Euripides: The Bacchae
Dionysus, a ‘new’ god born from the union of Zeus and Semele,
daughter of Cadmus, comes to Thebes to declare his godhead to
mortals and guide them in the ritual dances he requires.
Thebes is the first Greek city he
visits, and he goes there because
Semele’s three sisters refuse to
believe that Zeus had fathered
Dionysus. They disregard Semele’s
shrine and tell people that Semele
had simply been impregnated by a
mortal. Dionysus therefore starts his
visit to Thebes by driving these
sisters mad and making all the other
women of Thebes leave the city and
join them in ecstatic dances on the
side of Mount Citheron.
Cadmus and Tiresias, although both elderly, join the god’s rituals,
but his grandson, Pentheus, now ruler of Thebes, shares his
mother’s disbelief and is disgusted by the women’s unruly behaviour.
Pentheus has already imprisoned some of the women, and declares
that he will capture his mother and her two sisters, along with the
other women, and imprison them for their scandalous behaviour
(drunkeness, lechery, etc.). Dionysus appears in disguise before
Pentheus and Pentheus, despite the warnings and entreaties of
Cadmus, his grandfather, and Tiresias, imprisons the disguised god.
Dionysus lets himself out and starts to enmesh Pentheus in a
sequence of illusions which end with him dressing as a woman and
leaving the city to spy on the women. Once entrapped by the god,
Dionysus calls upon the women to destroy Pentheus and this they
do, led by his mother Agaue, who believes she is killing a young lion
with her bare hands. She returns in triumph to the Palace carrying
Pentheus’ head which has been torn from his body. Gradually
Cadmus reveals to her the full horror of what she has done.
Dionysus re-appears and declares what is to befall Cadmus and his
remaining family: he and his wife are to be turned into snakes, while
the three sisters are to be exiled from Thebes and must never
return.
Sophocles: Antigone
Oedipus had two sons as well as his
two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
After Oedipus is exiled from Thebes,
Creon, their uncle and Jocasta’s
brother, takes on the role of regent.
Creon proposes that Eteocles and
Polyneices should alternate rule of the
kingdom. This is agreed – rulership is
to last a year – and Eteocles is to
start. But when his time is up,
Eteocles refuses to cede power over
to his brother and civil war breaks
out. The period of conflict last some
time, but it is ended by the two
brothers killing each other in battle
beyond the city walls of Thebes.
Creon rules that since Eteocles died defending Thebes from ‘rebels’
forces he deserves a state burial; Polyneices is to be left unburied.
When Antigone hears that her brother’s body is to be left unburied
as carrion to warn others against any resistance to the power of
the state she is outraged at the insult to her brother’s memory and
shocked by Creon’s refusal to observe normal human decencies.
She tries to enlist her sister to help her bury Polyneices, but
Ismene pleads that the correct course of action for a weak woman
is always to obey authority. Antigone vows to carry out the burial
alone and does so twice. Creon is incensed by her disobedience
and orders her to buried alive. His own son, Haemon, and the seer,
Tiresias, intervene and tell Creon that what he is enacting is
immoral. Creon relents, oversees the burial of Polyneices and
then goes to the prison to release Antigone – but by the time he
reaches it Antigone is dead, and more follows. Haemon and
Antigone were promised to each other in marriage. When Creon
agrees to bury Polyneices Haemon rushes to the prison, breaks
down the bricked up door, but finds that Antigone has already
hung herself. He is still clasping her body in grief as his father
arrives, and after a struggle in which his father avoids death at the
hands of his own son, Haemon takes his sword and thrusts it into
his side, killing himself at Antigone’s feet. On hearing of this
tragedy his mother, Eurydice, also kills herself in despair.
One may as well start with a reminder of the familiar
interpretations given for these plays. Antigone is usually
discussed in terms of her opposition to authority, while the
Bacchae has been used to review Pentheus’ opposition to
the forces of nature, i.e., human versus the divine, or more
recently, human versus nature.
But as one goes deeper into the process of interpretation
it becomes impossible to make further progress without
having regards to the social contexts within which a
particular interpretation gains its relevance and its
‘timeliness’ – as is the case with all metaphors.
For instance, Anouilh stages his version of Antigone in
German-occupied Paris, in French, at a time when the
greatest social concern is the loss of patriotism in the face
of the pressure to collaborate with German authority and
live a relatively quiet life. So Creon=bureacratic
collaborator and Antigone=impassioned freedom fighter.
