Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata"

Aristophanes wrote the Utopian comedy "Lysistrata" in 411 B.C. and the play deals with a humorous, yet serious theme. The time of the play is the fifth century B.C. in Athens, at the time of the Second Peloponnesian War, and Lysistrata is an Athenian woman who is fed up with the men always gone and fighting with each other. She proposed a radical scheme: that the women refuse to have sex with their husbands until they stop their violent foolishness:

"We can force our husbands to negotiate Peace, Ladies, by exercising steadfast Self-Control-- By Total Abstinence . . ." (360). This is of course a hard idea for all of the women to adopt, and through the course of the play there are numerous examples of the women finding excuses to go against their own plan. By simulating pregnancy, claiming fear of snakes and owls at the Acropolis, and just plain desertion, the women try to get off the hook.

In this play Aristophanes takes a very serious look at the relationship between the sexes. Lysistrata is a great heroine because she sees the futility of war and knows how to stop it. She has self-control, and she urges her women allies to fight their natural urges long enough to get the men to sign a peace accord.

Many questions come up in dealing with "Lysistrata," and it is to the play's credit that it provokes such contemporary debate so many centuries after it was first written.

The first question to be asked is: Is "Lysistrata" a play about women's rights? On one level

Related Essays

Letter to Aristophanes from Socrates .... While this may make for great comedy writing, in truth, I have never had anything to do with atheism .... Aristophanes. Lysistrata/The Acharnians/The Clouds. Trans. .... (864 3 )

The Epic of Gilgamesh .... Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata take a different approach and have a very different goal. .... Of course, Lysistrata is categorized as a comedy, something none .... (1548 6 )

Fictionalized Story of Shakespeare in Ancient Greece This time .... of the period in the plays of Aristophanes, and I .... Greek tragedy has no comedy--comedy is separated into a .... experience now in a performance of Lysistrata, a play .... (1771 7 )

ew of women. Question Number Three is: Are there indications that the author of "Lysistrata" may even be sympathetic to some of the challenges of womanhood in his day? We have already dealt with this question in large part, but some elaboration can certainly be applied. There is no doubt that Aristophanes was sympathetic to women in the Golden Age of Athens. He was aware that, in many people's eyes, women were relegated to the background. While it is true that the primary thinkers were men, it is unfortunate that a civilization as enlightened as Greece would not have allowed women more of a position in the structure of society. It is somewhat ironic that the great portraits of women in drama came from men: Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Sophocles' Antigone, and Euripides' Medea. "Third Woman: I'm going to have a boy. Lysistrata: Not unless he's made of bronze. Let's see. Of all the brazen. You've stolen the helmet from Athene's statue! Pregnant, indeed" (412)! In scenes like this there is a great comic sense that shows some women are not quite as up to the challenges of womanhood as others. But Aristophanes, even within the context of a comedy, wanted to show that everyone is human, and it is Lysistrata's task to te

Category: Literature - A