Don't Tell No Lie, You Can't Deny the Beast Inside
Suppose there’s an old man standing on the side of the road, tiptoeing around and mumbling to himself. Immediately, what does the average person assume? He’s crazy, totally mad. So let’s alter the situation: the same man, tiptoeing and talking under his breath, except he’s in the middle of a forest whispering to a bear, remaining calm so he can escape without alarming the bear and getting himself attacked. Now? That man is a genius, an outdoorsman, or a bear whisperer if you like. Our general concept of madness is completely dependent on the situation in which we view it. Madness is not a constant quality but rather a temporary state of mind where instinct takes over and alters our behavior, typically having us act against the standard of social expectations, as is exemplified through Euripides’ play Bacchae. Dionysus is the primary influence of the madness in the women of Thebes; he has “stung these women into madness, goaded/ them outdoors, made them live in the mountain, struck/ o...