Bakhai and Siddhartha

1. Citing passages, page references, and edition, identify and discuss passages in Bakkhai and Siddhartha that suggest mysticism and passages that suggest pantheism.

Pantheism is the belief that everything is God and that God is everything. God is not only inside the world, He is the very world process and this provokes the view of the natural process as divine. In the Bakkhai, Euripides reveals the concept of pantheism through Agave as she is enraptured by Dionysos. An example of this is seen when Agave is blind to her son, Pentheus, and kills him.

"But foam dripped on him from her frothing mouth, while her eyes spun randomly in their sockets. She was inhibited by her god, who ran loose and wild in her mind. She could not think, much less listen to her son. Gripping his left arm just below the wrist, and planting a foot on his chest, she ripped her wretched son's limb from his socket, with an awful strength not her own, but the god's gift to her. (53)

Dionysos possessed and controlled Agave. She was given the strength to devour her son, which would not have been possible without Dionysos