HUMAN 1C Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Sparagmos, Hubris, Pentheus
Document Summary
Pentheus sees double, 2 suns, 2 thebes, and dionysus as a bull. Pentheus is drunk, but he sees the truth. Dionysus directs pentheus how to become a bacchante (metatheatre a theatre within a theatre) Pentheus says he dares to go through the heart of thebes. This is considered masculine, but it is parodied by what he is wearing. Dionysus tells him that he will be usurping. Pentheus would normally see that as hubristic but doesn"t. This scene is set up to make pentheus think that he is going to an amazing event/olympic event because he will be carried out by his mother. There"s no such reason that agave kills pentheus. We want the mother not to see her son as her son; we want her to be alienated. This alienation is a lion, who is pentheus. Whatever pentheus can become, dionysus is already that. Humans need to be silent, be able to see but not be seen.
