Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Role of Gods and religion in tragedy - Coggle Diagram
Role of Gods and religion in tragedy
Always had to make a reference to Dionysus in the plays
"City Dionysia"
Eg. 1st Choral Ode in Oedipus rex
"Your name and ours are one, Dionysus"
Are not merciful
Dionysus is the antagonist in Bacchae
Apollo marks the prophecy in Oedipus rex
Is supposed to depict what happens when you deny fate or anger the Gods
ENFORCE FATE
"For I am a god, and I am insulted by you"
Is criticising of the Gods and how they treat humans
Dionysus could enjoy the suffering he has inflicted
Would enforce the fear of the Gods amongst the Athenians
Pentheus represents corrupt conservative politicians
Would blame things on the Gods "prayers"
"My father Zeus agreed to this a long time ago"
"Subjected to the Gods whims"
Subject to the Gods whims
Modern scholarship :
"It allowed us to question life, death and lack of control of fates"
"Those action in fact draw him hearer to accomplishing it." (Kyles)
Oedipus has no control over fate
Sophocles depicts fate as inevitable to ensure the submission of society
Goes against Oedipus' hamartia of stubbornness and denying fate
Character can make no dofference (leaves room for irony and adds to the tragedy)
Blames himself of the Gods
DUAL DETERMINATION
Gods and fate
Characters
Dionysus
Introduces himself as the "son of Zeus" in the prologue
Introduces his meanings and how the Thebans do not think him an actual God
Is also idealised even by Pentheus
Appears at the end of the deus ex machina (crane to let the god appear) and dictates what happens
Cyclical structure through dionysus (begins and ends the play)
Is even higher than nobility (turns cadmus and his wife into snakes to dfraw an ox cart)
"If you understand what wison was when you rejected it, you would have had good fortune with the son of Zeus as your ally"
BACCHIC RELIGION
Purpose of Bacchae is to depict Euripides' own devotion to Dionysus
Blind devotion of chorus makes choral odes unreliable (and thus add to the terror of the play)
Forces the Maenads into the mountains
Glorified initially to indoctrinate the audience
Is initially in disguise as a priest
"Maenads" means "Frenzied ones"
Modern scholarship
"D has profiundly removed societys social structure...woman have not only abandoned looms but children too" (Morwood)
"Driving forces in tragedy" (Rosie Kyles)
TAPLIN: "Gods determine what happens" but "Humans also determine it from themselves"
Are there to enforce the submission of society
Characters are accepting if fates
How they react to criticism of Gods
Have to accept fate as inevitable and abive them as tyrannoi
Deus ex machina was used to solve play difficulties