Euripides Master How Well You Knew Women

Euripides! Maestro! How Well You Knew Women! Essay, Research Paper

In this paper I will show why I believe, contrary to widespread sentiment and possible even his ain, that Aristophanes, non Euripides, was, of the four major playwrights fo Athens & # 8217 ; Golden Age, the 1 who least well-thought-of adult females.

Having become cognizant at the ouset of this leterrature class of the place of adult females in the otherwise enlightened idea of Greece in the Fifth Century B.C. , I kept my eyes open during our reading for groundss of, if I may comit an anchronism, jingoism in the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Consoled by the knoledge presented in the text that Aristophanes had accused Euripides of detesting adult females. I didn & # 8217 ; t look for it in Lysistrata. Nevertheless, that is where I found it.

In construing attitudes toward adult females in the play, I accepts certain prevalent tradtions as given and tried to give the dramatists the benefit of the uncertainty, turning my caput at such patterns as utilizing merely male histrions in the dramas and go forthing the adult females in the kitchen while go toing the dramas. Having concedes those points, I set about & # 8220 ; listening & # 8221 ; to the dramatists.

In Agamemnon, Aeschylus addresses some comments toward his Clytaemnestra which could perchance be interpreted as disparaging. She is said to & # 8220 ; manoeuvre like a adult male, & # 8221 ; and Cassandra exclaims, & # 8220 ; What indignation & # 8211 ; the adult female kills the adult male! & # 8221 ; The chorus asks her & # 8220 ; What drove her insane & # 8221 ; adequate to kill a adult male. Her lover, Aegisthus, although he gloats over the organic structure he cringed from cutting down, allows that & # 8220 ; the perfidy was the adult female & # 8217 ; s work, clearly. & # 8221 ; Far from minimizing adult females, nevertheless, I believe these parrotings of the prevailing attitudes, when juxtaposed with Aeschylus & # 8217 ; portraiture of an intelligent, capable Clytaemnestra, a fleeceable, ususpecting Agamemnon and a spineless, parasitical Aegisthus, achieve the consequence of satirising those attitudes. At the stopping point of the drama, Clytaemnestra challenges her hearers, on-stage and off: & # 8220 ; That is what a adult female has to state. Can you accept the truth? & # 8221 ;

Sophocles takes it one measure further. His heroine is non a murderess, but a immature adult females driven by profoundly held ideals and familial love. I don & # 8217 ; t know there could be any uncertainty in any spectator & # 8217 ; s mind as to who is the & # 8220 ; good cat & # 8221 ; and who the bad. Antogone is more ethical and intelligent than Creon. Creon & # 8217 ; s rejection of & # 8220 ; one whose friend has stronger claims upon her than her state & # 8221 ; she meets with her ain bold doctrine: & # 8220 ; I do non believe your edicts have such power that they can overrule the Torahs of Eden, & # 8221 ; humbling Creon in his egoism. The comments dergrading adult females do come along: Ismeme avers that, & # 8220 ; We who are adult females should non postulate with, : we who are weak are ruuled by the stronger. & # 8221 ; Creon vows that if Antione & # 8220 ; victory and goes unpunished, I am no adult male, she is, & # 8221 ; teaching Haemon non to & # 8220 ; unseat your ground for a adult females & # 8217 ; s sake & # 8221 ; and to & # 8220 ; back up the jurisprudence, and ne’er be beaten by a adult females & # 8221 ; and semens, & # 8220 ; This male child defends a adult female, it appears & # 8230 ; .Infamous! Giving first topographic point to a adult female! & # 8221 ; However, the contrast between Creon and Antigone renders these comments portion of the blindeness, egoism an stupidity that make Creon remiscent of Agamemnon and Oedipus.

