Mortality and Happiness Theme Analysis

In Euripides’s Alcestis, a tragic play of the fifth century B.C., King Admetos of Thessaly dreads death, resists the reality of it, and exploits others to help him avoid it. At the beginning of the play, the god Apollo explains that Admetos “was doomed to die young, / but I outwitted the Fates and won him a reprieve: / Admetos’s day of death might be deferred / if someone else would volunteer to take his place below.” Admetos’s elderly parents refuse to volunteer; only his wife, Alcestis, is willing to die in his place. Through Admetos’s anguished grief over his life without Alcestis, Euripides argues that only by accepting inevitable mortality can human beings overcome their hubris to live happy lives.

Admetos’s fear and avoidance of death is rooted in ignorance. As the grieving servants wait for Alcestis to die, the maid wisely predicts, “The master does not know the meaning of his loss. / He will not know, until it is too late.” Admetos doesn’t yet have the wisdom to understand what his selfish act of avoidance has cost him. When he finds out, it will be too late for the lesson to do him good. Speaking to the chorus leader before Alcestis dies, the maid muses, “What has [Admetos] gained but life? / If he had died, he would have lost Alcestis. / Now, as matters stand, he has lost her anyway. / As long as he lives, his life will have that taste / of pain and loss—a bitterness that lasts.” The maid already understands the reality and price of death. Admetos might have “life,” but he will spend it reckoning with his foolish loss—ironically, a loss he would have avoided if he’d accepted death on its own terms.

Admetos’s fearful efforts to avoid death are rooted in an entitled, prideful lifestyle. Admetos feels entitled to life, no matter what the cost to those he loves. Pheres scolds his son, “You fought like hell to live—life at any price!—/ beyond your destined time. You only live / because you took her life. You murdered her.” Admetos has the nerve to accuse Pheres of cowardice for not taking his place, but Admetos forces his wife to face his own greatest fear, rather than bravely accepting the destiny appointed for him. Pheres insinuates that Admetos will do the same thing again. “Immortality is yours, yours for the asking. / All you have to do is wheedle your latest wife / into dying in your place.” Pheres strikes a nerve, which no doubt accounts for some of Admetos’s fury in disowning his father. If Admetos is to learn that death and life are not his to command, he will have to reorient his life in a fundamental way.

To overcome fear and avoidance of death, Admetos must accept the mysteries and limitations of human existence. Even Admetos’s friend Herakles, in his drunken obliviousness, understands death better than Admetos has hitherto done, philosophizing to Admetos’s servant: “Well, lissen, mister: / we all gotta die. An’ that’s a fact. / There’s not a man alive who knows the odds on death. / Here today. Gone tomorrow. / Poof. / That’s fate. A mystery. I mean, / there’s jus’ no knowin’. Man can’t figger it out.” In few, humble words, Herakles sums up the reality of death that his friend has avoided—in the end, it can’t be predicted, dodged, or understood. In an exaggerated scene of enjoying life, the tipsy Herakles goes on, “Well, a swallow of [wine] will do wonders, friend, / for whatever’s ailing you. / I mean, we all gotta die. Right? / Well, that’s why we all gotta think human thoughts, / and live while we can.” Herakles knows that, ultimately, there’s no understanding death; it’s something that every person must face. Therefore, he might as well enjoy life, and “think human thoughts”—accept human limits—which is exactly what Admetos, in his attempt to dodge death, has shown himself unwilling to do. Thus, paradoxically, he can’t enjoy life, either.

At Alcestis’s funeral, Admetos is confronted by the reality that his life has become a living death. Only when he comes to terms with this anguish is he prepared to welcome his resurrected wife and reorient his life accordingly. Faced with the reality of his loss, Admetos sees that the life he’s gained through Alcestis’s death really isn’t a life at all. Everything he values most now lives in the realm of death, and his earthly home can no longer be his home—even his personal honor is lost. When Herakles presents the veiled Alcestis—whom, unbeknownst to Admetos, he’s rescued from the underworld—Admetos sobs, “now, now, for the first time, I know the anguish of my life.” Even before he knows it’s Alcestis, this familiar, silent figure has a revelatory power for Admetos—he is crushed by the emptiness of the life he has been spared by means of Alcestis’s death. After Alcestis is unveiled, the play shifts from tragedy to comedy. Declaring a celebratory feast, Admetos tells his subjects, “From this day forth we must remake our lives, / and make them better than they were before. / Happiness is mine, and now I know it.” Until he realized the depths of his tragedy, Admetos couldn’t recognize how happy he had truly been. Now, understanding that life can only be lived in acceptance of death, he is able to truly enjoy happiness.

Alcestis, regained from death, has encouraged Admetos to “remake [his] life,” as he, too, has gained a second chance at living well. Having come to understand the preciousness of life by starkly facing the reality of loss and inevitable death for the first time, he’s finally in a position to fully know happiness. By taking his audience on this journey of fear, grief, and unexpected hope, Euripides encourages people to reorient their lives accordingly.