Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam > Blaise Pascal Instituut > Girard Studiekring > COV&R 2007 > Abstracts Papers 

Babak Ebrahimian

Mechanisms of War in Dramatic Literature: From Desire to Sacrifice

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A Comparative Study of Tolerance and Vulnerability

in Euripides’ The Bacchae and Shakespeare’s King Lear

 Understanding the mechanisms of war in dramatic literature, necessitates understanding the birth of conflict and its growth and expansion into war. If conflict can be seen as dispute and conflict over an object of desire, then René Girard’s mimetic theory can elucidate how such conflict, based on desire, works and lead to a sacrificial crisis─a crisis which can only resolve by sacrifice. This crisis also known as crisis of undifferentiation is then the basis of what is commonly referred to as war.  There are four distinct moments which clearly define the genesis of a social or national conflict, or war, within Girard’s mimetic theory. There are four clear moments which define the genesis of a social, or national, conflict or war within the mimetic theory of Rene Girard. They are: 1) identification of a common object of desire by a subject and a model/mediator 2) the formation of doubles through desiring of this same object, called double mediation 3) the contagious infection and spreading of the doubles into society or nation as in a contagious plague and 4) the uniform blaming, ganging-up and accusing of a victim, scapegoat, along with its sacrifice to end the crisis and restore society back to calm, peace and its norm. Inherit in the theory is the arbitrary, and innocent, nature of the scapegoat: the scapegoat is selected and chosen so as to carry the blame for the mimetic contagion and crisis, known as the sacrificial crisis (pointing to the sacrificial nature of the crisis) or crisis of undifferentiation (alluding to the condition of the crisis where differences are eradicated and a blind uniformity takes over.) This trajectory of desire – from its inception or birth to its final stage and conclusion of sacrifice – then defines the mechanism of war and it is found nowhere better than in dramatic literature and dramas, from ancient Greeks to the postmodern and contemporary twentieth-first century plays.  

Within the mimetic reading of these dramatic texts, two other socio-political elements and their relationship to one another are made manifest, namely tolerance and vulnerability. What I propose to illustrate is to examine this relationship in two classical works from the dramatic canon: Euripides’ The Bacchae and William Shakespeare’s King Lear demonstrating how tolerance and vulnerability function and remain connected.

Written in 422BC, The Bacchae begins with Dionysus, the god of wine, entering the city of Thebes . He is “of soft, even effeminate, appearance.” To emphasize even further his feminine attributes, Euripides adds that “he is beardless, dressed and has his long blond curls ripple down over his shoulders.” Appearing as such, Dionysus enters the city with an already established undifferentiation in his identity as himself being a man or a god, or a man or a woman. Nowhere do the habitants of Thebes receive hints about his real identity, deadly powers and abilities. In addition to his womanly traits, he enters the city wearing a smiling mask. Upon arrival, he announces his arrival, “I am Dionysus, the son of Zeus, come back to Thebes , this land where I was born…And here I stand, a god incognito disguised as man.” In short, Dionysus enters Thebes with an already established disguise and confusion in his identity, announcing the fact that he is indeed a bearer and creator of undifferentiation.

The women-chorus follow him singing and dancing as in a trance. Shortly after his arrival, Panteus, the king of Thebes , finds him and begins to question him about his identity. Refusing to answer the questions, Panteus has him bound and taken away, imprisoning him. This begins a mimetic desire and rivalry over power. Dionysus warns Pentheus he is a god, but Panteus not believing a word, proceeds to humiliate him by cutting off his blond curls and taking away his wand. Furthermore, he confines Dionysus in the palace. The rivalry between the two continues and Dionysus warns Pentheus “I give you sober warning, fools:/ place no chain on me.” (I,i, 503) but Pentheus continues with the rivalry and power play. Reaffirming his power as the king of Thebes , Pentheus rejects the superiority of the stranger, Dionysus “But I say: chain him. And I am the stronger here.” (I,i, 502). The attendants exit with their prisoner, the captive Dionysus. Not withholding his godly powers, Dionysus calls out for an earthquake and thunder to come and “shatter the floor of the world.” (I,i,585).

