Bacchae 1

Conflicts
1. Order and Morality versus Chaos and Revelry
2. Whose responsibility is it that we recognize the gods? Ours or the gods'?

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      I wonder what Freud thought of Euripides' The Bacchae. I mean, if we can have an Oedipus complex and an Electra complex, do the collective unconscious and the archetypal scheme allow an Agave complex? Could mothers have the unconscious desire to run away to the mountains with a drunken deity and kill their sons? Could sons have a Pentheus complex where they defy the stars, capture gods, wear a dress, allow gods to play with their hair, and finally be dismantled by their mothers?
      Maybe I'm falling too fast into deconstructionist criticism, but I have to wonder if modern society can possibly understand this play. I have held an interest in this play for many years, but I have never read a criticism that satisfies all the questions this play presents. Furthermore, on this last reading, I am starting to question whether this play is about the real Dionysus at all.
      Now, of course, if you're not intimately involved with theatre, you're wondering what one could possibly mean by "the real Dionysus." Anyone who does theatre for any reasonable amount of time realizes that what many would call an art form is really the oldest extant religion. Today, we have the ritual in the concentration and centering it takes to play a character. Today, we have the Bacchic madness that posses us with another character in much the way wine might. Today, theatre people still throw the best parties. Part of the horror of The Bacchae is that Dionysus, who is most often considered the god of fun and freedom, seems such a cruel, vengeful monster in this play.
      Criticism is faulty enough when we allow modern values to evaluate ancient works, but what if our modern fears impair our understanding. Our asylums and headlines are so full of people who believe they are divine that we have become great cynics, and here is a play where Pentheus' fall from power is caused by his failure to realize that this stranger is really a god. I believe that this play, which has a clear conflict between civilization and nature we can discuss later, the greatest conflict seems to be one of responsibility. Whose responsibility is it that we recognize the gods? Ours or the gods'?
      In the first antistrophe after the Cadmus and Terisias' scene, the chorus says, "To know much is not to be wise." Somehow, Pentheus is supposed to recognize this god without prior knowledge or reason to guide him. Even Cadmus does not sound completely dedicated to the stranger's religion when he says to Pentheus, "Even if, as you say, Dionysus is no god, / Let him have your acknowledgement; lie royally, / That Semele may get honour as having borne a god, / And credit come to us and to all our family" (emphasis is that of the translator's). Either Semele has had a child by Zeus or she has been unfaithful. By honoring Dionysus as a god, Cadmus believes that he honors his family. Notice that Euripides gives family honor rather than divine reverence as Cadmus' motivation.

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