Gender Roles in Bacchae by Euripides
Man. Woman. Transgender. Agender. Bigender. Polygender. In today’s society, these are some of the gender variations many people claim to be. All of these genders are, for the most part, accepted throughout our society. No matter what gender a person was born as everyone apparently has a right to change and become the gender they want too. This was not the case during the time period that Bacchae was written. The contrast between men and women is extremely prevalent in this book. In the Bacchae, men had very specific roles as did women and numerous problems arose if these roles crossed between genders. We first see the distinction between gender roles when the king, Pentheus, finds out that all of the women in his city have left to become Bacchants. King Pentheus says, “These women of ours have left their homes / and run away to the dark mountains, pretending / to be Bacchants. It’s this brand new god, / Dionysus, whoever that is; they’re dancing for him!” (...