 The rivalry continues when Pentheus, having survived the destruction, meets Dionysus amongst the ruins of the palace. In confusion, he asks Dionysus how he escaped the chains, and again, Dionysus responds by alluding to his godliness. Still not convinced, Pentheus continues with the power rivalry over the city, indicating that “he [Dionysus] will not escape my anger. (I,i, 653). Amidst the rivalry over power, a messenger enters and announces that the women of Thebes have been caught in a frenzy─a violent mimetic contagion with strange ritualistic behavior─dancing, drinking, attacking and tearing all those men who come near them. Pentheus still unaware of Dionysus being the responsible god behind the frenzy, declares “Like a blazing fire/this Bacchic violence spreads.” (I,i, 777). Well aware of the violent contagion, Pentheus wants to see the frenzy and disorder at first hand. Still rivaling Dionysus, events take a turn when Dionysus offers to guide Pentheus and take him to the mountaintop. Still wearing his smiling mask, reinforcing the fact that he is behind for the crisis of undifferentiation in Thebes , Dionysus forewarns Pentheus that he should dress up as a woman. Additionally, humiliating Pentheus further and avenging himself, he places a wig with long curls on Pentheus’ head. Pentheus is now fully under Dionysus spell. Agreeing to do anything to see the spectacle, Pentheus asks Dionysus to “lead him through the heart of Thebes ,/since I alone of all this city, dare to go.” (I,i,965) to which Dionysis responds “You and you alone will suffer for your city.” (I,i, 965). Led by Dionysus, Pentheus is led to the frenzy where his disguise is revealed: He is sacrificed and torn to pieces by the female mob, which includes also his mother, Agave.  

While Euripides’ The Bacchae fully illustrates the mimetic cycle─from desire to sacrificecontained in war, it also sheds important light on the nature of contagion, namely where there is mimetic contagion at work, the mob, inflicted and created by the contagion, will neither tolerate nor accept anyone from the outside. The mob thrives, feeds and grows on its mimetic desire and energy. By the same token, the participants in the mob of a mimetic contagion will allow themselves to be open and vulnerable to change, to a mimetic motion, from which through mimetic reinforcement will grow and solidify into a mob. Once the contagion has taken place, and has completed its task, the inflicted group, or mob, will close the open vulnerability to protect, cherish and strengthen the acquired desire. In writing about the phenomenology of the crowd, Elias Canetti points out four aspects which define it. He writes:  

1. The crowd always wants to grow. There are no natural boundaries to its growth…. 2. Within the crowd there is equality. This is absolute and indisputable and never questioned by the crowd itself. It is of fundamental importance and one might even define a crowd as a state of absolute equality. A head is a head, an arm an arm, and differences between individual heads and arms are irrelevant. It is for the sake of this equality that people become a crowd and they tend to overlook anything which might detract it…. 3. The crowd loves density. It can never feel too dense. Nothing must stand between its parts or divide them; everything must be the crowd itself…. 4. The Crowd needs a direction. It is a in all its members, strengthens the feeling of equality… A crowd exists so long as it has an unattained goal.[1]

 The mob or crowd of mimetic contagion functions very much like the crowd as Canetti describes. In The Bacchae, the mob of women on the mountaintop 1. wanted to grow and expand with no limitations imposed; 2. there were no leaders, other than Dionysus himself, and this equality gave them their strength; 3. the mob existed together in a confined area on the mountaintop, rather than spread across Thebes and 4.

 The direction was partaking and celebrating together Dionysus’ spell. Each of the four aspects also helps to contribute to the vulnerability and tolerance at work within a mob: they each strengthen tolerance within the crowd for one another while at the same time allowing for less tolerance for outsiders. Within the crowd, or mob, tolerance becomes a mimetic phenomenon, there the crowd will tolerate or not as the group dictates it. The crowd, in the same manner, will be both very vulnerable to outsiders, while at the same time protecting itself and one another from outside attacks and outsiders.

In Deceit, Desire and the Novel, René Girard examines five novelists, their novels and their heroes to discover they all share one element in common between them: a desire which is imitative or mimetic. Girard then goes into detail to uncover and map out the main principles of mimetic desire in the novelists and how the heroes of the novels were blind to this desiring mechanism and its destructive nature: by the end of the novel, the protagonist-heroes emerge to recognize this blindness and each experience an awakening to the untruthful or “romantic” nature of their lives. This moment of “belated lucidity,” a transformation in the protagonists, is what Girard calls the “novelistic conversion.” Some protagonists live to experience their new awakened lives, and others, shortly after their realization, die. Regardless, what stands out as an important element of the novel and its heroes, is this moment of “novelistic conversion” and the recognition/awakening of the protagonist to his or her “romantic lie.”[2]

