What are motifs? Motifs are recurring patterns that help to develop the overall meaning and theme of the text. In classical mythology, which typically refers to Greek and Roman mythology/literature, motifs are significantly prevailing and can be analyzed. Greek and Roman myths are often written as an opposition of current reality. Similarly, this means there are major exaggerations on the basis of creating a good story. Many of the pertaining issues try to stimulate such a strong and emotional response.
These responses are so deeply rooted in our culture that the story becomes “real. Common issues like murder, incest, rape, suicide, etc. all flood mythology. Scholars try to analyze and interpret each meaning, but modern cultural bias has taught us otherwise. For example, when Medea kills her own children, society has taught us to react with disgust and to shy away from her character. However, without cultural bias, we can evaluate the circumstances and compare the ancient world to the modern world in term so social order. One of the more prevalent issues regarding Greek and Roman mythology is suicide.
The amount of individuals committing suicide is astronomical in mythology with each act ranging from men and women both taking their own life depending on the circumstances. The issues regarding suicide are another great example of ancient literary motifs. Suicide and the reasons behind suicide are what cause most if not all the deaths in the tragedies of Sophocles. Overall, suicide in Greek and Roman mythology raises several interesting questions. Why does one prefer death over life? Is suicide acceptable to society even through a story?
What causes such desperation? How does the involvement of suicide in the plot add to the overall theme and character development? In order to understand the source of suicide, a broader look into the motivations can be categorized as such: grief, shame, mental madness, self-sacrifice, and anger. In the three Theban plays, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, and Oedipus the King, nearly every major character commits suicide at some point during the trilogy. By studying and analyzing the major motivations, grief is one of the foremost emotional responses.
Greif is defined as the emotional response when life lacks happiness. In other words, it is the combination of losing control and the loss of future hope. This deeply rooted pain limits the view of the world to the point where death is preferable. A couple sources of grief include loss of kin and the loss of offspring. As far as life goes for women in classical literature, being married and having children is the crucial goal. The psychological dependency of having a husband was so imbedded in society that the full functionality of women was complete when she was committed to a husband.
It is only reasonable that when the loss of the male figure occurs, the woman affected may no longer have a societal role and may commit suicide. A prime example would be Eurydice in Antigone. Near the end of the play, she hears about the fate of Antigone and her son, Haemon. She is described as stabbing herself while standing at the household alter cursing Creon for the death of both of them. The submission to grief pushed Eurydice to kill herself out of the devastation of losing her only surviving son.
In a natural situation, the children are the ones who are intended to bury their parents. The other way around is considered an untimely, devastating event for any parent. Another example of suicide by grief would be Niobe. She is defined as the archetypal mother who was so proud of her 14 children that she questioned the worship of Leto. After challenging the god, all 14 of her children died. She eventually leaped to her own death out of grief of losing everything. Shame is also a key instigator in the Greek and Roman world and can be distinguished from feelings of guilt/grief.
Depending on the gender of the character, shame can outweigh the powerful motivator of guilt and grief. For men, shame destroys their pride and respect. Instances of incest, which are usually described as being acts of sexual assault, eventually lead to suicide. Though the women are victims, the patriarchal society claims that the men fell under the women’s seductive drive and that the women are at fault. An example would be the suicide of Jocasta after the revelation of the truth in Oedipus the King. She commits suicide after finding out the truth that Oedipus is the culprit and the shame of incest.
However, to much surprise, Oedipus also feels shame and blinds himself, but does not commit suicide. Equally interesting is that he later will commit suicide on his own accord (in a mysterious way) at the end of the second play. Some characters, in various myths, are also viewed to be victims of insanity or mental madness. This unusual “disease” is considered to be from some interaction with the gods. Dionysus for example, typically bestows insanity upon those who fail to worship him. Dionysus also puts women in a sense of daze, which is described as a combination of intoxication and ecstatic dancing.
These female followers are considered to be maenads and will often do the bidding of Dionysus as seen in The Bacchae (Agave is tricked into killing King Pentheus). Interestingly, those who fell to the madness were considered to be victims of mental illness and could not be responsible for their suicide or murder, but are yet responsible for what led to their madness however. Self-sacrifice is also another well-known occurrence. Self-sacrificial suicide usually occurs for religious or political purposes. Rather than betray their beliefs, the victim would either choose death by their own hand or by the hand of another.
Sometimes the sacrifice has a purpose intertwining with the powers of the gods. Anger, another reason for suicide, is directed towards men in Greek and Roman mythology. Anger is seen as an emotional response when the male’s pride is damaged. However, there have been some instances where powerful women feel anger, but it causes them to murder instead of suicide. Typically, if the male aggressor is angry enough, the aggressor will be driven by rage, grief, and guilt to commit a violent act. Haemon in Antigone is a good example.
After the way Antigone was treated by Creon, Haemon threatened to kill his father, but couldn’t and instead, killed himself out of grief of his dead fiance. Overall, suicide is overly common in Sophocles’ tragedies as well as a majority of Greek and Roman mythology. The three suicides in Antigone: Antigone, Haemon, and Eurdice, were all from a different source and all from different reasons. Antigone, however, was the most confusing cause. There wasn’t any specific detail, but the case of depression can be made. The other two were from shame, grief, and anger. All the suicides are more than just random acts of violence in the plays/stories.
They are recurring structures that help to exaggerate the motivations behind the “tragedies” that occur within the plot. They allow for the reader to understand the plot setting and the social order of ancient life. When one feels grief from a lost son and that is the only son, their lineage is done and therefore the exaggerating effect is suicide. Since life doesn’t matter, the easiest answer is suicide. Ultimately, there will always be distinct patterns in which if one death occurs, others follow. Usually within those deaths, suicide becomes the embellishment to the pattern.
