Two Complete Opposites

First off, that was not what I was expecting.  I actually laughed- and not even just a pity laugh. It was incredible how not only Sophocles, but the actors and actresses were able to lighten up an incredibly dark story.  I will admit, I enjoyed myself.  I especially was intrigued by the relationship between Chrysothemis and Electra.

Family relationships was a huge theme throughout the play.  Many I couldn’t connect with, but I felt a bond with the two sisters.  Electra and Chrysothemis were both affected by the same experience, yet were polar opposites in the way they decided to let it affect and guide their lives.  Each is trying to convince the other that they are handling the situation the wrong way.  At first, I thought Chrysothemis was very shallow and more like an evil step sister.  I realized, however, that she just takes a logos approach to the events that have happened, recognizing that unrelenting mourning will not bring about anything good.  Who’s to say hers wasn’t a better way?

Electra takes a pathos route to the situation; she feels like Chrysothemis is living a lie by acting as if nothing happened.  One of my favorite scenes was the conversation/argument between Chrysothemis and Electra.  A powerful statement by Chrysothemis explains a lot about their relationship, “It’s clear you could never bring yourself to praise my words, nor I your ways”. 

Although I do not have any siblings with this relationship, I do have some friends who just do not understand my words, and I do not understand their ways.  We both feel the other is not living the best way, and may at times argue- but when it comes down to it, I really do love them.  We see this type of relationship often in movies and in families.  Sophocles was a genius in connecting his audience then and now in being able to relate- as well as helping us to realize that our way is not the only way, nor necessarily the best.  We have to look over and accept differences in order to unite.  

Assignment: Analysis of Electra Performance

I've asked my students to attend a performance of Sophocles' Electra (staged by Westminster College as part of their Classical Greek Theatre Festival, performed Sept 21, 2015 at BYU). They will analyze the play in a brief blog post.

(A few students who cannot attend will analyze either this BBC Radio dramatized version of Electra or this MGM 1962 film version of Electra)

This analysis is not to be a traditional theater review, per se. I do want my students to give a bit of personal response to the experience, but I want them to focus on analyzing the play according to these categories. Since no one person could address all or even most of the following, I expect that as a class, students will be sure all of these topics do get addressed and perhaps debated, each student responding to the play and to each other, taking about 300 words apiece to address one or more of the following:

A little bit frightened and at a loss for words

Hey gang, so I wasn’t able to attend the Greek play Hecuba tonight because it conflicted with another class, so as an alternative assignment I watched the Greek Play “Trojan Woman” by Euripedes. I was very surprised at the performance. The play was entirely in Greek, Latin, and Indian, thus making it impossible for me to understand any of the words spoken, but surprisingly enough I was able to understand what was going on and interpret the interaction between different characters. 

The Greeks certainly know how to portray emotions. Frankly, there were some parts of the play I wish I didn’t understand…

I was completely unprepared for the style of the play, lots of chanting, screaming, and dying. That being said the play pushed some very powerful emotions. As I watched I experienced something similar to an adrenalin rush. I unexplainably felt this surge of energy building up inside of me. I thought this was really interesting, but it was almost as if I were feeding off the energy that the actors were pushing.

The actors:

I think that the emotion of the actors, the rhyming, and the singing itself have powerful rhetorical effects on us as viewers. They seem to work together to not only persuade the audience to believe something but to create an experience for those watching. I love to quote movies. I think that if school were a movie I would be a stellar student. For some reason seeing with my eyes and hearing with my ears make connections that last a lot longer than words. I can remember and apply the things that I’ve experienced easily.

The plot:

I think acting can be a powerful form of persuasion because people remember what they see, hear, and feel. One of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, wrote “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering and you find that you have excluded life itself.” With this in mind I think that Greek dramas have a lot of powerful reasoning behind them. We recognize that, though extreme, these tragedies reflect parts of our lives. We build an emotional connection, which is what the playwright was trying to do all along. It’s almost as if he creates his own reality with the play and then projects it on us, and for the time that we are watching the play we are in his world. 

