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Misogyny, Dionysianism and a

new model of Greek tragedy
a
Paul Gordon
a
Asst. Professor of Humanities , University of
Colorado , Boulder Campus
Published online: 12 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Paul Gordon (1990) Misogyny, Dionysianism and a new model
of Greek tragedy, Women's Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal, 17:3-4, 211-218,
DOI: 10.1080/00497878.1990.9978806

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 Misogyny, Dionysianism
and a new model of Greek
tragedy
PAUL GORDON
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Asst. Professor of Humanities, University of Colorado at Boulder

Campus

The subject of misogyny in Greek culture is widely recognized as

of capital importance in understanding our attitude towards
women as well as the general culture context within which that
attitude is framed. Yet despite the obvious importance of this
subject there has been little attention given to the way misogyny
in fifth-centry Athens was an integral part of its greatest art form,
the tragic drama. Only when a model of tragedy is developed
which accounts for the typological opposition between the male
"tragic hero" and Dionysus will it be possible to understand how
women function within this particular literary genre as the essen-
tial "other" of repressive male consciousness.

GERALD ELSE AND BRIAN VlCKERS are justified in rejecting the

speculations of Nietzsche, Harrison, Murray and others insofar as
such theories pretend to enlighten us as to the so-called origins of
Greek tragedy. Yet the latter critics and their more recent followers
(Dodds, Winnington-Ingram, and Charles Segal, to cite only the most
eminent) are equally justified in exploring the relevance of Dionysian-
ism to tragedy and especially to Euripides' final play, no matter what
one may think abut the so-called origins of the form. In marked
contrast to Else and Vickers Winnington-Ingram states that the Bac-
chae "is about the religion of Dionysus and the behavior of his votaries"
(149). Yet, although he offers many valuable insights into Euripides'
play, Winnington-Ingram fails to explore the correlations between
Dionysus, Dionysianism and tragedy in general. This causes him to

Women's Studies, 1990 © 1990 Gordon and Breach, Science Publishers, Inc.
Vol. 17, pp. 211-218 Printed in Great Britain
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 212 P. GORDON

neglect some obvious comparisons between the Bacchae and other

plays (for example, if "Dionysus' revenge would have been shocking"
(7), would not Aphrodite's in the Hippolytus have been too?) as well as
to reject Pentheus as the tragic hero of the Bacchae and the play itself as
a tragedy:

Yet tragedy does not seem the right word nor Pentheus to be of the stature of tragic
heroes; and any attempt to make such a hero of him is bound in one way or another
to distort the character as revealed by the text of the play. (160)

The purpose of this paper is to show that the central conflict of the
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Bacchae which pits its hero Pentheus against the female followers of
Dionysus is essential to a number of other tragedies as well.
The Antigone would seem to be a good place to begin examining the
validity of a Dionysian model of tragedy, for its primary conflict, alle-
giance to family or state, appears more abstract than the Dionysian
opposition between male/female, culture/nature, consciousness and
the unconscious found in the Bacckae. But however valid and import-
ant Hegel's ethical reading of the Antigone may be, it is as blind to the
play's Dionysian elements and their clear affinities with the Bacchae as
is Aristotle's formalistic reading of the Oedipus. Creon's "function" in
the play, as Propp would say, is much the same as Pentheus' in Euri-
pides' play: both men are obsessed with the authority of the tyrannosXo
decree and enforce the laws of the state in contradistinction to a or the
god(s). Hegel is incorrect in giving equal weight to Creon and Anti-
gone in this regard, for Antigone's nobility is not that of the typical
male hero of tragedy. Among more recent critics, a similar failure to
define the Greek "tragic hero" along such typological lines has led
Winnington-Ingram (as we just saw) and Segal {Dionysian Poetics, 247-54)
to reject Pentheus, and Berlin Creon (The Secret Cause, 14) as the tragic
heroes of their respective plays. One cannot accept any of these leaders as
the tragic hero without accepting them all, for they all perform the same
vital function in their particular tragedies.
This is not to say that women do not also perform an essential, and
equally consistent, function in Greek tragedy. Without entering into
the dubious debate concerning the status of women in fifth-century
Athens as evidenced by their prominent role in tragedy and vice versa
(the participants are listed by Sarah Pomeroy in her "Selected Bibli-
ography on women in Antiquity," pp. 140-143), one can say that if
women are not tragic heroes in these plays it is because they are even
 A NEW MODEL OF GREEK TRAGEDY 213

greater than their male counterparts. Just as Dionysus is usually

accompanied by women, so too the women of tragedy must be
grouped with their effeminate god, joining him in opposition to the
typical tragic hero. As Segal writes: "Women and Dionysus are closely
associated in several myths which involve threats to the polis and its
values" ("Sex Roles and Reversals in Euripides' Bacchae," 187). Like
Dionysus, the women of tragedy are heroes (if one is to use the term)
but in a different sense: they represent the liberating forces of nature
which triumph over the repressive forces of culture. Although largely
neglected this pattern has not gone entirely unnoticed, especially
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outside its literary context. As Sheila McNally writes in her analysis of

