LYSISTRATA

Early Drama and Comedy rarely casts a woman in the lead role of a play. Aristophanes gets away with it only because he uses what every Greek would have considered to be farcical ideas about women waging war, performing in aggressive roles, taking over the treasury, and ending the war by withholding sex from their men until they agree to stop fighting.

Aristophanes sticks closely to tradition, playing up to the real male viewpoint of women in ancient Greece. The majority of Greek men felt well above the level of women and slaves. A woman had no power or rights. They were not citizens and they didn't vote. Those were issues belonging to men.

Domestic violence and brutality were the expected norm in the life and of a Greek woman, unless you had status as a vestal virgin or priestess. Lysistrata wants the women to withhold sex and comments on what could be perceived as her personal experience when she responds to Kalinike's comment : “What if they slap us?” (prologue. 133) by saying: “If they do, you better give in. But be sulky about it. Do I have to teach you how?” (prologue.134).

A person reading the play might get the idea that she was being sarcastic; that this experience was common and most women knew how to handle it. Tavrysistrata is the straight or serious character in the play because she has the lead position. Her authority cannot be undermined in any way. To play the role for laughs would be to wreck what little plausible plot that does exist in the play.

Lysistrata, a woman living in ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian war, wants an end to that war, and like all the other women involved, a return to normal life. She has been working on the problem before the story starts, and knows exactly what she must do to carry out the steps she thinks will lead to her goal.

She needs to organize women from all of Greece and get them all to agree to withhold sex until their men give in and stop fighting; and she needs to get the Athenian women to take over the treasury. The actual play traces her steps toward her goals.

She is every inch a leader, getting women from several different city-states together, and coordinating two massive situations simultaneously. Not only does she get the women together, she also takes over the Acropolis.

Lysistrata has a great deal of power and believability, which is not allotted to the average woman. It is possible that she may have been a man or priestess who is now married. This would automatically make her an exceptional woman with power, rights, and privileges that most Greek women of her time would not have.

That might account for her believability, and the respect accorded / her from the men in the story. Even when the men consider burning the treasury down, they are slightly distant from Lysistrata. They may openly attack, or say they would attack, other female characters in the story, but even though she is the instigator among the women, there are no direct attacks toward her.

Being a priestess would make her virtually untouchable, because by right of her previous service to the goddess, she is considered a virgin, a female with personal autonomy. She would belong to herself, even if she eventually chose marriage as an option.

She speaks well and states her case clearly. She even does it in a public forum, which would have been impossible for the average woman.

"Ever since this war began we women have been watching you men, agreeing with you, keeping our thoughts to ourselves, This doesn't mean we were happy...but we'd listen to you...arguing this way and that....So we women decided to save Greece." (1.124-148).

The Commissioner talks directly to her, and at least listens to what she has to say. Whether he believes in it or not, at least he lets her speak. So does Aristophanes. As a priestess she would be perfect to use as his mouthpiece for denigrating women.

Who better to speak negatively of women than another woman? Two major comments she makes include: “What an utterly perverted sex we women are.” (prologue.111); and “The behavior of these idiotic women. There's something about the female temperament that I can't bear (2.3).”

While Lysistrata plays it straight, another woman, Kalonike, is used to satirically attack women; especially focusing on women who step out of control, letting everyone know that “We have a reputation for bitchiness to live up to.” (Prologue, 210).

She also gets all the lines of insult in the play. She comments on “Boitia of the fertile plain“(prologue, 72) as saying "You'll find the fertile plain has just been mowed." (Prologue, 73).

Aristophanes sees women who step out of control as bitches, monsters, beasts, or scheming wild animals. After all, “Of all the beasts that god hath wrought. What monsters worse than woman” (1. 86)?

He also insults women's knowledge of the power of sex, and their use of feminine wiles to manipulate men. At the same time, his men are equally manipulative. Myrrnine's husband Kinesias tries to get her to come home by using his child to play on her sense of guilt as a mother. “Six days now with never a bath; no food; enough to break your heart!” (3.40).

His women have a reputation for lateness, and at the beginning, no one shows up for the meeting, Kalonike says: “Oh, they'll be along. It's hard to get away...Home life can be so demanding!” (prologue. 16).

The women are sex-starved, drunk, out of control, and constantly speak in terms of food through out the play. They start out with honorable intentions, but as the play goes on they keep trying to sneak out of the Treasury building to find a man. “To put it bluntly, we're dying to get laid" (2. 9).

Aristophanes also likes to poke fun at the idea of how much women drink in ancient Greece. By today's standards, the water in Greece would have been something less than pure, so perhaps the drink safest for all was alcohol. There's no sign anywhere in the play to suggest that the men of Greece were tee-totalers.

Aristophanes simply forgot to mention that. If he had, it wouldn't have fit in with his plan of action. Wine was used as an oath bonding, in social situations, and even as something to do with your hands when trying to communicate with others.

He keeps reminding everyone about the close relationship between women and food. Early survival of humankind depended on the agricultural pursuits of women to keep the family fed. During ancient Greece clear up through more modern times, women have been in charge of the kitchen; making it their sole domain and refuge from men.

Lysistrata uses the food terms with pride when she says: "Forward Dear Comrades! You grainlettucebeanseedmarket girls. You garlicandonionbreadbakery girls (1. 65).” Aristophanes was trying to make sure that an area considered as belonging solely to women was something to laugh at. He made sure it seemed a little less important than what male citizens would have been concerned with in their daily lives.

While this play is not a feminist commentary on the situation between men and women, you get the feeling that at least for a little while, the men of Greece will be listening to their wives just a little more closely; paying a little more attention to them; and hopefully, treating them with just a little less brute force, and a little more concern and consideration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnett, Sylvan; Morton Berman; and William Burto. Types of Drama: Plays and Essays. HarperCollins College Publishers; New York, NY; 1993.