Hamlet: The Dionysian Character Hamlet, from Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, is the embodiment of the Dionysian man. Time and time again, Hamlet displays the traits of Frederick Nietzche's Dionysian individual: Hamlet's inability to think rationally, his illusion between his emotional reality and true reality, his rejection of pleasurable human desires, his impotent personality prevents action, and his realization that if justice is brought to his uncle, that will not change what has already
The Apollonian and Dionysian man complete each other in the sense that these two terms create our society. The Apollonian man was given its name from Apollo, the sun- god. He represents light, clarity, and form. The Dionysian man was given its name from the Greek god Dionysus. As the wine-god, he represents drunkenness and ecstasy. The Dionysian was the primal aspect of reality, as well as raw nature, life and death, pleasure and pain, desire, passion, sex, and aggression. It is the source of
The main concept of the Apollonian personality is that these persons’ main mode of functioning is by reason, whereas the Dionysian personality functions by intuition. In Camus’ The Stranger, Mersault’s personality can be seen as Dionysian (reasons will be discussed later), but his main attitude towards society is quite Apollonian. This leads to the statement that the Dionysian personality of Mersault is restrained by society, making him seem or behave in an Apollonian style. The term Apollonian
there was the Dionysian Child and the Apollonian Child. These two terms came from the Greek mythological figure of Dionysus and the God Apollo. Dionysus represented chaos and unrestraint. The Dionysian child is said to be born with the innate desire to stray from the path of social order. Religion, in particular Christianity, had a large role to play in this way of regarding children at the time Jenks states in his findings (Jenks, 1996). It was thought at the time that the Dionysian child was vulnerable
afraid of Dorian, because Dorian personifies the Dionysian side of his own personality which he has repressed. Thus he needs Dorian, because only through Dorian can he feel that he is alive. The contrast between them is suggestive. Basil is fascinated by what he himself is not. The attributes which he finds so fascinating stand in "compensatory" relation to him. But, instead of seeing his fascination as symbolic of a need to develop the Dionysian side of his own personality, he seeks to perpetuate
person’s life, there will be moments where one must keep a balance between his structured, strict side, coined as being his “Apollonian” [Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Birth of Tragedy.] side, and his wild, carefree side, also known as his “Dionysian” side, based off of the two Greek Gods Apollo and Dionysus. If one does not keep that balance, he risks having his repressed side come out in extreme and dangerous ways. This can lead to being highly irrational, and he can risk hurting himself or
want to hurt him the way he and his followers hurt their fellow Americans, their family. This hunger for vengeance is completely Dionysian and is found in more than one written work. 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
The Importance of Childhood in Steppenwolf Upon reading Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, one cannot help noticing its large number of references to childhood. Youth, or a "childlike" state, is mentioned in the Treatise, in connection with Dionysian pleasures, in reference to Hermine, and in multiple other contexts. The ubiquity of this motif can be explained by the deep symbolic importance of childhood to Steppenwolf's protagonist, Harry Haller. Although his own young life appears to have been rather
Schopenhauer, are found in his works. Nietzche comments on the nature of human drives, arguing that one could understand culture by studying the conflict between the Apollonian and Dionysian drives. The Apollonian drive, according to Nietzche, strives to find order in a confused, chaotic, and cruel world. The Dionysian drive, on the other hand, desires to break down that artificial order. An example of these opposing drives is found in Hardy's short story "The Fiddler of the Reels." Ned, ... ..
trapped, because he was the only man to ask for her hand, and was stuck in a loveless relationship. Whereas Nora married Torvald, because she fell in love with him when they were younger. Hedda is living in an apollonian society, but has a great dionysian side to her personality. She wants Eilert Loveborg to come back with vine leaves in his hair, and fantasizes of romantic deaths. HEDDA. What do you intend to do? LOVEBORG. Nothing! Just put an end to it all. The sooner the better. HEDDA (coming
was used to illustrate how Hamlet and Claudius played upon others and each other. Ophelia and other characters sang while they were mad, or dealing with mad characters. The use of music in Hamlet tied in with the concepts of Apolonian verse Dionysian, spying and lying, madness, poetry verse prose, and the burden of revenge on a thinking man. Possibly the most obvious case of music being used as a lead in for the idea of one playing upon another was seen in Act 4 Sc. 1, on lines 25-38. At
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. According
mortuary symbolism. In 1859, he published his first book Versuch uber Grabsymbolik der Alten, meaning "An essay on ancient mortuary symbolism" (1). He focused most of his study with the Greek and Roman symbolism, particularly as manifested in the Dionysian and Orphic mystery cults. He started by studying the significance of eggs as symbols of fertility and femininity in Roman tombs and in funerary games. Each of the eggs was painted half-black and half-white, representing the passage of night and day
To begin to understand what Euripides was doing, it is best to understand the medium of his art: the Greek theater. Theater was a competitive art among playwrights, with several competitions throughout the year, the greatest of which was at the Dionysian festivals in the spring. Greek drama, tragedy in particular, had little in common with modern acting productions. There was little or no suspense as to the outcome of the play; most all were based on Homeric tales from The Iliad and The Odyssey
means by which one receives the salvation of Christ, as a psychological journey into the "hell (or evil) of the self" (Soler). Goodman Brown fails to complete his process of individuation because he cannot come to terms with the dual Apollonian and Dionysian nature of his being. The Puritans believed that to be justified, one must let go of his worldly dependence and strive to live a life free of sin (Soler), making the story an allegory “in its treatment of the nature and consequences of the Puritan
character, Gustave Von Aschenbach, illustrates the concept of an Apollinian/Dionysian continuum. Apollo is the Greek god of art, thus something Apollinian places an emphasis on form. Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and chaos, hence something Dionysian emphasizes energy and emotion. In The Birth of Tragedy Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that,"... the continuous development of art is bound up with the Apollinian and Dionysian duality--just as procreation depends on the duality of the sexes, involving
involves the two most basic parts of society, the artistic Dionysian and the intelligent Apollonian. Sometimes one being becomes more dominant than the other or they both share the same plane. Even though individually created, these theories could be intertwined, even used together. Thus it is the object of this paper to prove that the Freudian theory about the unconscious id, and ego are analogous to the idea on the Apollonian and Dionysian duality's presented by Nietzsche. "The division of the psychical
by Matthew Lewis, makes use of more tragic and mythical elements to make something altogether different, a Dionysian figure. Lewis uses such descriptive speech, symbols, and themes all connected to Greek myth to present a chaos creating character who transgresses not only God, but societal boundaries. While transgressions have been profusely researched in Gothic literature, the Dionysian myth connected to the Daemon spirit have been overlooked. I will reveal how much the scene of Ambrosio’s first
If existence is inherently filled with suffering, what follows? For Schopenhauer, what follows is a life not worth living. Nietzsche disagrees. Although Nietzsche accepts that life is suffering, he does not accept Schopenhauer’s nihilistic conclusion. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche attempts to overcome Schopenhauer’s nihilism by appealing to the ancient Greeks. But before explaining the Greek’s response to the suffering, it is important to further explain Schopenhauer’s response. Schopenhauer
these symbols transfigure and sweeten reality. So, dionysian music symbols don’t necessarily represent one specific thought or emotion. Thus, while listening to music, the world is transfigured into an aesthetically pleasing world, and thereby makes life possible and worth living. But much like apollonian art, diosynian art involves an illusion and once the music stops, we return to the ugly reality and there is a danger of letdown when the dionysian experience is