Minyades In Bacchae And Diony

Women in Ancient Greece lack the rights that the female gender have grown in to today. The men during this time are blatant about their sexism, expecting the women to remain submissive to their husbands, take care of the children and household duties, and be as modest as possible. There was no free-will involved as they were married off without a say and their lives consisted of them as the subservient wife. Dionysus changes this, taking the women as his worshipers, also known as his “Bacchae”. Their unabashed, newfound sexual freedom astounded the men. Euripides’s Bacchae and Detonne’s Dionysus at Large demonstrate the inversion of gender roles and how it effects the society that they live in while still managing to control the women. To …show more content…
The ladies apart of the chorus abandoned their entire lives (like the maenads) to follow and worship Dionysus. The difference is, however, Dionysus does not manipulate them into dismembering their own children and devouring the remains. They act on their own free will, and he refers to them as his “most loyal band of worshipers.” (Euripedes, 3) Another difference is the maenads never willingly communicate with anyone other than each other or Dionysus. This suggests that, because they are so intoxicated by Dionysus’ controlling influence, they are unable to publicly worship him. They are hidden in the wild, and slip into a manic frenzy when approached by men, coming after them with their newfound strength, attempting to kill them. The chorus of Asian women are far more loyal and special to Dionysus than the maenads. They speak to each other as if they are his daughters, and seem to have seniority over the other women. What is similar between the two, however, is their love of freedom and oneness with nature. The chorus whimsically muses, “Shall I dance them again, the nightlong dances? Dance again with bare feet in the dew? Shall I toss my head and skip through the open fields […]?” (Euripedes, 45) With this, the maenads are women who have been taken from their positions as the dutiful housewives and molded into those who are liberated and running free with nature. The metaphorical phrase of letting one’s hair down to indicate freedom is literal with the maenads as they intertwine ivy in their hair and wear the traditional Bacchic garbs in the Bacchae and Dionysus at Large. On a more positive note, Dionysus gives them a way to express their stifled longings by enchanting women and giving them the chance to explore their masculinity, an opportunity no other male would have given them. Still, it is