Analysis of the Bacchae

Euripides’s plays often featured uncanny insight into the human condition and the struggle that his characters bore due to their expected roles within society.

What is evident on reading and listening to the play is that the chorus is a key character within the play with a number of functions, namely linking the narrative, introducing the historical perspective, action as a “devil’s advocate”/advisor to many of the characters and also serving as the voice of the city. It is clear that without the Chorus the play would have been quite unstructured and not had as much context within it. The chorus gave insightful historical and mythical

As is archetypal to all Greek tragedies, ‘Medea’ by Euripides chronicles the downfall of a noble hero, Jason, as a result of a combination of factors like fate, hubris and the will of the gods. In ‘Medea’, the hubris of the main character, Jason, was his pride. This drove him to betray his wife Medea’s trust and defy moral parameters set by the gods. Euripides employed the hubris of Jason and his act of disobedience towards the gods as a reflection of Athenian society of the time and used this as an attempt to correct the progressively immoral ways of society. This piece focuses on pride as Jason’s hubris and its contribution to his imminent downfall.

During the time of Euripides, approximately the second half of the fifth century B.C., it was a period of immense cultural crisis and political convulsion (Arrowsmith 350). Euripides, like many other of his contemporaries, used the whole machinery of the theater as a way of thinking about their world (Arrowsmith 349). His interest in particular was the analysis of culture and relationship between culture and the individual. Euripides used his characters as a function to shape the ideas of the play (Arrowsmith 359).

Philosophers are known to question, analyze and evaluate everything but do not always end with concrete conclusions. Plato’s Euthyphro and Apology, to no surprise, highlight one of such debate: the human characteristics of wisdom. Though Plato was one of the earliest philosophers, the topic of wisdom is still debated by modern philosophers today, contemplating questions such as “What are the classifications of ‘wisdom’?” According to Plato’s two dialogues, the characteristics of wisdom have a strong correlation with the characteristics of “being a good person”. This concept highlights the values of virtue and selflessness and at the same time juxtapose views on virtue while taking into account the different forms of rationality. In this paper, I will highlight how Plato uses his two dialogues to enforce his own opinion about the relationship between being wise and being a good person, and evaluate the inconsistencies within this claim.

Then if read shallowly, the Bacchae also seems to be black and white, in the fact that the story tells of Pentheus earning his fate. The first step would be when strange things started to happen and the arrest of the stranger, Dionysus. Next, and the most important step in him earning his fate would be that Pentheus rejects the belief of Dionysus. Later on, more strange things happen, namely miracles and now Pentheus and Dionysus meet again, this time Pentheus is unable to reject him and starts to fall under his spell. They then meet for a final time and now Dionysus is in total control and humiliates Pentheus. When the chorus sees this, they invoke the "Swift hounds of Frenzy" to bring vengeance on Pentheus for failing to honor the gods. Pentheus is then finally killed by Bacchantes with the aid of his mother Agave. This seems to be a simple story of a man who rejected

Leading onto the subject of how gender roles are played with in this play, an example of this behaviour is the Bacchae themselves (Maenads) who were Thebe's women that were sent crazy by Dionysus and casted into the mountains to carry out his act of revenge on Pentheus. Though the women are strong and powerful through their animalistic behaviour there is still a sense of ownership that Dionysus the male character holds against them. They are manipulated with no real minds of their own. Various contemporary theatre companies have adapted ‘The Bacchae’, showing certain features of the play differently than the original Greek play, the Maenads being one of them. ‘The Faux Real Theatre's’ Production of ‘The Bacchae’ at the ‘National Theatre of

The chorus plays a vital role in interpreting what occurs throughout the play, just as the media plays a vital role in interpreting whether TV is good or bad. Reporters can be nosy and sometimes rude. At the same time, so can the chorus. "Do you really intend to steal this girl from your son?" (Sophocles 324). He's just saying it as if it is and laying out the facts, even though it may seem harsh. This makes it easier for the audience to better appreciate the play. The chorus says, "But the ancient wisdom speaks for our own

Greek tragedies Oedipus the King and Euripides’ Bacchae are both timeless stories in Greek literature. The engaging plot of both is what is most rememberable however the significance of the chorus is overlooked. The chorus can be defined simply as a group of dancers and singers that participate in dramas by singing poetically and lyrically in certain pauses of the play. The music, movements and gestures of the chorus symbolically define the mood and the themes of the play as the story line develops. The flow of Oedipus the King and Bacchae are dependent on the chorus, proving their significance.

