Lysistrata: A Comedy of Stereotypes Essays -- essays research papers

LYSISTRATA, a gaindy of stereotypesThe playwright Aristophanes wrote ab come in an ancient Greece, capital of Greece in particular, during a time of constant warfare. His play Lysistrata is an attempt to hive off while putting across an anti-war message. In fact even the label of the play is an anti-war message of sorts. The word lysistrata means, disband the army (Jacobus 162). Aristophanes was a sagacious writer he creates a work of art that causes his audience to remember about the current state of affairs in their city. He points out that there is a major threat to Athens when all the good, untested fighters are sent off to war. Aristophanes acheives this aim by using uninventive characterizations of women to show how utterly defenseless Athens is without their young men at home. His message is a bit subliminal in nature alone still a heady one. Aristophanes realized that audiences dont come to plays to be preached at but to be entertained. To this end, he uses comedy an d eccentric characterizations to delight the spectators/readers. The principal form of comical characterization he depended on was stereotyping. As the briny theme of the play, the female stereotype of womans only power base being sex was strongly employed. The main character Lysistrata and all the women in Greece band together to essentially mob over the city states to end the Peloponnesian war. They do this by exploiting their uninspired power source, sexuality. This power source would...