Mobs and civilization..its all in the Mind

The play is irrational in the respect that there is no way that many people would be able to be completely brainwashed into getting rid of all of their inhibitions. Even in a culture where the gods are seen as real this play would seem irrational. However, this was probably Euripides using satire to establish a point about mob mentality and good old fashioned peer pressure.



Peer Pressure and Inhibitions

The fact that Euripides tells the story from the view of someone not overcome by Dionysus helps give the play a little more realism. He could have written it so that the people trying to stop Bacchus looked crazy and all of the irrational people looked sane. While this would add an interesting dynamic to the play, it would compromise what little realism the play has because the readers and watchers of the play probably hadn't sworn their lives over to the god of wine and care-free feelings so they would realize that the bakkhai were still acting insane.

The change in the settings of the play, the fact that the followers of Dionysus go out of the city into the wilderness, helps provide framework for the play and even supplies a theme or moral for the story. In the beginning of the class we talked about what makes a civilization. I think that Euripides is arguing in this play that inhibitions and self-control are also necessary for civilized life because they distinguish humans from animals.

I am taking a psychology class this semester and we are currently talking about the brain and the specific parts that control different aspects of our human lives. One part of the brain is in charge of our personality and self-control. It was interesting to listen to the stories of people who have injured this part of their brains, resulting in a more aggressive personality and increased sexual drive, and then reading this play which focuses on the same changes but with a supernatural cause instead of a physical one. The fact that Euripides grouped these two symptoms, violence and sexuality, without a knowledge of the specialized sections of the brain, is very impressive and tells us a little more about human nature.