Study Questions: Week 3

1. How do Dionysus’ miracles challenge Pentheus’ authority?

2. Dionysus can take on many forms: he can appear as an animal (a bull), his mortal double (the Stranger), and ‘a thing of gleaming air.’ How does each of these transformations aggravate his conflict with Pentheus?

3. How do the maenads behave when they are at rest?

4. How do the maenads relate with the animals on the mountains?

5. How do the maenads’ miracles differ from Dionysus’?

6. Why do the maenads turn violent? What form does their violence take?

7. What form does civic violence take? What motivates it?

8. What does Pentheus’ feminization consist in?

9. How is insanity supposed to facilitate Pentheus’ demise?

10. How has Pentheus’ transformation affected his sight, masculinity, and state of mind?

11. What may Pentheus’ dismemberment be thought to symbolize?

12. What is the role of vision in the last part of the play?

13. What punishments does Dionysus distribute as deus ex machina in the exodus?