Identity In Euripides Bacchae
How, if at all, does Euripides’ Bacchae confirm and/or challenge the identity of the Athenian male citizen?
Euripides was not averse to challenging the Athenian population to re-evaluate themselves on any number of levels. The Bacchae of course is no exception as Euripides toys with gender and citizen identity. This identity of the citizen is built around the foundations laid out by democracy as well as tragedy theatre itself, with clear constraints on who or what encompasses a citizen. From this Euripides challenges his audience to confront two opposing ideals or what Cartledge (1997) calls the “two faces of Dionysus – creative euphoria and lethal retribution… [with] no single right answer…offered or advocated” (19) which he uses to enunciate …show more content…
Perhaps the most visible example is that of Dionysus as the ‘stranger’ who visibly is feminine in appearance. Pentheus’ reaction to the stranger seems to be a conflict of hyper-masculinity against – his very first words to the strange are “you are attractive” (Euripides 172.453) followed by a series of complimentary jabs at his masculinity. Pentheus’ seemingly contradictory response to the stranger – part compliment and part disgust – could be seen as a paradox of hyper-masculinity – whilst he denotes the stranger for his effeminate features such as his “fair skin” (456), he does so in a way that could be viewed as sensual as could be inferred from his reference to Aphrodite . In fact, his frequent reverting to concepts of sexuality (especially when relating to the Theban Bacchae) could be argued to indicate a contrast between the supposedly ‘rational’ men and the lustful woman being somewhat inverted to highlight the dangers of attempting to remove the feminine. The cross-dressing chorus may also have served to juxtapose gendered values and the “problematic relationship between the exclusively male community of Athenian citizens and the ‘tribe of women’ who are simultaneously insiders and outsiders” …show more content…
Nimis (2007) argues that aspects of Medea reflect this othering of women and foreigners by way of the Athenian autochthony myth and the divisive attitudes this creates regarding females. The original autochthony myth of Athens speaks of the men as being “born of the earth” following the attempted rape of Athena at Hephaestus’ hand whilst the women are described with the “complementary” myth of Pandora and the ‘tribe of women’ who are notably “fashioned from” (400) as opposed to “born from” the Earth, thus creating a clear distinction between women and men even in myth. Cartledge (1997) goes on to explain that it is with the autochthony myth attempting to separate the men as being contradistinctive from the women that a deeply political class based stasis re-emerged to further divide what was supposed to be a ‘united’ Athens (28). In relation to the Bacchae, this cultural context has not changed and in fact neither has the portrayal of women – the chorus of East Asian Bacchae are still wild, foreign and ‘other’ in their characterisation just as Medea
Euripides was not averse to challenging the Athenian population to re-evaluate themselves on any number of levels. The Bacchae of course is no exception as Euripides toys with gender and citizen identity. This identity of the citizen is built around the foundations laid out by democracy as well as tragedy theatre itself, with clear constraints on who or what encompasses a citizen. From this Euripides challenges his audience to confront two opposing ideals or what Cartledge (1997) calls the “two faces of Dionysus – creative euphoria and lethal retribution… [with] no single right answer…offered or advocated” (19) which he uses to enunciate …show more content…
Perhaps the most visible example is that of Dionysus as the ‘stranger’ who visibly is feminine in appearance. Pentheus’ reaction to the stranger seems to be a conflict of hyper-masculinity against – his very first words to the strange are “you are attractive” (Euripides 172.453) followed by a series of complimentary jabs at his masculinity. Pentheus’ seemingly contradictory response to the stranger – part compliment and part disgust – could be seen as a paradox of hyper-masculinity – whilst he denotes the stranger for his effeminate features such as his “fair skin” (456), he does so in a way that could be viewed as sensual as could be inferred from his reference to Aphrodite . In fact, his frequent reverting to concepts of sexuality (especially when relating to the Theban Bacchae) could be argued to indicate a contrast between the supposedly ‘rational’ men and the lustful woman being somewhat inverted to highlight the dangers of attempting to remove the feminine. The cross-dressing chorus may also have served to juxtapose gendered values and the “problematic relationship between the exclusively male community of Athenian citizens and the ‘tribe of women’ who are simultaneously insiders and outsiders” …show more content…
Nimis (2007) argues that aspects of Medea reflect this othering of women and foreigners by way of the Athenian autochthony myth and the divisive attitudes this creates regarding females. The original autochthony myth of Athens speaks of the men as being “born of the earth” following the attempted rape of Athena at Hephaestus’ hand whilst the women are described with the “complementary” myth of Pandora and the ‘tribe of women’ who are notably “fashioned from” (400) as opposed to “born from” the Earth, thus creating a clear distinction between women and men even in myth. Cartledge (1997) goes on to explain that it is with the autochthony myth attempting to separate the men as being contradistinctive from the women that a deeply political class based stasis re-emerged to further divide what was supposed to be a ‘united’ Athens (28). In relation to the Bacchae, this cultural context has not changed and in fact neither has the portrayal of women – the chorus of East Asian Bacchae are still wild, foreign and ‘other’ in their characterisation just as Medea