the guardian of the city’s Gates, the Sphinx who presents him with a riddle. If he solves the riddle, he will be able to pass. If he doesn’t, he’ll die. Oedipus’s superior intelligence and cleverness allows him to easily solve the riddle, however unbeknownst to him will be a foreshadowing of his tragic downfall. The citizens of Thebes praise Oedipus and Queen Jocasta offers to marry him since her husband was mysteriously murdered. Upon marry Jocasta and becoming the King of Thebes, a powerful plague decimates the citizens of
Demosthenes wrote this speech against Meidias because he had been abused by him and because of the lack of respect Meidias had during the religious festival which Demosthenes was in charge of putting together. According to the speech, Demosthenes had volunteered to produce the men’s chorus for his tribe at the city of Dionysia, the annual festival in honor of Dionysus, which included tragic and comic performances as well as choral songs. Demosthenes is longstanding enemy, Meidias, allegedly tried to stop Demosthenes is chorus from winning the competition through various means including, trying to prevent the chorus from receiving the typical exemption from
Altogether, Euripides’ narrative, along with the three pieces
There is a copious amount of major characters in the story. Some of them include Odysseus, the main character, who is a soldier and returns home after a twenty-year absence. Some of his family includes Laertes, his father, Penelope, his wife, and Telemachus, his son. There are many gods that Odysseus must battle on his journey home, including Zeus, who is said to be father of all gods, and Poseidon, the god of the ocean who punishes Odysseus and his crew by giving them a very difficult trip home after they blind his son, Polyphemus, or the Cyclops by blinding him after stabbing him in the eye. Another major character is Calypso, a sea goddess who is in love with Odysseus.
The myth offers an anecdote on the bridling of such a strong power as seen through the encounter of a seemingly captured Dionysus in the court of Pentheus. Despite how hard Pentheus tries to have his prisoner tied up, he finds it impossible to do so. Finally, resorting to hitting Dionysus with a knife, unleashes an earthquake that shakes the palace leaving Pentheus in a stupor. This highlights the old saying of the tighter a gripping one is to have, the more sand he loses. In this case, the more restricted a society gets, the more people will be rebellious.
... those phaeacians who have helped Odysseus to return home. And for Calypso, she tried to offer Odysseus the immortal life and promising him to be his eternal wife, but Odysseus’s love for his wife Penelope pushes him to fight for his return
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.