The Bacchae

There is a duality of gender in Dionysus; he is a male god but he displays certain feminine traits and there are references to his beauty. The first time Pentheus sees him, he comments that his hair is very long; he also says that he does not have a manly figure, he could never be a wrestler and that he will cut off Dionysus’ delicate hair. Pentheus is suggesting that Dionysus has a distinctly feminine look and a frail, womanly body. The followers he has gathered are all women. There is later irony when Dionysus persuades Pentheus that he must dress in female clothing in order to observe the acts of the possessed women. Dionysus suffers from his duality. He is a god, with godly powers, yet he has strong connections to the world of mortals. He is representative of the contradictions in life: he is a male god, but womanly in his human form, he can be cool and reasonable, yet he brings chaos and bad behavior. He is the protagonist, yet, as a god, seems to be outside the action, watching and directing.
Dionysus threatened Thebes social order in many ways. First off, he had all of the women under a spell, he could make them do anything he’d like. No one could capture him including Pentheus. When Pentheus tried to trap him, Dionysus causes an earthquake and gets away. There is no way to stop him, because after all he is a God. In the end, Dionysus gets his revenge when he orders his maenads to rip him apart. His own mother Agave is the one to bring back his head to the king Cadmus.
The Maenads are very calm and blissful when they are at rest. The maenads would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus which was a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves. They would weave ivy-wreaths around their heads or wear a bull helmet in honor of their god, and often handle or wear snakes. They relate to the animals in the mountains when they are in a peaceful state because they don’t bother anyone, they just go about their business in a matter that would be considered a norm.
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