Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

"those gods . who yearly mus t be rent to spring anew " (78). Whil e preparing Pc:nrheus
for sacrifice, DionysoslOgun possesses Pentteus. tranSfonning him into the sacri ficial
beast. unrecognized even by his own mother. 38 To reiterate the significance of the
sacrificial animal. Soyinka hasboth the Officer and Agave describe the tearing apart
of Pentheus .
Elizabeth Hale w lnkler, in "Three Recent Versions of The Baccnae." suggests
that Soyinka makes the theme of revo lt against authoritarianism and col onial
oppression more central than the two feminist adaptations. Riles (1969) by Maureen
Duffy and A MOUlhjU1 of Bird.r(19 86) by Caryl Churchill and David Lan. Wmkler
compares Dic nysiac possession with political rebellion:
Group ritual leads people into a phase of altered consciousness where
they feel the power of a supernatUral forte and are encouraged in their
behaviour through the participatioo. of othen. Choral dance, music,
traditional religious rites, or mass political rallies can all bring on states
of mind in which the individual is beside himlherself, and malleable in
ways he or she would not nonnall y be. Mass possession may lead to
mass psychosis or even to acts of collective violence which no one
individual would have perpetrated alone (218).39
Wmkler links mass psychosis with rituals and politicalrallies as the y relate to the
effects of communal actions. By transforming Euripides' original into a communal
ritual , Soyinka combines elements of the religious and political. Soyinka is clear in his
Introduction about the subversive nature of Euripides' message - Dionysos' followers
"could beco me trul y enmeos; his worship released the pent-up frustrated energy of all
the downtrodden " (vii); he sees the lJaccJlae in its totality as "a celeb ration of life.
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