Restraint And Agency In Lysistrata Play Essay
the theme of restraint and agency in lysistrata
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata is a play full of possibilities and contradictions. It is marked by the fact that the title of the play spells out the lead character of the play, a female. Furthermore, it portrays the women of Athens as teaming up with the women of Sparta to force their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War. This was fantastical, of course in the Athens of 411 BC. The women didn’t have a vote. They had no say in the matters of the state. They could not walk out into the city streets without their husband or a slave moving around with them. Even as this play was being performed most probably in the Lenaia with women thrashing down men in all fields possible, the actors were all male, the audience completely devoid of women and the plot a comic impossibility, a fantasy. The relationship between restraint and agency is clearly placed in the very backdrop of the play. It is …show more content…
Sparta had an upper hand in the war. It was more powerful than Athens on land as well as the sea. Athens on the other hand was more rich and resourceful. It could hire soldiers to fight for it. They funded this war from the reserves which were stored up in the Acropolis. Women’s capture of the acropolis leaves them with more agency than ever. They are in charge of the war now. Men do not have a say in it because they do not have the charge of Acropolis anymore. Since the money is not being channelled to fund the navy or the armoury, the men cannot afford the war anymore. With the prospect of war removed from their occupation, sex is the diversion available to. But here as well they are left with nothing. The women are on a sex-strike! In such a situation, men have no other alternative to but accept women’s authority who clearly have an upper hand now. This gives us the two main strands of the plot. Sex strike: restraint; seizure of acropolis:
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata is a play full of possibilities and contradictions. It is marked by the fact that the title of the play spells out the lead character of the play, a female. Furthermore, it portrays the women of Athens as teaming up with the women of Sparta to force their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War. This was fantastical, of course in the Athens of 411 BC. The women didn’t have a vote. They had no say in the matters of the state. They could not walk out into the city streets without their husband or a slave moving around with them. Even as this play was being performed most probably in the Lenaia with women thrashing down men in all fields possible, the actors were all male, the audience completely devoid of women and the plot a comic impossibility, a fantasy. The relationship between restraint and agency is clearly placed in the very backdrop of the play. It is …show more content…
Sparta had an upper hand in the war. It was more powerful than Athens on land as well as the sea. Athens on the other hand was more rich and resourceful. It could hire soldiers to fight for it. They funded this war from the reserves which were stored up in the Acropolis. Women’s capture of the acropolis leaves them with more agency than ever. They are in charge of the war now. Men do not have a say in it because they do not have the charge of Acropolis anymore. Since the money is not being channelled to fund the navy or the armoury, the men cannot afford the war anymore. With the prospect of war removed from their occupation, sex is the diversion available to. But here as well they are left with nothing. The women are on a sex-strike! In such a situation, men have no other alternative to but accept women’s authority who clearly have an upper hand now. This gives us the two main strands of the plot. Sex strike: restraint; seizure of acropolis: