Secondary Character In Euripides The Bacchae

Throughout literature, the roles of secondary characters’ often bear inferiority in value to their stories. Agave, however, shows otherwise in Euripides’ play The Bacchae. Her role is responsible for major events in the play’s plot and the creation of the plays conflict. By analyzing Agave throughout the text of the Bacchae it becomes clear how influential she is on the story. Agave, in Euripides’, The Bacchae, maintains the status of a secondary character, but she is one of the play’s most important characters.
The creation of the conflict, is one of the most valuable assets offered to the play by Agave. By briefly summarizing the events of the story, it can clearly be seen how Agave creates the conflict. At the beginning of the play, Agave is introduced by Dionysus as the sister of Semele, Dionysus’ mother.
…Because of my mother’s sisters, who should have been the last to even think of saying such a thing, started rumors: that Dionysus was not the son of Zeus, that Semele’s lover had been a
(70)
This is an example of when Agave is under the spell of Dionysus and tears her son Pentheus to pieces. Dionysus never directly show violence towards another character, although he does exhibit his strength as a god by possessing other characters in the story. This is important because it shows how Agave strengthens the role of other characters. Agave is a rather one-dimensional character showing a similar perspective throughout the play. She never has any major shifts in ideologies or opinions with the exception of being controlled by Dionysus. Once she is awakened from her trance she does realize she had done wrong and even realizes Dionysus has been in control of her. Despite this she never states anything about accepting Dionysus as a god. The most likely reason, Agave stays consistent from the readers point of view in order to avoid accepting her rumors were wrong.