Harvey Fierstein, noted journalist, encourages us to “never be bullied into silence. Never allow ourselves to be made a victim. Accept no ones definition for your life. Define yourself”. In the novel “The Story of Zahra” written by Hanan al-Shaykh, Zahra was bullied into silence because she allowed herself to be made a victim by accepting others definition for her life; she did not define herself. Conversely, in the play Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes, the protagonist, who went against all odds, was anything but a victim by taking the leading role in a protest against the men; she took a stand for what she believed in. Zahra and Lysistrata were both women who faced unstable and dangerous relationships with men, but all similarities end there. The way in which these two women handled their circumstances were completely antithetical which, as a result, caused different endings to each women’s journey. As the Peloponnesian war breaks out in ancient Greece, Lysistrata goes to great measures to bring it to a halt. She seeks out the help of the other women of Athens and Sparta. Lysistrata tells them to take an oath to withhold from sex with their husbands. “I will withhold all rights of access or entrance” (Pg. 40) is the promise these women are asked to adhere to. They refuse the idea at first with no hesitation. Lysistrata is quixotic to many and her plan is unexceptable. Soon, after much convincing, the women agree to withhold from any sexual intercourse with their husbands until they sign a peace treaty and end the war. The women are very straight forward with their demands. Consequently, the men become enraged and are even “threatening women with rubbish disposal! How ghastly-how gauche!” (Pg.50).The men were astounded by th... ... middle of paper ... ...nces of not using it. Lysistrata represents the women who saw a problem and dedicated her time to fix it. It was an extreme risk but she knew it was one she had to take and in the end it all worked out for her. Zahra represents the women who, through a sense of fear or obligation, took the role of a woman. She was inferior to all and submitted her mind, body, and soul to all. Instead of screaming at the top of her lungs what she really felt, Zahra hid in the bathroom. Lysistrata makes it out of her predicament getting what she set out to get while Zahra is shot and killed. It just goes to show how important having your own voice is. Works Cited Lysistrata. Signet Classic, 2009. Print. Harvey fierstein quotes . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4775.Harvey_Fierstein Shaykh, Ḥanān. The story of Zahra. Anchor, 1996. Print.
In her essay on, “Athenian Women,” Sarah Ruden points out that Aristophanes in Lysistrata portray women as supportive of Athenian institutions and eager to save them. But she cautions, “To do this now they must flout law, religion, and every notion of public decency – and this is definitely no reflection on women’s attitudes, but mere satirical farce and fantasy” (Ruden 107). An important element of “satirical farce” in this spirit would be a heavy use of repetition to make people laugh at the weakness being satirized. One example would not be enough, and the audience might not be amused by less than three or four examples. So in important episodes that fill out the action of the play, we have 4 examples of women beating guards,
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
In a modern day production of Lysistrata, a director’s role would involve the overseeing of the whole play making course and ensuring that all the cast members realize the vision of the production. This role covers all the steps of production from the interpretation of the script to the final performance. This means that the director has a say over a range of disciplines and has to have artistic vision. Lysistrata was produced in 411 B.C., at a time when Athens and Sparta had just concluded a two-decade long war and the general population was in despair. Comedies such as these were used then to communicate instructions to the people (mbc.edu). This essay will focus on the scene where Lysistrata has gathered all the women to convinces the to withhold sex from their husbands until they sign a peace treaty.
In conclusion, it becomes obvious by these three plays that for a woman to achieve kleos in ancient Greece, she usually had to become more man-like in her role. The murders committed by Electra and Medea, the bravery of Antigone—all three of these were fulfilled by what would have normally been considered a man’s role. A woman could rarely be considered a hero unless she became like a man in her actions. Otherwise, she would be only a simple woman.
An obscene amount of individuals think that history is only uncovered by cave paintings, secret letters and ancient artifacts. One might be surprised to uncover that a historian can gather much information about an ancient society based on a fictional story or play. Comedic plays in Greece were written purely for entertainment of the people, but allow historians today to see the customs of the ancient Greek society. Fictional plays allow people to see what the Greeks thought as satirical and downright crazy. The Lysistrata by Aristophanes is a Greek comedy about women across the Peloponnese who swear an oath of celibacy until their men quit fighting against each other. Although this play seems like it’s just another fictional Greek play, the way the women in the play are treated and played can tell us many societal norms of Athenian women. The Lysistrata is comical to the Greeks, because women simply did not have a say in any wars and certainly were not smart enough to create a treaty or plan to cease a war. The Lysistrata depicts the Athenian women’s desired and assumed roles in politics, marriage, household and social life.
(Imagine a kid being bullied to the point of them not wanting to live. Kimmie was one kid out of many who dealt with the situation of being harassed. She told her mother that kids at school were bullying her because of her weight and how she looked. Kimmie’s mom ignored her thinking she was over reacting, little did she know she was not. Kimmie would receive daily threats online telling her to “kill herself” and saying things like “Why are you still alive?” The next morning after Kimmie’s mom dropped her off at school she ditched class and went into an abandoned apartment building down the block to wait for the school day to be done, so she would not have to face the kids who tormented her. At the end of the day Kimmie made sure to be at the school before her mom picked her up, because she knew that if her mom found out, she would not understand her reason behind skipping school. After many weeks’ Kimmie’s mom started to notice that she was not talking as much as she used to, and she was not participating in family activities. Kimmie’s mom ignored it thinking it was a phase she was going thorough because she was getting older. A couple months later Kimmie’s grades dropped, and she skipped many school days just so she could to go to that abandoned apartment building. With no one to talk to about her problem’s Kimmie had to deal with them by herself. Soon she starting to deal with an eating disorder because she was not happy with the way she looked. She also started to self-harm. Kimmie lost all hope, and she started to believe no one cared about her. Still not happy with herself, Kimmie then committed suicide. Her body was found by an abandoned apartment building down the block from her school. Police say she jumped from the roof. ...
