The_Bacchae

The Bacchae Euripides, at the end of his life, wrote the Bacchae while he was living in exile in Mecedonia. The city in question is Thebes but there is a sense of a dying Athens. There is evidence of cult-worship that was on the rise in Athens at the end of the war. This play is about the resistance to divine power. Dionysus, who is the central character in this play, is unlike most gods in the fact that he is in human shape. He comes in the form of man and women and because he is a god his motives are not to be questioned. For when it comes to human fate the truth lies with the divine. Dionysus is a god who lacks mercy because of the punishments he inflicts on Cadmus’s family. Pentheus has been a great king but he could not comprehend a god who came in the form of a man and for this Dionysus punished him. “Euripides has often been called a rationalist, a playwright who excelled in the workings of the mind, who celebrated logic and rational argument.” In this play Euripides sho! ws many bacchae, pentheus, dionysus, stranger, women, god, because, cadmus, thebes, mother, son, first, agave, go, zeus, teiresias, says, put, however, semele, play, off, now, mad, feel, dress, city, way, power, must, mountain, mortal, mind, king, killed