the changing attitudes toward women in the fifth century as reflected
in vase paintings of maenads, " . . . rationality created divisions
between man's mental and his physical existence" (137). In more
socio-political terms Marilyn Arthur repeats this view of the "greater
fragmentation" of classical Greek culture and correlative alienation of
women.
Antigone's resemblance to Dionysus in the Bacchae is particularly
striking. Both stand in calm defiance of the laws as they, like Aeschy-
lus' Prometheus, champion a more natural code of behavior and
virtue (themis versus dike). Media, Klytemnestra, Aphrodite, Phaedra,
Antigone et al. thus form their own consistent typology: all these
women, like Dionysus, represent the "return" of natural forces
normally repressed by civilized law.
If conservatism is typical of the tragic hero, so is an obsessive (in
psychoanalytic terms) opposition to Dionysus and the women who
represent him. This may seem less convincing in the case of Creon,
whose concern for loyalty is not so blatantly unmasked as is Pentheus'
desire for transgression. But on closer examination it can in fact be
shown that Creon's concern with loyalty is no less a function of his
desire for the repressed than is Pentheus'.
Writers on the role of women in tragedy have not noted this typo-
logical association of Antigone with Dionysus, or the male:fe-
male::culture:nature::Pentheus:Dionysus conflict from which it
stems. One reason for this neglect is, as mentioned, that the Antigone is
traditionally seen as concerned with ethical versus sexual conflicts.
Another reason is that Antigone, unlike Phaedra, Medea and Klytem-
nestra does not represent herself as a spokeswoman for her sex. But if
Antigone is not particularly aware of her predicament as a "women's
 214 P. GORDON

issue" Creon is at least as concerned with Antigone's status as a

woman as he is in enforcing the city's laws. His remarks on women,
although less explicit than Hippolytus' famous diatribe (Hippofytus
616-668), are just as essential for anyone concerned with Greek atti-
tudes toward women or misogyny in general.
The first of these remarks occurs midway through the play, where
Creon is lambasting the recalcitrant Antigone after her second
attempt to bury her brother:

This girl was expert in her insolence when sne broke bounds beyond established law.
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Once she had done it, insolence the second to boast her doing, and to laugh in it. / am
no man and she the man instead if she can have this conquest without pain. (480-5)

If, says Creon, Antigone is allowed to thwart his will then "she will be
the man and he the woman." Creon is not faithful here to his "classi-
cal" argument that the laws of the city must precede other, more
personal obligations. He is maintaining something quite different,
namely, that whoever wins in their dispute will be the man, and so it
cannot be right if Antigone is to have her way. If this were the only
instance of an utterly misogynistic argument undermining Creon's
more abstract, ethical one it could be ignored, but there are at least
three other examples of this subversive logic which are even more
compelling.
A few lines later, after their confrontation has reached the fevered
pitch of a stychomythia, Creon concludes by saying: "Then go down
there, if you must love, and love the dead. No woman rules me while I
live" (525-6). Again, the logic of Creon's final line is that Antigone is
wrong, not because of her beliefs or for opposing the sanctity of the
city, but because she is a woman. At the end of this scene, after Creon
and Antigone have been joined by Ismene, Creon's exasperation
reaches its limit as he angrily dismisses the two sisters:

. . . Now, no delay! Slaves, take them in. Thy must be women now. No more free running.
Even the bold will fly when they see Death drawing in close enough to end their life.
(577-81)

If one did not know better one might take this to be Pentheus railing
against the dangers of women being allowed to run free (cf. Bacchae
218-20). Particularly insofar as Antigone and Ismene, whatever else
they may be guilty of, are certainly innocent of "free running."
Creon's "hysteria" may even be considered more neurotic than
 A NEW MODEL OF GREEK TRAGEDY 215

Pentheus', which was at least responding to the reality of having to

contend with such "loose women." Creon's fear is far more indicative
of his own fantasies and is, as the above two quotations also indicate,
evidence of his subjective fear that women will control him.
The final quotation is perhaps the clearest in demonstrating that
Creon's battle is not on behalf of the state against the individual but
on behalf of man against woman:

If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them. So I must
guard the men who yield to order, not let myself be beaten by a woman. Better, if it must
happen, that a man should overset me. I won't be called weaker than womankind. (674-80)
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These lines, spoken to a "weaker" son far wiser than he, demonstrate
that the oft-remarked ethical debate in the Antigone between the
respective powers of religion and the state is what Freud would call
"secondary revision," for Creon is willing to forsake the propriety of
his actions if only he not be "beaten by a woman"!
Creon's misogynistic utterances are important for our purposes
because they reveal the facade of his conscious motivations in enforc-
ing the law, however else these may be justified. Like the Bacchae,
the Antigone is about conscious efforts to repress the unconscious
which can only succeed in manifesting the latter at the same time as
the greatness of the former is demonstrated (the heroism, however
flawed, of Creon, Oedipus, Pentheus, et al. is never in question). In
reply to the countless "uplifting" theories which see tragedy as ulti-
mately reasserting cosmic justice or moral truth, I would agree with
Clifford Leech when he says that in tragedy "there is nothing reassur-
ing . . . no promise that a new chain of evil will not quickly ensue, no
lesson that men or the gods have learned" Tragedy, 172). We can now
conclude by indicating the presence of this Dionysian, misogynistic
pattern in Oedipus Tyrannus and the Hippolytus.
Like Pentheus and Creon, Oedipus and Hippolytus are otherwise
pious rulers who transgress the will of a or the god(s). Less obvious is
the fact that both kings (Hippolytus is the surrogate ruler of Troezen)
are also repressive rulers who stand in opposition to representative
Dionysian forces of nature. As Nietzsche suggests {The Birth of
Tragedy, ix), Oedipus' obsession with defending the law throughout
the play proper is in fact a result of the fundamental law of nature he
has already violated. Like Pentheus, Oedipus lashes out at those
around him (it is significant that Teiresias is the "archetypal" victim of
 216 P. GORDON

