Reading Euripedes' Bakkhai, all that was running
through my mind was "wild." In
the story, the women of Bakkhai hide among the mountains performing their
mystic rites, while Pentheus and his men seek to observe and thwart. Unfortunately for Pentheus, his attempts to
disprove the legitimacy of the Bakkhai's practices for the god Dionysus instead
slowly convert those around him. His
men, after seeing the maenads dancing in the mountains and decimating villages
in the most brutal of ways, cannot help but open their eyes to the power of
Dionysus, admitting that he is in fact above mortals. Through Dionysus' passive resistance and
careful lulling, he slowly manipulates Pentheus to dress as a woman so as not
to be torn to pieces for being a man amongst the maenads. With this ploy of Dionysus, he successfully
humiliates Pentheus before having his own mother kill him, a fitting revenge
for one that mocked and questioned Dionysus' godhood, or is it? Some may argue for, and some may argue
against the rationality of Dionysus. For
me, however, the balance of attack and counterattack does not seem to settle
evenly.
In my own life, I had the worst of trials to
surpass. I needed to grit my teeth and
trudge onward or else forever live amidst confusing, dark fog. Wrongly punished? Unfair?
If either was the case, it was an irrational punishment for nothing on
my part. Things just happened, I
suppose. Still, my
"punishment" was impossibly brutal and set me back quite a few steps
in life. In response to this, I decided
to vent and articulate my frustrations in print, writing my first book, Orrleth.
Through it, I was able to depressurize my rage at the world, recover
from my mishap, and also provide some sort of good to the world if one so
wished to read and enjoy. Though the
logical path would be to let myself stay frenzied at the world, I chose to
regain composure and recover. In that
case, however, was that the rational thing to do? Wasn't it irrational not to lash back at my
persecutor in turn? The only problem
with that was that there was no particular offender who had committed the
wrong. It was just terrible luck, so why
bother punishing the world, right?
You can enjoy one of my first gifts back to the
world by visiting my book website:
Wow. Thomas I am really impressed at your techne of writing. I think your post depicts perfectly how literature, drama, and arts can help us deal with the trials and problems we face. Its as if we project what we're feeling inside to an outside source and somehow this makes what we're feeling easier to deal with. I went to your website and read about your book. Well done! How many people can say they published a book? Pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'd like to agree with James--so awesome that you have a book published! Ah! That's been one of my lifelong, yet-to-be-realized dreams.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that how you dealt with your irrationality is to make something good and worthwhile. Where the characters in Bakkhai had a tendency to lash out in violence or yield to wrongful passion, you decided to move on by doing something good. Very inspiring.