Lysistrata And Aristophara

Peace and Harmony is the central theme in the play. Lysistrata is out to end the prolonged war. After consideration on how to accomplish her wishes, and idea finally arises. Lysistrata holds a meeting with all the women to become rebellious and refuse to have sexual relations with the men. During this meeting between all the women, Lysistrata states, “From now on, no more penises for you” (Line 124). The women first do not know how to react as they have not seen their husbands in months. However,

Lysistrata, visibly upset that the women have not appeared, turns to her friend Cleonice, who reassures her that everyone will come, but “it’s not easy...for women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep or washing the brat or feeding it” (Lysistrata). The exposition to the drama therefore tells us everything we need to know: women are trying and failing to remove themselves from their traditional housekeeping role. This is in part forced upon them by men, but also in part by their own will: throughout the play, the women place themselves in a lesser role and act unable to control themselves.  When Lysistrata explains her plan to Cleonice, Cleonice responds that “salvation hangs on a poor thread” if women are in charge. It is therefore not only men who enforce the anti-feminist view that women cannot “perform so wise and glorious an achievement” as ending the

The women in Lysistrata are portrayed as strong and confident. This is seen in the form of the main character of the play, Lysistrata; who is the first one to propose the idea of withholding sex as a measure to stop the war. She demonstrates the qualities of a true leader as she has a well-planned strategy to get her way: “if we would compel our husbands to make peace, we must refrain”. At first this idea is instantly rejected by the women, but Lysistrata manages to convince them with her words of wisdom. This indicates how strong and perseverant Lysistrata is, and this is displayed by her idea of giving up sex. This is likely to be appreciated by the contemporary Greek audiences, as sex is described as the “most beautiful thing in the world” and Lysistrata is giving it up.

Women in classical Athens could not have had an extremely enjoyable experience, if we rely on literary sources concerning the roles of women within the Greek polis. The so-called Athenian democracy only benefited a fraction of the entire population. At least half of this population was female, yet women seem to have had very little influence and few official civic rights. `The position of women...is a subject which has provoked much controversy.'

Ultimately, she chooses to use manipulation and temptation to her advantage to sway the minds of men. “If we sat there at home in our make-up, and came into their rooms wearing our lawn shifts and nothing else and plucked down below delta-style, and our husbands got all horny…but we kept away and didn’t come to them—they’d make peace fast enough I know for sure” (Aristophanes 80) Lysistrata urges that the women avoid sex by any means, even if they must fight against physical force by their husbands (Aristophanes). By using this tactic of a sex strike applied all over mainland Greece, Lysistrata remains confident that women can persuade men to keep peace as opposed to war. Therefore, evidence suggests in Aristophanes’ play that women such as Lysistrata derives power and authority over men through sex and temptation. Women can only attempt to persuade them due to the fact that men hold too much power to be outright forced to anything.

Aristophanes is thought to have been born between 447 and 445 BC in Athens, during a period in which Athens had cultural and political dominance in Greece. In Athens during the year 411, the disapproval of the war by wealthy citizens led to the destruction of the democracy and the creation of an oligarchy. Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata during this time of political strife. Lysistrata is a play about a Lysistrata, an Athenian matron, that asks all the women of Greece to refrain from having sex with their husbands until the men sign a peace treaty to end the Peloponnesian war. The women’s power and leadership displayed in the play was in direct contrast with the legitimate role of women in Ancient Greece. Lysistrata shows women of strength, power, and determination. Although, Aristophanes occasionally presents the women in a stereotypical manner, his positive portrayals of women overwhelms this, whereas the men in his play are never shown in a favorable fashion. Regardless of Aristophanes's intent, I argue that the ancient Greek play, Lysistrata, empowers women even to this day.

A passage by Laura K. Mclure illustrates this ideal hand in hand, “In both of the tragic and comic representation of disorder as the abandonment of the loom, a return to order, or weaving, is a return to the gender status quo, to the rigid hierarchical roles that gave rise to the crisis at the beginning.”(2) Laura fails to bring to significance how the women use the loom as a tool to seek their rightful spot as equals not to go back to their submissive lives.. Then the Lowly Magistrate challenges the women by saying “So women beat woll and roll it in balls! Isn’t that wonderful? That doesn’t mean they bear any part of what goes on in war.”(1) This is a clear representation of the ignorance of the men in the play because they fail to understand how a task deemed for only wives can relate so much to such a “masculine” event like war.This enrages Lysistrata to further lecture the Magistrate to understand how Women are actually as very much a part of war as the men are.This creates a right to power that the women have that had been taken away by the men. This is a clear parallel to Odysseus in the Odyssey in terms of how Odysseus used his Bow as a tool to reclaim his rightful place.

Lysistrata takes the position of leader in her relationships with other women; she encourages her followers to fight for the betterment of their polis; thus, she

In the excerpt Lysistrata written by Aristophanes, a flock of women gather in order to listen to Lysistrata’s speech of how to stop the war and bring peace back to Greece. “So very dainty because that the salvation of all Greece is actually in the hands of women” (76). In order for peace to be restored the women must work together. Lysistrata makes them feel useful and powerful by these statements, but she also forms doubt in their minds. “But what can women

Readers of the three Greek plays, Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Medea, can easily gather an abundance of information about the different cultural details within the Greek society at that time. One of the major cultural values that can be picked up from these three plays, is the roles of women in this society. The roles of women can be observed through a comparison between them and their male counterparts.

“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

While not directly seen, the driving motivator behind all the actions of the characters in the story is in the major conflict of war. This conflict between rival city-states is portrayed as not simply being dangerous for the men who are fighting and dying, but it has a direct effect on the women as well. At one point it is mentioned that the women fight the war twice, “it’s we who give the hoplites life, and then we send them off, for you” (Puchner et al. 801). This occurs once when the woman has to bear the children in birth and then yet again when they send them off to war. It is the driving desire stopping this conflict that lead Lysistrata to concoct and enact her plan.

Lysistrata's role and her powers of manipulation are very similar to those of Medea. Lysistrata is an Athenian woman who is interested in ending the Peloponessian War and also is upset with the treatment of women in Athens. Lysistrata gathers the women of Sparta and Athens together to solve these problems and uses the art of manipulation to find success and power in her journey. Lysistrata develops a plan to deny sex to the men of Greece and take over the Acropolis, which is the heart of Athenian commerce until they stop the war. She is able to manipulate the women of Sparta and

Despite the lower status of women, the plot of Lysistrata is mainly about all of the women coming together and being powerful enough to stop the men’s war. The women in Lysistrata know that the men love intimacy with them and they use that power by withholding pleasure from their men so as to stop the war, even though the women love sex as well:

In this paper, I will discuss the different ways Clytemnestra isn't your typical female character. In most of Greek mythology women were mostly seen as passive, weak, and constantly taking orders from men. She was the complete opposite, she was really a one of a kind. More masculine than some of the men in the stories, and definitely more masculine than feminine she was a very strong, solid, independent, powerful character throughout Agamemnon. The story definitely wouldn’t be as controversial as it was if it weren't for the boldness, extremely deceptive tactics, manipulative ways, and ruthless acts of Clytemnestra. She constantly defied the role that was given to women in the art of ancient Greece, she paved the way for powerful women characters for the future.