Recently in class we have been reviewing the play Lysistrata a modern translation by David Clark. This story takes place in 411 B.C. and Athens is in the middle of a war with Sparta. Although the war has been going on for years, Athens is recovering from the Defeat they had just two years prior. The men have no issue with the war continuing but let’s see who will go to extreme measures to get a peace treaty signed and confirmed to end the war.
Lysistrata is a middle class housewife from Athens. The play begins on the day of a meeting organized by Lysistrata. In attendance at the meeting are women from Athens and other cities, including Sparta. At the meeting, Lysistrata announces her plan; she announces that the women should all refuse to have sex with their husbands until their husbands end the war. To make sure the sex-strike is effective, they will doll themselves up with makeup and put on their most inappropriate clothes, to drive there husbands wild with lust. Lysistrata also explains that she's sent a group of women to occupy the Acropolis (the government center) of
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In this part of the play all of the men have full erections and absolutely can’t handle the refusal anymore. Lysistrata comes out of the Akropolis with her naked handmaid, Peace. While the men are fully distracted by her handmade Peace, Lysistrata lectures them on the need for peace between the two city-states. Lysistrata states that because both Athens and Sparta are of a common heritage and because they have previously helped one another and owe a debt to one another, the two sides should not be fighting. The Spartan and Athenian leaders decide land rights that will end the war. After both sides agree, Lysistrata gives the women back to the men and a great celebration ensues. The woman went back to their normal sexual lives and the husbands are pleased with the
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,
nature, and women's legal rights. & nbsp; Albeit in Lysistrata the women were shown as revolutionaries rising up against the men, women in classical Greece were never like that. Aristophanes created the play as a comedy, showing how the world might be in the times of the Peloponnesian war if women tried to do something. It was the women's job to stay home and tend to the house, and never leave, unlike they did in the play. women were shown as revolutionaries rising up against the men, women in classical Greece was never like that. & nbsp; The activities of women in Classical Athens were confined to "bearing children, spinning and weaving, and managing the domestic arrangements. No wandering in the beautiful streets of them. " The suppression of women went so far as to divide the house into separate areas for males and females. While the women stayed home, the men were usually out fighting, and when they weren't. fighting, they were entertaining their friends and having sexual favors.
During the play of “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes, he offers readers the benefit of the doubt by giving women the power and respect over men. Through out the play Lysistrata uses women to show how change can occur over time. While reading the play one can see that the purpose of the author writing this place was for it to be a comedy. He also tries to be funny by saying that the war between Sparta and Athens was a complete waste and it was very senseless. There are several themes that are present in this play. The one that stood out the most was realizing that time is valuable to spend more time with one’s wife then going to a war. War is not a great thing because it just divides nation and it also tears families apart. Also those men can’t be
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.
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.
The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.
Aristophanes was a craft comedy poet in the fourth century B.C. during the time of the Peloponnesian War. Aristophanes’ usual style was to be satirical, and suggesting the eccentric. The most absurd and humorous of Aristophanes’ comedies are those in which the main characters, the heroes of the story, are women. Smart women. One of the most famous of Aristophanes’ comedies portraying powerfully capable women is Lysistrata, named after the female lead character of the play. It depicts Athenian Lysistrata and the women of Athens teaming up with the women of Sparta to force their husbands to conclude the Peloponnesian War. The play is a comedy, which appears to be written for the amusement of men. The play can be seen as a historical reference to ancient Greece, but it seems highly unlikely that women would talk with such a crude sexual tone. Instead Lysistrata is strictly a satirical play written maybe even to make men doubt the innocence of a woman.
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.
The causes of the Peloponnesian War proved to be too great between the tension-filled stubborn Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. As Thucydides says in Karl Walling’s article, “Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed” (4). The three phases of the war, which again, are the Archidamian war, the Sicilian Expedition and the Decelean war, show the events that followed the causes of the war, while also showing the forthcoming detrimental effects that eventually consumed both Athens and eventually Sparta effectively reshaping Greece.
The Peloponnesian War is the conflict between the pelopoponesians league led by Sparta and the Delian league, led by Athens. Much of our knowledge on the causes and events of the Peloponnesian War, depends on the Athenian Thucydides 460-400 BC, writer of the History of the Peloponessian War. He servd as an Athenian commander in Northern Greece during the early years of the war until the assembly exiled him as he lost an outpost to the enemy. During this exile, he was able to interview witnesses on both sides of the conflicted. Unlike Heredotus he concentrated on contemporary history and presented his account of the war in an annalistic framework that only occasionally diverts from chronological order. In his account, he discuses the precursors to the war, including the 30 years truce and revolutions, such as the stasis in Corcyra. When looking at wars, the primary focus is normally the fighting itself, such as what we see for World War II. However, it is important to look at the anatomy of war, meaning what effect the war has on the people who are experiencing it first hand, and the consquences that the conflict has on the rest of the world. Therefore in this essay I shall discuss, drawing directly from Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, how the civilians reacted to the war, their involvement and socio economic factors. Furthermore, the first section of my essay shall focus on the direct effect of war on the people, regarding the plague, and violence and hopelessness that was experienced. Then I shall go on to discuss more general effects of the war and how it affected the Greek world, discussing the social and economic losses that occurred such as the cost of the war in attica, the coup d’etat that occurred in gove...
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.
... 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.
In Aristophanes play Lysistrata, the women of Greece take on the men to stop the raging war between the Athenians and the Spartans. To stop the war, the women withhold sex from their male counterparts, and take over the Acropolis for themselves. The women are indeed triumphant in their goals to stop the war, and the Athenians and Spartans come to an understanding. What is blatantly ignored, however, is that Aristophanes creates a gender war that, although seemingly rejoices the actions of the women, instead mocks the women’s power-struggle in a male dominated society, focuses on the male-privilege seen throughout the entirety of the play, and should be disregarded in the fact that this play is not even from a women’s perspective.
“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, 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.