Outline For Lysistrata's Speech
The most surprising thing is that women appear aware of their stereotyped role in society but they don’t seem caring that much. Their main concern is to come back to a pre-war peaceful environment and to a life split between their children and their daily duties. I would like to bring your attention to another speech Lysistrata makes: "Now listen to what I have to say. It's true I'm a woman, but still I've got a mind: I'm pretty intelligent in my own right, and because I've listened many times to the conversations of my father and other elders, I'm pretty well educated too. Now that you're my captive audience I'm ready to give you the tongue-lashing you deserve - both of you."3
We can at first be enlightened by the strength and power gained
from this female character, but if we analyse these sentences deeply we what is behind that. Very interesting is to think that Lysistrata only talks about the education received from her father and the other male members of her family. This might be a strong sign of her unconscious prejudgments about her same gender: that means that an internalization of patriarchy, characteristic of the Classical Greece social structure, is conditioning the protagonist. It is also clear to the reader that Lysistrata tend to change her language style during the speech in question, since she is in presence of men and want to appear intelligent and well educated: obscenities and swear words are put aside in order to embrace a more sophisticated style.
Curious is to think about the fact that women reach their goal only through the use of their body: they can bring to and end the war only wearing their nicest dresses and jewellery and showing all the sensuality they are capable of. And “the battle of the sexes” they are fighting is not going to lead to any gain of power in the post-war political and social life: they are not struggling for their rights, they are just trying to bring their husband away from the battlefields and back home.
The analysis of the text
The style that permeate the whole play can be defined as informal, colloquial and certainly explicit, very unusual thing for a play datable back to the 500/400 b.C: obscenities and swear words are the base of the whole comedy and they are used in order to create hilarity.
As it is explained in the book “Linguistics” by Anne.E.Baker and Kees Hengeveld, we can talk about sociolects to refer to the social varieties of a language within the language itself.
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We can at first be enlightened by the strength and power gained
from this female character, but if we analyse these sentences deeply we what is behind that. Very interesting is to think that Lysistrata only talks about the education received from her father and the other male members of her family. This might be a strong sign of her unconscious prejudgments about her same gender: that means that an internalization of patriarchy, characteristic of the Classical Greece social structure, is conditioning the protagonist. It is also clear to the reader that Lysistrata tend to change her language style during the speech in question, since she is in presence of men and want to appear intelligent and well educated: obscenities and swear words are put aside in order to embrace a more sophisticated style.
Curious is to think about the fact that women reach their goal only through the use of their body: they can bring to and end the war only wearing their nicest dresses and jewellery and showing all the sensuality they are capable of. And “the battle of the sexes” they are fighting is not going to lead to any gain of power in the post-war political and social life: they are not struggling for their rights, they are just trying to bring their husband away from the battlefields and back home.
The analysis of the text
The style that permeate the whole play can be defined as informal, colloquial and certainly explicit, very unusual thing for a play datable back to the 500/400 b.C: obscenities and swear words are the base of the whole comedy and they are used in order to create hilarity.
As it is explained in the book “Linguistics” by Anne.E.Baker and Kees Hengeveld, we can talk about sociolects to refer to the social varieties of a language within the language itself.
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