Obligation, Limitations, and Fate Theme Analysis

In Alcestis, King Admetos is characterized by a stubborn refusal to live within his limits. The results of his defiance of human constraints are devastating; his wife, Alcestis, must submit to death in his place. But the play includes a variety of other examples of characters who accept the obligations and limits on their lives—everyone from Admetos’s father, Pheres, to his divine friends Apollo and Herakles, all the way to Death himself. By contrasting various characters’ submission to their obligations with Admetos’s defiance, Euripides argues that a harmonious life—both for individuals and for the world as a whole—is found only when people recognize and honor the constraints placed upon them by fate.

Even divine figures, despite their immense power, must fulfill obligations. This is made clear from the opening moments of the play, as Apollo describes his slavery, a punishment for retaliating when Zeus killed his son. He is leaving Admetos’s house, having endured “what no god should ever be compelled to bear. / Here, with serfs and laborers, I ate the bread of slavery.” He accepts this humiliation willingly, an immortal made subservient to a mortal, grateful for the benefit of befriending Admetos in the process. This sets an ironic tone for the rest of the play, as it becomes clear that Admetos, a mortal king, chafes under constraint and will go to great lengths—such as asking his wife to die for him—to escape its obligations.

Death isn’t simply a villain; it has his obligations to fulfill, too. Death enters as Apollo leaves Admetos’s house, accusing Apollo of “[violating] again the dues and honors / of the gods below.” Death is bound by honor, refusing to defer Alcestis’s death on the grounds that “The younger my victim, / the more mankind fears me and respects me.” When Apollo continues to try to bargain with him, Death reminds him, “Even you must learn a limit, Apollo. You cannot have your way in everything you want.” Even the gods, then, are bound by limits. Herakles, son of Zeus and Admetos’s dear friend, shows up at Admetos’s house around the time of the funeral, on his way to Thrace to capture Diomedes’ horses. When the chorus leader asks what brings him to Thessaly, he replies, “Obligation, friend. / I have a labor to perform. / Eurystheus is my master. He commands, and I obey.” When the chorus leader replies in disbelief that those horses can’t be broken without a fight, Herakles says matter-of-factly, “ […] the story of my labors and my life. It’s a damned hard road / I’m doomed to travel, friend. Rough, uphill / all the way.” Herakles, in contrast to his friend Admetos, is a character who realistically bears the constraints under which life has bound him. He has work he’s commanded to do, and he does it. He admits that his work is hard, but he doesn’t try to shirk its claims upon him.

In contrast even to the gods, Admetos, by his refusal to live under the constraints natural to human beings, only perpetuates his own and others’ suffering. As Admetos collapses in grief beside his wife’s deathbed, the chorus leader consoles him: “It had to be, Admetos. All we can do with death / is bear it patiently. Be brave. […] We were born to die.” In other words, death is something that naturally comes to all; Admetos must learn to accept that through suffering the loss of his wife. As he goes to prepare for the funeral, Admetos charges the chorus to sing a funeral song, to “cry defiance to this hard and bitter god / whom nothing will appease but death.” Admetos continues to chafe defiantly against the perceived injustice of death’s necessity.

When Admetos disowns his father for, as he sees it, failing in his obligation to die for him, Pheres turns on him in anger: “Damn you, boy, / I made you lord and master of this house of mine. / I gave you life, I raised you. / I am not obliged to die for you as well. / Or do you think my father died for me? / There is no law, no precedent, in Greece / that children have a claim upon their fathers’ lives.” This confrontation between father and son is a climactic moment in the play, as Pheres’ words highlight Admetos’s entitled expectations of life. Pheres did not expect his own father to die for him; that is not how death works—everyone must grapple with death for themselves.

At Alcestis’s funeral, prompted by the admonitions of the chorus, Admetos finally comes to terms with the fact that human beings face obligations and constraints, which necessarily include the acceptance of suffering. The chorus tries to console Admetos: “We cannot choose our fates / A man can fight. But not with life, / not with death. Accept it like a man. […] / Some soon, some late, every man is curbed / by suffering or fate.” They go on to say, “Your luck had been good, Admetos. […] So when this sorrow struck so suddenly, it found you unprepared. Suffering was something you had never known.” The chorus tells Admetos what he hasn’t wanted to hear—that everyone must live under the immoveable constraints of life and death and not expect to avoid suffering by sheer force of will or shifting the burden to someone else. The chorus then sings, “Necessity is stone. / Call her death, compulsion, fate: against / what man her cruelty comes, that man is doomed. / If poets know, if scholars speak the truth, / nothing stronger, nothing more resistless, is.” The chorus’ words reinforce the point that it isn’t only death that Admetos resists, but the whole attitude that he can thwart “necessity” by shaping reality to suit his will. Such an attitude, in fact, dooms a person.

It’s only when Admetos grieves at Alcestis’s funeral, fully recognizing that the goodness of living he’d clung to is now lost to him, that he bows to necessity and is therefore prepared to live life differently—as a human being subject to limitations. Once Admetos has humbled himself in this way, his friend Herakles embodies “necessity” when he forces Admetos to take the resurrected Alcestis’s outstretched hand. This resolution restores things to the way they should be—suggesting that everyone, human and divine, is happiest when they live according to the constraints of obligation and necessity.