So your own starting point needs to reflect, not
only on the two plays, but also on the educational
contexts that you find interesting to think about.
What you are seeking is a combination of the two
sources of reflection such that the educational
context/event is illuminated by using one of the
two myths as an extended metaphor – as a new
‘frame’ or perspective from which you can see
the educational from a new angle, etc. Your
subsequent analysis should offer deeper insight
and understanding of this context – or at least, by
means of the metaphor, identify those aspects of
the social reality it reveals which now appear to
be promising sites for investigation and further
analysis.
In terms of analytical tools we have Zizek’s general
comments on desire – here’s a brief summary:Needs become desires in the Symbolic Register (in
language), and they all amount to the demand for love
and the recognition of self.
Desires are barred to consciousness – we search for
‘mirrors’ that may help us to recognise them.
Desire is absolute, and its object is always a lack.
Desire reveals itself metonymically – through parts of a
larger concealed whole (think of the foot poking out
from the person hidden behind the curtain).
Fantasy realises desire, and it also creates in disguised
form what it attempts to conceal.
We also have Zizek’s ‘seven veils’ to work with:1. fantasy mediates between the symbolic and the presymbolic, allowing us to live our desires;
2. fantasy allows one to picture what others want from me –
the intersubjective, entry into the S.R., or my agalma;
3. fantasy narratives occlude existing contradictions, inserting
before and after, winners and loosers;
4. fantasy re-enacts the subject’s entry into the S. R.;
5. fantasy re-configures the S.R. creating a narrative of birth
and re-locating the subject;
6. fantasy underpins the S.R. and imposes a system of
censorship;
7. item 6 entails the need for empty gestures and unwritten
rules.
The Bacchae: possible starting points.
In terms of the general comments on desire,
Dionysus requires that his divinity is recognised
through ritual, but only Cadmus and Tiresias
recognise that through such ritual can one
maintain/re-gain insight into the desire for divinity –
through the fantasy of ritual one may realise the
divine within, and through its disguises come to
recognise divinity’s true nature. Pentheus
repeatedly fails to recognise the ‘metonymic’ clues
created by the ‘foreigner’ that hint at his actual
status. Dionysus’ demands are, ultimately, absolute
– there is, for instance, no possibility of negotiation
between him and Cadmus’s remaining family at the
end of the play.
In terms of the ‘seven veils’ of fantasy, all are possible,
however consider the following in particular:1. because ritual allows us to maintain the possibility of
living out fundamental aspects of our nature;
3. because the play adopts a starting time after
desire/divinity/ritual has been rejected for ‘normal’
explanations of strange events and circumstances;
4. because Dionysus insists on a place for himself within
the S.R.;
5. because the god creates a suspension of the S.R. for
the theban women – their new birth as maenads;
7. because ritual, although it may seem ‘empty’,
conforms to the fantasmatic underpinnings of the S.R.
Antigone: possible starting points.
In general, Antigone’s desire to bury her brother
corresponds to a human need, and she recognises from
the outset of the play that her demand (ultimately, for love
and recognition) will be rejected by the state. In later
versions, her ‘testing’ of Haemon and Ismene amounts to a
search for a truthful mirror of her desire. Her demand
that Polyneices be buried remains absolute – despite
Creon’s attempts to bring her back to a peaceful life, since
he represents for her a state that cannot love or live. Her
desire is revealed metonymically by her looks and manner
– in a sense she is readied for death – consider also that
she will be immured – a living burial. Finally, her fantasy
of becoming Haemon’s wife conceals, perhaps, a further
aspect of her desire to see Polyneices buried correctly;
he should be remembered, like his brother, as the dead
but noble brother of a future queen.
As with The Bacchae, all of Zizek’s veils can be applied,
but the following seem immediately relevant:1. because Creon is so prosaic, so rejecting of fantasy,
while Antigone finds herself through fantasy;
2. because of Antigone’s agalma – her apartness from
society, and her ‘stubborness’;
3. because Antigone rejects the narrative of domesticity;
4. because Tiresias gets Creon to both bury Polyneices
and accept Antigone back within the lawful order;
6. because Antigone’s actions reveal the hollowness of
Creon’s rule;
Note how both plays feature unequal power-relations –
instances of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic.