Within Greek mythology, madness was often perceived as being a curse from the Gods. Scull highlights that, within Greek drama and Homeric myth, madness is a symptom of machinations of the Gods, but also a symptom of the agonies of guilt and responsibility, the conflicts thrown up by duty and desire, the unshakeable effects of shame and grief, the demands of honor and the disastrous impact of hubris. The Greek tragedies dramatize these elemental conflicts of mind – either a hero or a heroine, tormented as a plaything of the gods or the demands of a love rival. Porter argues that in Greek drama and mythology “the inescapable result is madness: they go out of their minds, raging and rampaging utterly out of control”, such as in the tragedy of Medea, when she murders her children in a …show more content…
Madness as a divine punishment is a thread which runs through many myths. The madness may be the punishment itself, or the instrument of punishment, such as with Heracles. Treatment of mental illness in ancient times often had untenable links to religion – as people who were observed to have been struck with madness were considered as being punished by the gods or possessed by demons, many treatments were aimed towards clearing the patient’s body of any spirits which may have taken over. Porter highlights that archaeologists have discovered skulls which can be dated back to at least 5000 BC which have been “trephined” or “trepanned” – meaning that small round holes have been bored in them with flint tools. It is believed that this was done to allow any demons or spirits possessing the body to escape. The gods had also been held responsible for epileptic fits – known as ‘the sacred disease’, people were believed to have been possessed by a demon or a spirit which fought with their body and
Many thematic issues are found in modern plays from classic myths in the book Nine Muses by Wim Coleman. Long ago, when life was full of mysteries, myths, or explanations, helped people make sense of a perplexing world. Myths also explain deeper questions. Such as, how did the world itself come to be? How did life begin? How were human beings created and why? And why is there suffering and death in the world? People of ancient cultures all over the world puzzled over such questions, and they created stories to answer them. One of the main thematic issues in Nine Muses is the tragic effect of engaging in actions which are forbidden. Some plays which express this thematic issue are “Pandora”, “Phaeton and the Sun Chariot”, and “Eros and Psyche”.
Bainbridge, Erika. “Women’s madness in three major dramatic traditions: Greek, Elizabethan, and Japanese Noh.” Abstract. Diss. U of Illinois, 1991. Web. 04 May 2014.
No person is inherently mad; humans have caused other humans to drown their own sanity which can then submerge that person into an ocean of madness. Historically, madness had become a common occurrence with women due to several stress factors they must endure on a daily basis: finding a husband, baring children, raising children, find a suitable job, retaining femininity, and more. Authors Charlotte Gilman and Jhumpa Lahiri explored the psyche of two women who were facing very stressful situations. Gilman’s The Yellow-Wallpaper, introduces her readers to an unnamed nineteenth century woman who is slowly falling into madness. The protagonist must endure the “rest cure” where she must live without artistic expression, human contact, or freedom to go where she pleases. After months of enduring, she is ultimately shoved into madness by her husband, whom originally started her treatment. Lahiri’s protagonist, Aparna, is forced into an arranged marriage, and then moves to Boston with her new husband to live a new life with their daughter, Usha. Aparna is being neglected by her husband, finds it difficult to adjust to Boston culture, and spends most of her time being a house wife. She finally finds a friend, and possibly a love, in another Bengali man named Pranab. Once he was engaged and then married, Aparna revels to Usha that she was on the brink of committing suicide. Both characters were being controlled and had little to no say in what they could or could not do. These restraints with the added on stress that they faced cause both to the edge of madness. Women who had to withstand the struggles of doing what is expected of them while still attempting to do what they desire encounter many restraints that force them to stray away fr...
The controversial topic of insanity manifests itself commonly in Romantic writing, and has been one much disputed over time. Some say that people who seem crazy are so above our own level of thought and understanding that we can’t possibly begin to identify with them and that we can find genius in the form of ordinary lunatics who connect to God and divinity in ways “normal” people don’t comprehend. Throughout works such as “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Castaway”, the authors question insanity with ideas that show the possible outcomes when one looks deep inside themselves for a divine spark or intuition. Both of these stories address madness in different forms, and madness itself is Godly experiences gone wrong; the person who receives the divine vision is unable to handle its raw truth.
The tragic play Medea is a struggle between reason and violence. Medea is deliberately portrayed as not a ‘normal woman’, but excessive in her passions. Medea is a torment to herself and to others; that is why Euripides shows her blazing her way through life leaving wreckage behind her. Euripides has presented Medea as a figure previously thought of exclusively as a male- hero. Her balance of character is a combination of the outstanding qualities of Achilles and Odysseus.
Madness feeds on people’s greed, taking hostage of their desires and controlling them. It drives people into doing things they otherwise wouldn’t have even thought about doing when they were sane. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet had overwhelming depression over the death of his father and his mother’s overly excitable attitude combined with the soon known knowledge of his father’s killer; he is fueled with hatred for both his mother and his uncle. Hamlet’s madness is indeed justified by the morbid disasters that are going on around him in the play.
