Friday, March 18, 2016
Lysistrata #2: Chorus Impact
The
use of a large chorus was often a popular choice for Greek playwright’s. These
breaks in the dialog in which singing and chanting took place gave the audience
the chance to reevaluation the situation at hand and also possibly view it from
another perspective. Choruses were often emotion filled and depicted a lot of
what was going through all the minds of the main characters. After the women
have chosen to unite, the men get to vent their opinions to the audience in the
first chorus. The attitude from the group of older men right off of the bat is
less than welcoming when the comment, “What a catastrophe- MATRIARCHY!” (36).
It seems that for their women of the town to think for themselves is to offend
every male who has ever preceded them. This was a society that was led by men,
otherwise known as a patriarchy, and therefore women in power were unheard of.
That being said, the men do not take kindly to the sudden shift in power. Their
first response to the sudden Matriarchy is, “We’ll burn them [the women] all,”
(37). In efforts to get back on top, it is decided these men will force the women
to comply with fire if need be to, “teach these women not to trouble us.” (37).
All of theses comments were made outright to the audience through the chorus in
order to quickly get the emotions across. The chorus in a drawn out
illustration of the men deciding that they must unite against the already
united women. Their mentality is much like that of Benjamin Franklin when he
publishes his famous cartoon “Join, or Die”. In the image linked below, Franklin is
expressing to the public that the American Colonies are to unite as one or
perish by their own as they are all pieces of a larger whole. To be complete
they must all stick together. The men in Lysistrata view their situation
similarly as they believe that is they do not stand together, their patriarchy
will die and the women will take over.
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ReplyDeleteThe political cartoon shows a snake divided representing the need for a whole snake in order to win. The only way the women will win is if all the women abstain from sex and stand together. If one city does not abstain, there will be no peaceful end to the war.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting connection. I never would have put the two together but you are completely correct. The colonies had to unite in order to progress forward. In today's world, we must try to unite women and men alike to break away from a patriarchal society as seen in this work. Aristophanes implements a spin on feminism and creates an underlying goal.
ReplyDeleteThe men in the play are extremely angered by the sudden shift in power, as you said, an act in an almost violent matter. To me this is a bit ironic; the women are trying to stop violence but end up causing a short lived violent outbreak from the men. I think the join or die cartoon relates well to this scene because the men all come together as one in order to put a stop to the women speaking out. The cartoon could also relate to the women's efforts.
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