Analysis of Socrates in Aristhphane´s Clouds and Plato´s Apology

Socrates was a pompous man who believed that he was wiser than most, if not all, Athenian men of his time. He is also credited as one of the fathers of western philosophy, his own philosophy revolving around the welfare of one’s soul and reflecting on what the good life was. He was told by an oracle that he was the wisest of men and spent a great deal of time trying to prove it false, he decided that he was considered wise for accepting that he knew nothing, and never claimed to know anything that he questioned. In Plato’s text “Apology” Socrates is depicted as a man who was arrogant, hypercritical of others, and fixed on his ways no matter the consequences. He had the qualities of a man who saw no error in what he was doing because he thought he was above average men, and thought he was a benefit to society against what others claimed. In contrast Socrates’ portrayal in Aristophanes’ play “Clouds” is more positive, his character was written wanting men to be educated, hopeful that anyone could learn if they wished to, and helpful in teaching. He has the makings of a very good teacher to the right students, men whose minds were still able to be taught, admitted their lack of knowledge, and had a desire to learn; the sophists benefitted from undermining the superior argument with an inferior one.

In the comedy the “Clouds” by Aristophanes, Socrates is first introduced to the audience and Strepsiades suspended above the ground because he claimed that it helped him to make better discoveries and elevated notions (Clouds 230). When Strepsiades was asked about his presence in the Pondertorium he told Socrates that he wanted to learn to debate to save him and his family from their debts. With little more questioning he was being init...

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...des of Sophocles seen in the two works of Plato and Aristophanes couldn’t be more different. While its known that Aristophanes’ Clouds isn’t a legitimate depiction of who Socrates actually was in his life but more of a parody of who he was, it can be assumed that he was a wise man but probably not really shut up in a house with groups of students that he was paid to teach. While Aristophanes saw Socrates as a man with good character, in Plato’s Apology almost the opposite can be found, where Socrates was portrayed as a man who saw himself with a greater purpose and the way that he was tended to irritate many Athenians that he interacted with. Seeing the differences in both depictions of Socrates, along with some of the qualities in the same text that went against the qualities that were pointed out shows that neither is the exact way that Socrates was in antiquity.