  With drama, however, much of this turning point and conversion in the character-heroes is depicted by a trajectory of stripping away of the heroes’ social, political and historical identity to render them into a state of “nothingness.” It is at this extreme point that the characters they experience a “stepping over” into an awakening. Equivalent to Girard’s novelistic conversion, this dramatic moment─where the character is stripped of all his or her social, political and historical artifice, and can see clearly–can be called the “dramatic conversion”[3] of the dramatic persona. This state is also the point where the hero-character is at its most vulnerable state. This trajectory of being stripped away, along with the relationship between tolerance and vulnerability can best be seen in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

  At the start of the play, Lear is introduced to us with two functions and roles: first as the sovereign king of England and secondly as a father of three daughters. King and father he wishes to divide his kingdom to his three daughters. For this purpose, he is holding a gathering ─a court─ with his advisors and friends. Upon his arrival to the court, he announces his wish to retire and divide his kingdom between his daughters. In turn, in his retirement, he wishes to visit and stay with each of his daughter. To divide his kingdom, Lear asks to measure out his charity according to each daughter’s verbal proclamation of their love for their king and father. He announces: “Tell me, my daughters/ (Since now we will divest us both of rule,/Interest of territory, cares of state),/ Which of you shall we say doth love us most,/That we our largest bounty may extend/ Where nature doth with merit challenge.” Looking at his language, speech and rhetoric in this opening scene, we find a father and king who is confident and secure in his position of a father and king and, using his authority as a king, wants to share his love by dividing out his kingdom. He is thus secure in his position of king and father and protected from any vulnerability. Looking for an easy way to measure his love, he asks his daughters to give him a short speech and declaration of love.       

  The first daughter, Goneril, professes her love in a highly flowery and ornamented speech. Having listened to the speech, Lear is satisfied and pleased. He gives Goneril her share of his kingdom. Meanwhile, having heard Goneril’s speech, Cordelia, the youngest daughter, remarks to herself the hypocritical nature of the test, remarking “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent. (I, i, 62).” Rather than playing the rhetorical language game she contemplates being silent.  Lear proceeds to the second daughter, Regan. Regan, too passes the test of verbal affection and proclamation of charity for her father, the king. Satisfied with her answer, Lear approves and gives her, her share of the kingdom. As with her oldest sister, Cordelia detects the insincerity and hypocritical nature of the game of her father’s test and her sister’s responses. For a second time, she remarks aside: “Then poor Cordelia;/And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s/More ponderous than my tongue. (I,i,76-78)” The scene, builds to Cordilia. Lear referring to her as “our joy” and asks her to quantify her love for him: “What can you say to draw/A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.” (I, i, 85-86). Cordelia, observing her father’s blindness, decides to remain true to herself and her love for her father rather than humoring him and playing the rhetorical game. She refuses, rejects the test and responds in three words: “Nothing my lord. (I,i, 87)” Seemingly unclear or unsure of Cordelia’s answer, Lear asks: “Nothing?” To which Cordelia responds again: “Nothing.” Injured or offended by Cordelia’s seemingly callous and unobservant response, Lear tries again: “Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again. (I, i, 89) The question-answer foreshadows Lear’s journey of being stripped bare. Speaking to her father, she defends her truthful stands: “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave/My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty/According to my bond, no more nor less. (I, i, 91-93)” Seeing and accepting Lear as her father, she bases and privileges her love on the family bond: as a daughter and a father.  The response injures and strikes a blow to the king. Infuriated at her words, Lear asks her a second time, but her answer doesn’t change. What pursues is a crisis of rage, where Lear, not withstanding Cordillia’s stubborn rejection to adhere to his courtly desire for affirmation love, sees it as seemingly lack of love. He expels Cordillia both from his sight and his kingdom. The rage is contagious as Lear furthermore also expels his most loyal friend, Kent for trying to make peace between the king and his daughter.

  This opening scene clearly establishes the most important dynamic in the play: namely, the character relationship between “king-father” and her daughter Cordelia, who sees Lear not as a hyphenated “king-father” but rather the reverse as a “father-king” or even merely as a “father.” What the scene also points out is Lear’s intolerance: intolerance toward being seen, revered and treated as nothing less that a king along with a need for his court, knights and artifices. The intolerance in Lear exists almost entirely as a function of his kingliness. To be a king automatically means having a title (the king) and holding court where all are at his mercy and command obeying as instructed. Failure to adhering to the king or refusing his requests face expulsion, as did Cordelia and Kent. While the scene establishes the intolerance at work in King Lear, it also points out to his vulnerability as a father. To protect his potential vulnerability, Lear, the father wants all of his daughters to love him as much as possible but also in his manner: through an open declaration before the court.     