such "tongue lashings," here, in ihe Bacchae and in the Antigone)

because he is unable to tolerate anything other than their love and
respect. That, in turn, is because Oedipus has already done what
Pentheus is shown to want to accomplish: to destroy utterly the norms
of society. It is the criminal in Oedipus, in other words, which makes
him so obsessed not only with defending the law but with representing
the reverence in which it is held. Since Oedipus has transgressed the
boundary separating man and nature he knows the horrors that await
the man who does not strive to repress them. Although not speaking
directly about Oedipus, Roy Motrell refers to this transgression/
repression mechanism at work in tragedy when he asks "Does tragedy
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provide the individual in the audience with a means of expansion

through empathy . . . and then, but only in the destruction of the hero
free the individual, break his empathy . . .?" {Tragedy, 280).
Finally, although Theseus assumes Creon's and Oedipus' role of
representative of the polis, Hippolytus follows the pattern of the
Penthean tragic hero in all other respects. Keeping our typology of
both tragic plot and character in mind, we see that the minis ("wrath of
humiliation") with which the Hippolyutus begins functions in much the
same way as that of Dionysus in the Bacchae. Aphrodite, who stands
for many of the same forces Dionysus represents, is justifiably angered
by a mere mortal's insulting disregard:

Hippolytus: The God of nocturnal prowess is not my God.

Servant: The honors of the Gods you must not scant, my son.
Hippolytus: . . .For your Cypris here — a long goodbye to her" (106-112)

In much the same way that Creon, Pentheus and Oedipus had cham-
pioned justice Hippolytus imagines himself as representing those "in
whose very soul the seed of Chastity toward all things alike nature has
deeply roted, they alone . . . [and] not the wicked" (81-3). Moreover,
just as the other rulers discussed thus far were destroyed by their own
manifestation of the forces they strove to repress, one does not need to
look hard to notice the way that Hippolytus' "chaste" imagination
resembles more explicitly erotic imaginings such as Phaedra's. For
example, compare the following to her lines about "drawing a draught
of fresh spring water in the tufted meadow," etc., 208-11:

My Goddess Mistress, I bring you ready woven this garland. It was I that plucked and
wove it, plucked it for you in your inviolate Meadow. No shepherd dares to feed his
 A NEW MODEL OF GREEK TRAGEDY 217

Dock within it: no reaper plies a busy scythe within it: only the bees in the springtime
haunt the inviolate Meadow. (71-5)

The presence of eros is clearly felt in this beautiful description of pick-

ing flowers that dare not be picked. Indeed, later in Euripides' play
Hippolytus' image of the bee is repeated in the Chorus' highly erotic
ode on love, Aphrodite and Dionysus:

Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart of those
he would destroy . . . Love is like a flitting bee in the world's garden and for its flow-
ers, destruction is in his breath. (525-565)
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These passages and numerous others suggest that Hippolytus' repre-

ssive desire for Artemis' "inviolate meadow" is inhabited by Aphro-
dite's "flitting bee" of love later described by the Chorus.
To be sure, much more needs to be said about the converging of
opposing forces (particularly those of Artemis and Aphrodite) in Euri-
pides' great play. But returning to our paradigm of the plays discussed
thus far we can now conclude that the male tragic hero "opposes"
Dionysus and his female followers because he fears losing his author-
ity to them, and that this fear is based less on reality (note the curious
way that Creon, Pentheus and Oedipus, for example, create their own
misfortunes) than on the desire for what the hero is attempting
to repress. In the Bacchae Pentheus' desire for the repressed is made
manifest in the play itself (it is for this reason that the Bacchae should
be considered a "tragedy of tragedy" as well as a tragedy about the
god of tragedy). Oedipus' paranoid desire to "crack down" on the
citizenry of Thebes was viewed here as a reaction to the actual fulfill-
ment of his own hidden desires, while Creon was shown to be
concerned less with the legality of his case against Antigone than with
his imaginary fear (and hence desire) that power be turned over to a
"free-running" Dionysian woman. For Hippolytus the case, as already
mentioned, is somewhat different, but the essential tragic pattern of a
male hero threatened by his own repressed desires is still clearly
evident.

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 218 P. GORDON

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