The treatment of the mentally ill started back in the far past. In 400 BC, Hippocrates, who was a Greek physician, treated mental illness as diseases of disturbed physiology, and not displeasure of the Gods or demonic possession ("Timeline: Treatments for," ). Greek medical writers found treatments such as quiet, occupation, and the use of a drug called purgative hellebore ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). During these times, family members took care of the mentally ill ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). In the middle Ages, the Europeans let the mentally ill have their freedom, as long as they were not dangerous ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). The mentally ill were also seen as witches who were possessed by demons ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). In 1407, the first mental illness establishment was made in Valencia, Spain ("Timeline: Treatments for,”).
Throughout a person’s life, one goes through the process of rebellion. In the play Medea, a work in translation by Euripides, mythology is symbolic of rebellion. This statement will be proven through the analysis of mythology as fully symbolic of suppression. It will also be proven through an analysis of the world around the character Medea and analysis of Medea’s actions.
There are documents written by “healers, philosophers, and writers throughout the ages point to the long-standing existence of depression as a health problem, and the continuous and sometimes ingenious struggles people have made to find effective ways to treat this illness.”.. said (RASHMI NEMADE, 2007). Depression was once called “melancholia.” It was in ancient Mesopotamian texts in the second millennium B.C. This place was “an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey.” (Mark, 2009) Anyway, mental illnesses at that time were attributed to being possessed by demons (which I find sadly kind of accurate.) Apparently, the “first historical understanding of depression was thus that depression was a spiritual (or mental) illness rather than a physical one.” (RASHMI NEMADE, 2007) Long story short, throughout time ancient Greek and Roman literature had plenty of demonic references in regards to mental illnesses. “In the 5th century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus wrote about a king who was driven mad by evil spirits.” (RASHMI NEMADE, 2007) Chinese, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilizations all decided on demonic possession but used exorcism techniques such as beatings, restraint, and
Aristotle, a philosopher, scientist, spiritualist and passionate critic of the arts, spent many years studying human nature and its relevance to the stage. His rules of tragedy in fact made a deep imprint on the writing of tragic works, while he influenced the structure of theatre, with his analysis of human nature. Euripides 'Medea', a Greek tragedy written with partial adherence to the Aristotelian rules, explores the continuation of the ancient Greek tales surrounding the mythology of Medea, Princess of Colchis, and granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, with heartlessness to rival the infamous Circe. While the structure of this play undoubtedly perpetuates many of the Aristotelian rules, there are some dramatic structures which challenge its standing with relevance to Aristotle's guidelines, and the judgment of Medea as a dramatic success within the tragic genre.
Through the use of insanity as a metaphor, authors such as William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, William Blake, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, have utilized the extreme feelings of fear, love, hate, anger, and revenge to illustrate: the creation of a weakened psychological state that renders the victim susceptible to bouts of madness; the internalization of stimuli that has permeated the human psyche resulting in the chasm between rational and irrational thought; and the consequences of the effects of the psychological stress of external stimuli demonstrated through the actions of their characters.
Archeologists speculate that treatment for mental illnesses dates back to the Neolithic era, where a hole would be chipped into the skull by a sharp object to relieve the patient of an evil spirit. The diagnosis and acknowledgment of particular types of mental illness date back to the 5th century BC in Greece (Harris). Since then, the classification of different mental illnesses has varied immensely. Some classification methods included a handful of diagnostic categories while others included thousands (“History of the DSM”). However, recent Western diagnoses of mental illnesses stem from Sigmund Freud in the mid-to-late 1800s (McLeod). Currently, mental illness is defined as a group of mental disorders that causes severe disturbances in thinking, feeling, and relating
Charlotte Bronte once said, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do. They suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags” (Bronte). In the play Medea, Euripides diverged from the traditional role of Greek women through Medea’s characteristics and response to her plight. In delineating the role of women, Medea was unlike any other Greek character. Medea was portrayed as capable and resilient woman who would refuse to back down no matter the obstacles. Nevertheless, women in the Greek culture had very few rights. Housework and bearing children were their main obligations. They were basically no better than slaves. In the ancient Greek society, Medea would not fit well among fellow Greek women. Her role as a woman in the play was downtrodden. However, her determination and courage caused people to fear her. She was a woman who turned her back on her family and killed her own brother in order to help her husband.
Despite the contrast in the characters of Euripedes' Medea and Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the two playwrights depicted how gender inequality can start a fire. As with Medea and Jason, the battle between the two lead to former's madness, leading to the death of the enemies she considered, and, unfortunately, leading as well to the death of her own children. Medea felt betrayed and left behind by her husband Jason, as well as continuously aggravated by Creon despite the fact that i...
Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his escape, he marries the widowed queen of Thebes, his mother Jocasta. Many events in the story should lead to suspicion of their marriage, but out of pride and ignorance Oedipus stubbornly refuses to accept his fate. Together, these sins represent the highest taboos of Greek society, revealed by Socphocles’s depiction of the already pervasive story. Before the Thebian plays, the myth centered more around Oedipus’s journey of self-awareness; meanwhile, Sophocles shows Oedipus’s struggles with his inevitable desire toward his mother throughout these stages of psychological development.