Women, like men, are accountable for all of their deeds. However, in Greek literature, in which male-dominated societies are common, women who take personal responsibility for their actions often face unfair consequences. For example, in Aeschylus's The Oresteia and Sophocles' Antigone, Clytaemnestra and Antigone both took justice into their own hands to honor their respective families. As a result, they died at the hands of men who had difficulty accepting their justifications. The reason for this is because the men felt emasculated by these two women's actions.
Aristophanes’ significant contributions in the development of the theater arts and his standing in the Athenian community are well documented. His hilarious comedy, Lysistrata, reflects the disgust with war prevalent at Athens after the disastrous expedition to Sicily. It is ripe with sexual innuendo and provides much insight into the timeliness of human sexuality, desire, and the war of the sexes, yet it was intended to make a political statement regarding the folly of Athenian military aggression. Aristophanes was not suggesting that a sex strike might be an effective means of ending the Peloponnesian War, more likely that the reasons for the war itself were suspect. Lysistrata’s scheme to force the men of Greece to the peace table could never have been successful. Property concerns, gender roles, and the sexuality of Athenian men prevented Athenian women from exerting the necessary political influence.
In the Bronze Age, early Greek’s political concern was largely on defense. During this time, while the men were serving in battles and war, women were expected to “bear future warriors” (Pomeroy 18), similarly to what Zeus enforced. Heroic Greek society demanded women to be married upon reaching maturity, and to begin having children immediately. The earliest writings of ancient Greece, usually accredited to Homer, show murderous arguments between men over women. Pomeroy writes, “It was a quarrel with Agamemnon over a valuable slave woman that precipitated Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting at Troy and provided the theme for the Iliad.” (Pomeroy 25) Later, we will see how lawmakers enforced the role of women to prevent competition among
Lysistrata, first produced in 411 B.C. is a play that represents the frustrations that Athenian women faced due to the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata, an Athenian woman is the play's heroine; her name is significant in itself, as it means "she who disbands the armies" (Page 467, footnote 2). With the aide of other Athenian women, Lysistrata organizes a "sex strike" in an effort to cease further violence and bring peace between Athens and Sparta. Eventually, her campaign is adopted by the women of Greece, and the efforts of the Athenian women are successful. Lysistrata is not only a leader for Athenian women; she is also bold and does not represent the stereotype of traditional, domestic Athenian women.
Aristophane’s Lysistrata is a flawed classic filled with the power struggle between man vs. woman. It is entirely focused and written from the male perspective, in which male-privilege dominated and disregarded the women’s outlook entirely. This “classic” is full of misogynistic perspectives, and should be disregarded as a great piece in Athenian literature.
“Lysistrata” is a tale which is centered around an Athenian woman named Lysistrata and her comrades who have taken control of the Acropolis in Athens. Lysistrata explains to the old men how the women have seized the Acropolis to keep men from using the money to make war and to keep dishonest officials from stealing the money. The opening scene of “Lysistrata” enacts the stereotypical and traditional characterization of women in Greece and also distances Lysistrata from this overused expression, housewife character. The audience is met with a woman, Lysistrata, who is furious with the other women from her country because they have not come to discuss war with her. The basic premise of the play is, Lysistrata coming up with a plan to put an end to the Peloponnesian War which is currently being fought by the men. After rounding up the women, she encourages them to withhold sex until the men agree to stop fighting. The women are difficult to convince, although eventually they agree to the plan. Lysistrata also tells the women if they are beaten, they may give in, since sex which results from violence will not please the men. Finally, all the women join Lysistrata in taking an oath to withhold sex from their mates. As a result of the women refraining from pleasing their husbands until they stop fighting the war, the play revolves around a battle of the sexes. The battle between the women and men is the literal conflict of the play. The war being fought between the men is a figurative used to lure the reader to the actual conflict of the play which is the battle between men and women.
Lysistrata is portrayed as a typical commander of war that gives orders and does not take part in the war. While being the mastermind behind the sex strike, she is able to separate her self from the other women in her ability to resist her attraction for men. The women are used as pawns by this cunning and powerful, Lysistrata, who is victorious in establishing peace in Greece.
Medea and Lysistrata are two Greek literatures that depict the power which women are driven to achieve in an aim to defy gender inequality. In The Medea, Medea is battling against her husband Jason whom she hates. On the other hand, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the protagonist Lysistrata plotted to convince and organize the female gender to protest against the stubbornness of men. In terms of defining the purpose of these two literatures, it is apparent that Euripedes and Aristophanes created characters that demonstrate resistance against the domination of men in the society.
... convey deeper themes of life and death, the struggles between power and class structure and also the societal differences between men and women. Aristophanes uses humor to hook his audience into his play, and then undermines the surface humor with much bigger thematic issues. If this play had simply been about women withholding sex for other reasons such as wanting more money for shopping or other frivolous ideas it would not then be considered a satiric comedy. Satire requires more than physical humor. An issue must be raised such as the life and death theme that is seen in the war in Lysistrata, and a solution must then be made. Aristophanes created the women in the beginning to be bickering, unintelligent, and self-centered people. But in the end it was their idea and compromise that ended the war.