Fortunate Misfortune

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:

http://www.orrleth.com

Becoming Fond of Justice

Justice. Seems rational . . . at least in our world where it is paired with mercy. In our world it is a means to repentance, healing, and to creating order. In the world of Bakkhai, justice is a vicious, fiery, irrational cycle of self-interest. It started with Zeus himself. “It was Zeus who was to blame for the wrongdoing in her [Semele] bed” (pg 46). And yet, only one individual had to answer the demands of justice, and it wasn’t Zeus. As a god he "could" completely exempt himself from answering to those actions. Dionysos, as a god, felt as if he had been treated unjustly. And in Bakkhai we read that he sought justice by then being unjust himself. These flaws in the gods are human. Are we not guilty of being more fond of justice when it is being brought to our offenders rather than when we ourselves are the offenders? But, because Zeus and Dionysos are gods and not mortals, that is where justice turned irrational and embodied revenge rather than order. Justice requires an authority figure who abides by the law. It’s in our humanity to oppose that order. Yet, the rationality is found when the one establishing the demands of justice actually adheres to the law while the one answering to justice learns to overcome his or her humanity. I think this is the point Euripides was trying to make. That justice only has a rational framework when the two parties are at different understandings of justice; because otherwise both in their limited knowledge act self-centeredly and impose injustice upon each other.

I saw this growing up in my own family and in the families I babysat. Parents are not perfect. In my experience though, all honestly try to be just and merciful with each of their children. I have witnessed so many cases where one sibling believes no matter what the request or consequence is that it is unjust. This child would always compare their punishments and rewards to those of the other kids in the family, never recognizing that even similar situations have different outcomes because of the other child’s ability to accept the consequences and not fight it. Eventually, each child’s understanding of justice evolves and they learn to respond differently. This development helps keep order intact. Choices have consequences that we do not choose. And there are loving authority figures who are trying to help us overcome ourselves whom we need to acknowledge and listen to. This understanding is rational and to believe justice doesn't apply to us or that we are somehow exempt is irrational.

Bakkh Humbug

RRRRRRIIIIIP.

Was anybody else just cringing as they read that section where Agaue tears Pentheus apart? Eugh. If that's not an irrational action, I don't know what is. It would've been one thing if Agaue was a mean murderous mother from the start. But when she comes back into town and wakes up from her worshiping craziness, she sorrows for what she's done. So the question is: why did she give in to this irrationality?

Let's look at it like this: 

  1) Agaue lived in the forest,
  2) and Pentheus lived in the city.

Euripides used this theatrical framework for Agaue's irrationality because all of us can understand the difference between the two settings. We all have a shared social perception of what each is like. Thus:

  1) It makes sense that Agaue took on the persona of a forest creature and became wild, violent, and rabid, even.
  2) It makes sense that Pentheus from the orderly, logical city fell victim to the chaos of the wild.

This seems much more rational, right? Instead of saying, "Agaue was overcome...swept away...Dionysos...ya know," we can say, "Agaue grew into a beastly creature--and did beastly things--because her environment affected her in that way."


In my life, writing is the way that I deal with my own irrationalities. I love to write poetry that uses symbolistic themes to express emotions--things that are difficult to express otherwise. I'm currently working on a poem like this for my creative writing class. It's entitled "A Popcorn Ceiling," and in the poem I use the pieces of (you guessed it) a popcorn ceiling to represent memories of home and family. This image, in turn, helps me express the rather abstract feeling of nostalgia. The popcorn ceiling is like my "setting" that I use to help other people understand and accept my topic.

Assignment: Euripides' Bakkhai and a Rationale for the Irrational

Pentheus Among the Bakkhai

I've asked my students to read the Bakkhai (or Bacchae) by Euripides. This play is providing some contextual background for the Greek development of the art of rhetoric.

Their assignment is to respond to the irrational and the rational elements of the play, and to personalize this (again) by drawing upon personal experience.

The Irrational
What are the things in this play that do not make sense? Consider the motives or actions of any of the characters, the degree to which these characters accurately reflect truly irrational aspects of us humans, or even consider how (un)realistic the play is. You can focus on Dionysus (or Bacchus). It may seem very obvious, but what's the problem or issues with a God like Dionysus? Say why this deity or what he does just doesn't make sense. Another angle could be gender: How is each sex represented as driven by things other than reason? How does sex amplify the irrationality of the human condition? Choose any of these approaches or something similar dealing with the theme of irrationality.

The Rational
Consider how Euripides uses his craft as a playwright to provide a rational framework for the irrational that is present in the play. How does he bring out opposites? Consider male / female, city / wilderness, etc. Does the highly formal nature of the play give a more discernible way of talking about the issues? I'm looking for discussion about the functions of art, language, and theater and how these provide structure and form for the meaningful investigation of powerful, irrational forces native to the human condition.