Reconciliation

Entry #8
Work: The Bacchae

I've titled this entry "Reconciliation" because I find myself having to reconcile my first impressions of a work with the time or culture in or perspective from which it was written. It happens all the time. I am angry with or disgusted by characters in a book or play, and eventually, I'm able to find some empathy for them. Most of the time, anyway.

I'm trying to do that with The Bacchae.

I have said earlier that I found it difficult to be sympathetic with either side or even have the ability to discriminate between the white hats and the black hats. Pentheus seems to me to be a controlling egomaniac and Dionysos, a vindictive, punishing god. There is no balance between structure (Pentheus) and freedom (Dionysos). And perhaps that's the point.

I brought it up in class today. Dr. McCarthy made a comment while I was searching for a line, and I didn't catch all of it. He was suggesting the causes of alcoholism, or a higher prevailence of alcoholism in certain cultures, and I'm not quite sure what point he was making (because of my searching, not because of his lack of clarity). I would suggest that repression by human forces, the rejection of the spiritual and the absence of outlets of creative expression could contribute to what I've come to believe is the spiritual void that underlies alcoholism. That, combined with opportunity (availablility of alcohol or drugs) and a predisposition (the physical compulsion/craving and inability to metabolize alcohol in a "normal" way) makes alcoholism almost sure to manifest in a person. Any of the first and last, and it's still very likely.

I strayed from my point, which is that Tieresias' refutation of Pentheus' claim that the booze made the broads loose--as they would be loose only if they were prone to being loose, a claim with which I'm not in total agreement--got me thinking about the "main" characters of Prometheus and Dionysos and my inability to find a good guy in either of them. I believe I was looking in the wrong place, as I was looking for a black and white, and the answer was in the grey--more specifically, and quite literally, in Tieresias. He's the old prophet. He's the one who's been around since before Dionysos and Prometheus were born. He's seen the race of warriors spring forth from a crop of dragon's teeth. He watched as Semele's reputation was defiled as she carried, then was martyred for the union of human and god. That's what we're really looking for here--a union. Not a divide. Prometheus is all "establishment" and Dionysos attempts to be all "god." Semele was the one who had both blended within her, and Tieresias sees the wisdom of that.

There are holes in that thesis, I know, but given enough time, I'm sure I could purge them. Dionysos is a character, that's for sure: part human, part god, and pissed off. His mother killed by his step-mother, his father having to hide his illegitimate spawn--if that's not a timeless story, I don't know what is. Just cruise any grocery store checkout line, and the tale is told over and over in the tabloids.

I'll chew on it some more.

Till later...