...411 B.C. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, a Greek play where women use sex as power to negotiate a peace treaty, was performed in Athens with only male actors. However, the protagonist, Lysistrata, is a heroine. A great majority of the cast consists of female roles, but were all played by men. Aristophanes used many different theatrical techniques of the time to fruitfully project the fallacy of the dominant phallus in Lysistrata’s comedic reversal of power. Aristophanes’ satirizes phallic centric ancient Greece with explicit, witty dialogue and theatrical props. Understanding the costumes of fifth century Greece, the actor playing Cinesias would likely have been wearing flesh colored tights with a large phallic prop. Cinesias enters the scene moaning and sporting, as Lysistrata exclaims, “love upon him like a staff” from being without his wife to ease his suffering. Use of props to exaggerate physical attributes highlights the powerful effect of the women’s sex strike. This is also shown by the Magistrate’s interactions with the Herald. The Magistrate asks the Herald, “why do you hide that lance,” while the Herald boldly remarks, “I've brought no lance.” These phallic props would be designed to grasp the audience’s attention and allow for the comedic effects to sink in. The Greek women forcing the stiff, unyielding men to their knees with a treasury heist and sex strike turns Athenian male dominant society on its head. Our main character, Lysistrata, and her accomplice, Calonice...
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...serious topic of war and how it affected the Greeks. He is also the author of Lysistrata, a play where Aristophanes expressed his feeling and thought about the war during this period of time. “Aristophanes wrote to express his vision on life, his delight in life itself seen behind the warping screen of contemporary event.” In this play, we will get to see the importance and serious meaning of war toward the union, espectually the soldiers’ family. The play Lysistrata is about the war between Athens and Sparta. This play is about the story of “ an Athenian matron who convinces the women of Athens and Sparta to withhold sex from their husband until they sign a peace treaty.”The main character is Lysistrata, and she is one of the Athens’ women that willingly to stand up toward the men just to bring peace back. She does not want war between the cities in Greeks. Lysistrata wanted to save Greeks and she believed that if all the women agreed then they can achieve the tremendous goal. “So fine it comes to this--Greece saved by Woman!” She held a meeting with all the other women and told them about her plan to bring peace. There is only one way to save the union is to make all the women withhold sexual privileges with their husband. “sexually explicitly to a degree that can still shock a modern audience, it takes place during the Peloponnesian Wars” “We must refrain from every depth of love.” Lysistrata believed that if the women refuse their husband then the men will stop fighting...
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...While Aristophanes clearly wrote Lysistrata as a way of protesting the war, there is another theme tied into the story that is both important and connected with the protest of the war. At this time in history, women had no political rights. However, Aristophanes makes the women the saviors; they seize the Acropolis, demand the end of the war by leaving the men without sex, and negotiate the peace. This theme, women in politics, or feminism, surrounds this story and perhaps foreshadows the eventual rise of women into politics that we are now beginning to see today. These themes lend weight to each other throughout the course of the play. That Lysistrata focused on the Peloponnesian War was nothing new for Aristophanes. The majority of his works date from the years of the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C. The Acharnians, written in 425 B.C. was the story of an Athenian that makes a separate peace for himself and his family, and enjoys the benefits of peace while everyone else is still at war (NAWM, 394). The Peace focuses on an Athenian that flies to Heaven on a dung-beetle and asks Zeus to end the war (394). The theme of the Peloponnesian War is nothing new in Aristophanes work. However, the treatment of women in Lysistrata is very different from anything else. First off, Lysistrata, the “hero” of the play, is in actuality a heroine. By the time Lysistrata was released, Sparta had built its own fleet with the help of its allies and had beaten back the Athenian fleet. Perhaps...
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