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

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.

The Rationale of Basketball

          Dionysus is called “the god of letting go”. I would argue that a better title would be “the god of irrationality”. Letting go is often much needed in human lives, such as when faced with the stress of school, work, dating, and more all at once. However there are many situations when people decide to let go in a dramatic fashion, and in the process also let go of any grasp of reason. One situation comes to mind of a family I know well. The parents of the family were happily married for over 30 years with two kids when all of a sudden the husband decided that he wanted to “let go” by abandoning his family and marriage to try out some new found homosexual desires. There is only two ways of looking at this man’s recent decision. Either he has just made the most irrational decision of his life, or by making this new decision is saying that for the past 30 years he has made a slew of irrational decisions.

I love this quote, and I apply the last two sentences to almost everything in my life.

Before Pentheus hears the tale of what the cowherd saw and experienced in the forest he wants to arrest or destroy the women for their attempt to go against the Theban society. After he hears about the women firsthand, and with a little persuasion by Dionysus, he is drawn by the sexuality of the women to go and investigate. This complete flip flop from his original feelings about the Bakkhai ultimately results in his own mother taking his life. This shows the most powerful lesson from the Bakkhai, that irrational behavior amplified by sexuality will cause those closest to us to turn on us and lose their love and concern for us.

                It is important to have a way of dealing with our sexual drive and other characteristics of human nature that seem to decrease our ability to make rational decisions. Basketball has always helped me to deal with irrational thoughts in life. There are certain things that are in your control and out of your control in the game. There are rational and irrational decisions to be made in the game. The outcome will be based on the sum total of these 4 things. Life is comparable to this. Through hard work, good decision making, and a little luck you can win the game both of basketball, and life. 

Irrationality = Rationality

In The Bakkhia, the rational Pentheus is destroyed
 by irrationality.

I am intrigued with Euripides’s use of the topic of invention, comparison.  The Bakkhia is chock-full of comparison and symbolism.  The most intriguing symbolism is that between men and women.  Women seem to represent chaos and irrationality, while men, specifically Pentheus, seem to represent order and rationality.  For example, the only revelers in Mount Kithairon are women.  The women are naked, suckle wolf cubs, and hunt with their bare hands.  That should not make sense to anyone, even in Greek times.  Furthermore they believe that Dionysus is a god.  By all reasonable thought, Dionysus should not exist.  However, irrationally, Dionysus was birthed again from Zeus’s thigh.  And when Dionysus showed up in Thebes, he was dressed with long hair like a women, furthering his irrationality.

Contrast that to Pentheus, who could be considered a symbol of Athens.  Athenians prided themselves on their rationality and logic.  Pentheus does not believe in the irrational.  He doesn’t think Dionysus exists.  He thinks that the irrational women should be put to death. Even though he leaves his manly rationality behind when he dresses as a woman, he does not accept it as a power.  His mother, Aguaë, a symbol for irrationality, destroys him.  His downfall, therefore, is not recognizing irrationality as a hugely powerful force that controls a bit of everyone’s life.

In writing this play, Euripides takes irrational thought and makes it tangible.  We can then deal 

Poetry allows me to express my irrational emotions
             in a rational way.

with it, and understand our erratic thoughts. If Pentheus represents Athens and Aguaë represents irrationality, Euripides is warning Athens to not become too rational because irrationality is a huge and powerful part of life.  I have always thought the best way to make something innately human and irrational into something tangible and rational is to personify it in the arts.  I think that is what Euripides is doing when he wrote The Bakkhia.  I, like Euripides have dealt with irrationality through writing.  I once got into a huge fight with my father.  After I stormed out of the house, I wrote this poem on my phone’s notepad.  It helped me be able to see my emotions in a tangible, understandable, and rational way while the poem itself is irrational.

Here it is:

Evaporation

Love-guilt spilled out of her mouth,

But he boiled it.  It turned to steam,

Unsure in its floating consistency

Until it became dry ash, undrinkable

Though it longed to be drunk.

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.