Pentheus's Point Of View

Summary:
In the last third of Bakkhai, Pentheus makes his way to the mountain, Pentheus is killed by his mother, Agave, and Kadmos daughters, and Agave is exiled after returning to sanity. In the 4th choral ode by the Bakkhai, they tell the tale of how it happened when Pentheus made his way to the mountain to hide and spy on the women. Pentheus was taken from his hiding spot then Dionysos set the women “loose” on him. Agave led the charge to kill him, and the women ripped him limb from limb and scattered all of his body parts along the mountainside. Agave was able to claim his head though and took it to the city in order to claim her expertise, but Agave thought she was killing a mountain lion so she is not aware she killed her son. In fact, …show more content…
It’s interesting to see since everyone was aware that the Bakkhai were being controlled by Dionysos and everyone knew Pentheus didn’t approve of the Bakkhai and the worship of Dionysos. He even “went to mock the god and [their] bakkhic rituals” as claimed by Kadmos, but when news came back of Pentheus’s death, everyone was quick to blame Agave, who wasn’t even aware of what she had done until well after the fact (Carson 66). I found it notable since the only woman in the story other than the Bakkhai to haver her own speaking part, which only happened at the end when she was demonstrating how crazy she was after killing her son, was the only one charged with anything even though Kadmos went to participate in the Bakkhai, Dionysos orchestrated the whole thing including Pentheus’ murder, and Pentheus was seen multiple times speaking ill of Dionysos. Dionysos didn’t even state that he was mad at Agave until the end, “You squandered your chance to worship me…And you insulted me,” (Carson 68). Even though he was mainly mad at Pentheus for a majority of the play at the end he blamed it on the