g Zeus for creating women and he also blames him after finding out about Phaedra’s feelings; which seems to me that he was even blaming Zeus for making her become infatuated with him. The infatuation was Aphrodite’s doing for lack of worship, not Zeus’. So even though Hippolytus did not sin toward Phaedra, he ends up sinning toward Zeus, by questioning his putting of women on the earth and blaming him for something he had no part in, and to Aphrodite by not giving her the respect she thought she deserved. Then if read shallowly, the Bacchae also seems to be black and white, in the fact that the story tells of Pentheus earning his fate. The first step would be when strange things started to happen and the arrest of the stranger, Dionysus. Next, and the most important step in him earning his fate would be that Pentheus rejects the belief of Dionysus. Later on, more strange things happen, namely miracles and now Pentheus and Dionysus meet again, this time Pentheus is unable to reject him and starts to fall under his spell. They then meet for a final time and now Dionysus is in total control and humiliates Pentheus. When the chorus sees this, they invoke the “Swift hounds of Frenzy” to bring vengeance on Pentheus for failing to honor the gods. Pentheus is then finally killed by Bacchantes with the aid of his mother Agave. This seems to be a simple story of a man who rejected the gods and got what was coming to him, but if looked at on a deeper level, it may not be so simple. Sure Pentheus rejected Dionysus, but when they first met, Pentheus had no idea that Dionysus was a god since he was disguised as a stranger. Pentheus just did as probably all kings did, just assume he was right in his own belief because a king knows more then a stranger. It seems to me that Pentheus was more of an innocent victim in that he was just doing what all kings did at the time. Dionysus plays him like a fiddle which i...