Medea, an ancient Greek tragedy written by the great playwright Euripides which explores the ramifications of two extremities, passion and reason. Throughout the duration of the play, Euripides aims to warn his male audience of the fatal corollaries that is accompanied with choosing to be unambiguously attached to one lifestyle while unashamedly disregarding another. Euripides indicates that the consequences which are associated with being unambiguously attached to one extremity while henceforth disregarding the other cannot be understood by a combination of the two, but rather a moderation of both in human matters; he communicates that it is only through the “middle way” that the audience may expect to avoid these consequences.

The Chorus delivers these final lines of Euripides’s Medea, “…the end men look for cometh not, / And a path is there where no man thought; so hath it fallen here.” (Euripides, 80) This quotation not only signifies the events, which have transpired in the plot of Medea, it also shows the recognition of a very curious aspect of Medea: that the protagonist of the play, Medea, is not the tragic hero. A tragic hero by Aristotelian standards is one who possesses a driving aspect– or hamartia – which causes his or her downfall, who endures a reversal of fortunes leading to immense suffering – called peripeteia, and who undergoes an anagnorisis: a profound change or realization. Medea does not have any of these attributes. Instead, it is

The tale of Oedipus and his prophecy has intrigued not only the citizens of Greece in the ancient times, but also people all over the world for several generations. Most notable about the play was its peculiar structure, causing the audience to think analytically about the outcomes of Oedipus’ actions and how it compares with Aristotle’s beliefs. Another way that the people have examined the drama is by looking at the paradoxes (such as the confrontation of Tiresias and Oedipus), symbols (such as the Sphinx), and morals that has affected their perceptions by the end of the play. Nonetheless, the most important aspect is how relevant the story is and how it has influenced modern ideas like that of Freud and other people of today.

The chorus is an essential feature of Greek classical drama. Instances of various types of dance, singing, and speech are some elements of a Greek chorus. “Composed of similarly costumed men, they performed on the orchestra located beneath the stage. The chorus stayed in the orchestra for the duration of the performance from which vantage point they observed and commented on the action of the characters.” Oedipus is a play written by Sophocles, a respected playwright, and it is “generally assumed that the main function of the Sophoclean chorus is a philosophical one; that it serves above all as the spokesman for a certain view of life.” The chorus can be dramatic in the following ways: “through the personality of the group forming the chorus and the appropriateness of their relationship to the action and the characters, through the iambic lines spoken by the coryphaeus, through physical participation in the action and through the choral songs.” The chorus is an important component of the Greek Tragedy Oedipus. Aside from its responsibility to effectively represent the people of Thebes, the chorus in Oedipus has a powerful influence over audience perceptions and emotions.

A final cultural difference is the importance of the chorus and its use in the plays Agamemnon, Oedipus, and Medea. The chorus was not highly involved in the action of the plays. In general, the chorus’ main functions were to create a psychological and emotional background to the action through its odes. It introduces and questions new characters, as well as point out the importance of events as they occurred, to establish facts and avow the outlook of society. Finally, the chorus covers the passage of time, between events, and separates episodes (Calder 21). Within the play Agamemnon, by Aeschylus, the chorus represents the voice of wisdom of the city as well as its limitations (Novelguide). The chorus’ limitations are clear when they fail to

In answering this question, I will look at the question in two ways. Firstly, I will look at the role of the chorus objectively, examining the basic role of the chorus in the play, and looking at the role of the Chorus as Sophocles would have intended the role of the Chorus to be understood. However, I will then look at how I think the Greek audience would have perceived the role of the Chorus and then how the role of the Chorus is perceived today by a 20th century and examine the key differences in the two different sets of perceptions. Finally, I will look at the importance of the role of the Chorus to a 20th century audience and a Greek audience respectively.