I was prepared to abound at Euripides & # 8217 ; intervention of adult females. Even in his ain clip, he was accused of misogynism by, among others, Aristophanes. In fact, fable has it that at his decease he was torn apart by Canis familiariss or adult females. I found, alternatively, surprising sensitiveness. Medea laments the hubby & # 8217 ; s ownership fo the married woman & # 8217 ; s organic structure, the impossibleness of divorce by a adult female, the dual criterion of fidelity. She scoffs at the work forces & # 8217 ; s pardon that adult females live free from danger while they ( the work forces ) go out the conflict with the pointed, & # 8220 ; Fools, I & # 8217 ; d instead stand three times

in the forepart line than bear a child.” The extramarital Jason sounds disdainful and hard-hearted biding her that she has “talked like a fool” alternatively of “quietly accepting the determinations of those in power” and ostracizing her–prancing to his ain destiny. Medea is, as the Nurse puts it, a “frightenning woman.” She does slay her ain kids. However, she does so in a ruddy haze of hurting and choler. Her full individuality has been wrapped up in her adult male ; she has no other life of her ain. Abandoned and rejected by the adult male who means so much to her, subjugated adult female is therefore robbed of her really personhood. She has no legal or emotional resort. After the fact, Jason unbelievingly asks Medea, “You thought that ground adequate to slay them, that I no longer kip with you? ” Medea answers with a inquiry of her ain: “And is that hurt a little one, do you conceive of, to a adult female? ” Jason doesn’t truly hear the queston and–perhaps unwittingly–get off his paring shooting: “Yes, to a modest woman….” Medea articulately expresses the feelings of every adult female who has been spurned by the adult male who commands her sense field-grade officer worth. I don’t believe this torment could be more movingly depicted by a adult female.

Aristophases parodies Euripiedsa and his sensed hate of adult females. I have non read Thesmophosriazusae, in which the text informs us adult females avenge themselves on Euripides, so I can non react to it. I have, nevertheless some reactions to Lysistrata. The really construct of the sex work stoppage gives acceptance to the thought that sevice of work forces is the lone value adult females have, that keep backing that sevice is their lone manner of exerting power. The position quo is defended. In that visible radiation, the & # 8220 ; humourous & # 8221 ; self-deprecating remarks of he adult females do non accomplish sarcasm and I don & # 8217 ; t believe are meant as sarcasm, . The sarcasm is on the war. Indeed, to all visual aspects, the heroines believe the myths. Lysistrata comments, & # 8220 ; The manner we adult females behave! I don & # 8217 ; t fault the work forces for what they say about us. & # 8221 ; When she tells Kalonike that & # 8220 ; merely we adult females can salvage Greece, & # 8221 ; Kalonike responds, & # 8220 ; merely we adult females? hapless Greece & # 8230 ; .We belong at place. Our lone armour & # 8217 ; s our aromas, our Crocus sativus frocks and our pretty small places! & # 8221 ;

Aristophanes names one of his heroines Myrrhine, a wordplay on the Grecian word for female genital organ, and has her hail from Anagyros, a stinking fen. The sybolism is really pointed, and really derogative. There are several mentions in the drama, by both work forces and adult females, to work forces slapping their married womans to do them follow, every bit good as to spousal colza. The work forces, when the conflict lines are drawn, name the adult females bitches, subersive prostitutes, slatterns, wild animate beings, with no grounds of anything but blessing. There is besides an upholding of the male Phallus as that which adult females most need. Kalonike objects to Lysistrata, & # 8220 ; I & # 8217 ; vitamin D walk through fire for you & # 8230 ; .but don & # 8217 ; t inquire us to give up that! & # 8221 ; A Boiotian adult female says it once more: & # 8220 ; I & # 8217 ; d instead walk through fire. & # 8221 ; Even Lysistrata herself subsequently groans, & # 8220 ; There & # 8217 ; s merely one thing we can believe of. & # 8221 ;

Aristophanes does use sarcasm when he has the Comissioner say, & # 8220 ; The thought of adult females trouble oneselfing themselves about peace and war! & # 8221 ; and, & # 8220 ; It would take a adult female to cut down province inquiries to a affair of teasing and weaving. & # 8221 ; I believe Lysistrata does clumsily seek to make adult females justice, and that is exactly why I believe Aristophanes to hold been the most deeply smitten with the disease of sensed male high quality. At one point, when the adult females respond to the twits and menaces of the work forces with twits and menaces of their ain, the male chorus calls out, & # 8220 ; Euripides! Maestro! How good you knew adult females! & # 8221 ; I believe Euripides did understand a great trade more about adult females than was common in his clip. I believe Aristophanes thought he knew adult females, and I don & # 8217 ; t believe he of all time even realized the serious unfairness Lysistrata does them.