Prometheus Bound

1. Aristotle says that tragedians should arrange their plot's incidents logically to produce the
proper tragic emotions--pity and fear--which in turn result in "catharsis," variously understood
as purgation of the audience's emotions or as intellectual clarification concerning some vital
tragic issue. Does Aeschylus' play seem to fit this pattern? If not, how would you describe the
structure and emotional impact of Prometheus Bound?
2. What role do you ascribe to the Chorus, which in this case consist of the Daughters of
Oceanus? Are their statements consistent? What views do they set forth, and what
significancedo they have for Prometheus?
3. What view of Zeus do you take away from this play? Do you accept it at face value? Why
or why not? How, if at all, does Prometheus' relationship with Zeus affect your view of that
god?
4. What sort of relationship did Prometheus have with Zeus prior to their estrangement? Why
did Zeus take Prometheus' concern for humanity as a threat?
5. On what basis does Prometheus advance the hope that he will be liberated? And by the
end of the play, do you think that the tone is one of despair or expectation? Explain.
6. Prometheus is a god (whose name, taken etymologically, means "foresight"), but in what
sense might his predicament be a comment on the human condition, on humanity's relation to
the gods?
7. Just before the play's middle, Io enters the scene. Why is her story significant in light of
Prometheus' situation? What does she have in common with him, and what does her life have
to do with his prospects for liberation?
8. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century philosopher and classicist, wrote
that Prometheus Bound deals with power confronting its own limitations, with an irruption of
the Dionysian into Zeus' desire for absolute power and orderl on Olympus and on earth. Add
your own comments to that view.