  While this opening scene establishes and maps out Lear’s kingliness and kingly needs, along with his position with tolerance and vulnerability, Shakespeare takes the next four acts to show a trajectory where Lear is stripped of his wealth, possessions, and status, finding himself in a storm-struck wilderness. He seeks to stay with his knights with Goneril and Regan, as agreed upon in the first scene, but is rejected by both and interrogated of his needs. He responds: “O reason not the need! Our basest beggars/Are in the poorest thing superfluous./ Allow not nature more than nature needs,/Man’s life is cheap as beast’s.” (II, i, 259-262) The passage is significant, in that it demonstrates Lear, the once-king, now comparing himself to beggars and beasts. He has been stripped of all kingliness and artifacts and rejected by his two daughters. It is at this point that the dramatic conversion takes place, with Lear being stripped bare and awakening to the truth of his daughters’ lack of love. He is forced to leave their territory and becomes a wonderer. Stripped down to “nothing” –as  foreshadowed in the first scene of the play –  Lear now cries out in the face of the storm, as a king-reduced to a mere human being would: “Blow, window, and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow./You cataracts and hurricanes, spout/Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks.” (III, ii, 1-3)  No longer a king and barely a human being, a person, he is now most vulnerable: open to receiving pain, harm, or more insults and injuries. Within this realm of being bare, being stripped and denied all fatherhood and all kingliness, and a self realization and identification with nothingness and nothing, Lear now becomes tolerant: he can withstand everything and anything─two words which though antonyms of nothing become synonyms. His tolerance goes high as he tolerates savage men, monsterous daughters─his persecutors─ in the stormy nature. Directly proportional to this increase in tolerance, his vulnerability changes: In storm and wilderness Lear’s awakening allows him to become fully vulnerable, ready to accept, ready to be identified, to be named and take on a role. In short, upon reaching the state of identifying with nothingness, upon becoming fully vulnerable, Lear undergoes his awakening and conversion─being stripped of all his being, status and identity─he not only undergoes his conversion, which allows him an infinite degree of tolerance.  Whereas at the start of the play, Lear─the king and father─ displayed little or no tolerance, through a journey of being stripped and denied, reaching a point of nothingness, he experiences and undergoes a dramatic conversion which by default allows and brings him to a higher level of both tolerance and vulnerability. Taking Lear and his trajectory as a model, it seems that tolerance and vulnerability exist with one another in direct proportion, where as vulnerability goes up, so does tolerance, and vice versa.

What follows Lear’s dramatic conversion are the scenes of him being located and found by Cordilia and her camp. The ex-king, now only a father to Cordillia, re-establishes and forms the familial bond. He asks for pardon from Cordilia in an unprecedented charitable manner. Finding and recognizing one another as father and daughter, they both weep.[4] Addressing Cordilia, Lear proclaims his repentance: “If you have poison for me, I will drink it.” (IV, vii, 72). For his treatment of Cordilia, the repentant Lear is now willing to take death should it be Cordilia’s desire. He continues to elaborate: “…for your sisters/Have (as I do remember) done me wrong. You have some cause, they have not.” (IV, vii, 73-75). Reminiscent of her short and truthful manner of expressing herself in the first scene of the play, Cordilia responds to his father with “No cause, No cause.” (IV, vii, 76). The peace and reconciliation is established between father and daughter, but like all tragedies sacrifice is at hand: Lear and Cordilia walk away only to face their deaths.

  In looking at The Bacchae and King Lear what I hoped to have demonstrated was not only a mimetic reading of the dramatic texts and their mechanisms of war at work, but more specifically to show 1) how tolerance and vulnerability are directly linked to one another and 2) how regardless of their nature ─ group contagion or the individual ─ tolerance and vulnerability are both always at work. The mimetic contagion, the crowd and the mob all cling to their values and desires thereby protecting themselves from their vulnerability, and in the process creating different degree of intolerance for outsiders and their outside circle. With the individual however, tolerance and vulnerability can act as an affirmatively when it can allow and invite growth, building, and as with the case of Lear, create and establish peace and reconciliation.