The god, Dionysus, fills an integral role in Grecian Myth. According to Euripides Bacchae, Dionysus represents the animalistic and mystic life force that connects humanity to its innate earthy rootsroots that are illogical, chaotic, and instinctual. In this paper I will be discussing this aforementioned mystic life force and its existence in ancient Greeces supremely logical society. Being as completely logical as the ancient Greeks tended to be, they needed some sort of release valve that kept them from all going crazy in their otherwise rigid existence. The god, Dionysus, provided this release in their world through the manifestations of wine, women, and song. Without these simple earthy pleasures, the human spirit became warped in its confinement as illustrated in the Bacchae through the character of Pentheus. The polar opposites portrayed in the confrontations between Dionysus and Pentheus were meant to illustrate the point that you simply cannot ignore your earthy half. When the people of Thebes attempted to maintain indifference to Dionysus claims of divinity, he came to the town personally to invoke his punishment on all those who would not pay him his due worship. Possessing the women of Thebes and turning them into what they tried most to resist demonstrated was the ultimate irony that also demonstrated his awesome mystical powerspowers that as yet had remained unseen by mortal men not initiated into Dionysus mysteries. These mystical powers that Dionysus possessed allowed him to perform all sorts of miracles that baffled and frightened the Thebians. Beyond the miracle of possessing all the women of Thebes and making them head to the mountains, what occurred on the mountain was what really expressed all that Dionysus was to the Thebians and to the readers of Euripides play. The women were reported as performing weird fantastic things, what miracles and more than miracles while under Dionysus influence (665-66). Each one of th...
