Pied Piper and Dionysus: Figures of Repression
Pied Piper
Children’s Literature Reinforces Social Norms
One of the earliest lessons that children are taught is to respect authority. Most of the works of literature written for children has an underlying theme of a common-law applicable to everyone and obeyed by the members of the society. In Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling uses the term “The Law of the Jungle” to signify a common law followed by the pack of wolves in the jungle. Normally, to children, the concept of jungle and wildlife represents chaos which mirrors the fact that a child taking the first steps to learn the social framework of the society may encounter chaotic and potentially paradoxical situations.
Hence, children’s literature introduces the primary concepts of law and order prevalent in the society which helps the child to undercut the chaotic situations and identify the benefits of the presence of law and order in society.
The ability to identify and to accept the rule of law in society is generally considered to be a signifier of maturity in the child. The concept of the rule of law is taught to the child in generally two ways, by application of the two apparatuses available to the society, the repressive state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus.
A child first encounters the repressive state apparatus in school where the child is punished for any transgression from the ‘rules’ of the school. Whereas the application of the ideological state apparatus on the child starts from the home through various subtle ideologies which the child is taught and sometimes it is conveyed through various signs and symbols in daily life and sometimes to the kind of literature provided to the child, both at home and school.
The ideological state apparatus might also be propagated to the child through various social customs or by emulating the social behavioural patterns of the adults. For example, in a religious family, one of the first customs the child picks off from the parent is the habit or the custom of praying. Intentionally or unintentionally, these customs are imprinted on the child’s mind and the child begins to follow those customs as if they were rules which the child should follow to stay within the confines of the social law. It is further emphasised through various literature meant for children where the protagonist may end up in trouble if he fails to follow the law. The effect these stories have in the child’s mind is further reinforced by the repressive state apparatus which the child encounters at school if something takes place which breaches the law of the school.
The ideological state apparatus encompasses a wide range of social customs but it is also propagated through various forms of media which a child is exposed to. To prove this point, I would like to carry out a comparative study of the myth of ‘ The Pied Piper’, particularly the rendition of Robert Browning and the role of Dionysus in Euripides’ Bacchae or ‘ The Bakkhai’.
When we are first introduced to the Pied Piper in the poem he is dressed in a colourful garb of red and yellow or as the poem denotes in a “queer long coat”. The colour itself is bound to attract the attention of the child as it will captivate the imagination of the child with its rich imagery. In the version of the book where there are rich illustrations by Kate Greenway, the visual effect of the poem is immediately enhanced. The image and text of the poem, both are transformed into a metaphor for the Piper itself as it leads the child’s imagination with it into the narrative and the child reader blindly starts to follow the narrative. The attire and the appearance of the Piper are described in great detail and we see that the entire town council is mesmerised by his appearance as the poem notes:
“And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire”
The word “quaint” is important here as it denotes both attractive and unusual. Hence, the readers can perceive that the Piper has started communicating with the townsfolk through the means of his appearance and captivates the attention of the residents of Hamelin so that he enjoys being the centre of attraction of the people. The Piper is ‘armed’ with a pipe or a flute and he says that he chiefly uses his “charm” to attract harmful people and animals, though it is made clear by the end of the poem that his “charm” may attract anyone, harmful or otherwise. So, it is clear that the Piper is a musician and the charm he uses is primarily his music, but it is also his mannerisms and appearance. So from the moment, he enters the scene he has conveyed through various signifiers that he wants to be the centre of people’s attention and he can make a living being “follow” him by the use of his “charm”. In the case of the rats, he ‘led’ them to the river, to their deaths and in the case of the children, he led them away from the town. In both the cases, the adults were spared and it can be said that the Piper has the power or ability to focus his “charm” on a particular section of society as per his whims.
Similarly, in the case of Dionysus in Bacchae, he uses his charm to gather a group of followers to revere him as a God. As per Greek myths, Dionysus is the God of wine, music and all the other arts. Similar to the case of the Piper, the common denominator in both the cases is music. A child, in its early days of learning, is attracted to music and poetry or anything that has rhythm rather than prose. It is normally understood that a child, before the development of the logical faculty to analyse the contents of various media, can only positively respond to rhythm and music. As the child grows, the logical faculty develops, but the immediacy of responding or being attracted to anything rhythmic or colourful is never diminished. Even adults demonstrate this behaviour of responding to primarily to rhythm rather than logic. Hence, many ideological state apparatus employs the means of music, poetry, rhythm or colour to convey the messages to the human psyche, which illustrates that these tools have a deeper access to the human psyche than the faculty of logic and reason. Both music and wine produce a sense of intoxication and addiction, hence the emotional faculty which supersedes the logical faculty exhibits an attraction towards both of them. Therefore it can be said that ideological state apparatuses appeal more to our emotional faculty as they slowly associate themselves to our personal tastes and mental constructions of attraction which develop during childhood and it is not always governed by the logical faculty. The origin of the Pied Piper and Dionysus are clouded in obscurity. Though Dionysus presents his version of ancestry, the readers do not get to know the origin of the Pied Piper. The people of Thebes, especially Pentheus rejects to believe Dionysus’s ancestry as he knows that acceptance of his ancestry would also create the opportunity for Dionysus to have a legitimate claim on the throne of Thebes. Dionysus, as a figure is as ambiguous as the Pied Piper. The Piper claims that his charms only attract people who are “harmful” to the society, but he ends up using his ‘charm’ to harm the society instead. Dionysus embodies opposing characteristics within himself. As a God, he is both benevolent and vengeful and illustrates the differences which his followers portray within themselves- belief and madness, celebration and destruction.
Read the full article at https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/PIED-PIPER-AND-DIONYSUS-FIGURES-OF-REPRESSION
© 2021 Abhijit Chatterjee
Originally published at https://discover.hubpages.com on January 4, 2021.