Meaning and Thematic Significance of the Quote from Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Term Paper Example

Task: Meaning and thematic significance of the quote from Lysistrata by Aristophanes The quote “Give the man a shirt and bonnet: maybe that will shut him up...Pull a little lipstick on him...War is strictly for the women!” (Henderson 533) by Lysistrata Aristophanes illustrates the nature of the society dominated by male. The quote presents women as only objects for men to meet their sexual desires in the society. The women according to men were meant to use to acquire wealth. Women and men in this society are in war because women need men to take the leading role in stopping the war, but men on the other hand looks women as means to stop the war. This quote portrayed men as materialistic in nature and was concerned about protecting their properties from female counterparts. The male believed that the material property in the society played a key role in the society (Henderson 535). On the other hand, the women believed that men had the responsibility of men to stop the war. In this instance, women in the Greece culture were .were portrayed as sexual objects that ensured constant ownership of all the material properties, which was ironically designed to perpetuate the recurring war instead of reducing it. This is because, in this situation, the females were taken to be the most significant resource over which male competed. Consequently, lead to conflict between the two sexes in the society where men saw themselves superior and treated their women as mere sexual objects in the society. In this society, the Athens’ culture needed that every male was forced become a warrior, and his position in the society was gauged by his capability to fight, safeguard an obtain property from other warriors. Masculinity and warfare were two cultural determinants in the society; however, they were the genesis of the problems affecting the society. War was primarily used by the male to distinguish each other in the face of the rising demands of the women to have their men become responsible and stops the war. The engendered and internecine aspect of the war gradually more restricted the capability of the male citizens to differentiate themselves militarily and politically, apart from the moment of death or discredit, whereas the espousal of the harmonious or democratic perspective was equivocally unsustainable as this was considered unethical an unmanly in the male dominated environment. This conflict and its negative outcomes in the face of the play for both individual and the polis are well articulated by Aristophanes via the conflicted persona of his initial protagonist position. As the men became restricted in ever-lasting war with themselves, and with war itself, the female counterparts evolved to be part of the material property in which they struggle to maintain in the face of a society dominated by male. This was because female reproductive abilities were the major avenues by which the patriarchal structure of conflicts, ownership, transmission, and appropriation through justifiable beneficiaries was established (Henderson 31). The monogamous marriage aspect in this society was designed control women’s sexuality and guarantee parenthood; it was an undertaking that substituted and warranted that of war, and which proved female designation as property or use-objects, meant for male abuse. The monogamous aspect in the society promoted the aspect of commoditization and sexual exchange of women as apparently peaceful existence of male social relations, which was contrary to war ,however ,the aims of both undertakings yielded the same results : to acquire and maintain material property ,therefore promoting the status. During this time, the practice of slavery was experienced and this was because of successive development of the aspect of war, agriculture, and property ownership. This was conceived through the same ideological aspect as marriage, and therefore putting more emphasis on the question of whose concerns are served by these social institutions as it was in the case of slavery that served the interests of land –holding warrior social class. The outstanding and worthy responsibilities attached to woman in Greece’s patriarchal culture paradoxically served the role of promoting the cyclic conflict instead of minimizing it. Furthermore, the misrecognition and refusal of personhood of the woman objectification mandated belied the reality that women remain agents, with the capability to make informed decisions and influence diverse results, specifically with concern with their sexual orientation and parenthood of their children. It was female flexibility in the play, her concurrent way of life as an object and subject in the male dominated community has shown in the play, which allowed parenthood to flourish; nevertheless, it was this identical quality that also possessed capability to destroy and destabilize it. In the play women were perceived as principle generators of war among men, and at the same time avenue where the conflict can be resolved, and their sexualized bodies emerged to be the key sites of debate in male’s efforts for social superiority as a result of their ironical status within the ideological structure (Henderson 536). The challenges, which these efforts impacted on the civil society, were the main preoccupations of the past legendary tales of the ancient Greece. In the Iiad, Homer employed the use of the figure of the slave Briseis and fight that persisted over her midst Achilles and Agamenmnon to develop a microcosmic montage that represented back upon Helen and the bigger conflict of the Trojan war. He therefore highlighted the circularity and unavoidability of this aspect of conflict, and provided a substantial interpretation on the conflict’s invasive impacts, not only in matters of politics and military institutions, but on the entire aspect of structures covering gender and sexuality in the society dominated by men. His discovery of the vicious and efficient procedure by which females are appropriated, commoditized, and objectified shows that these actions not only function to serve an economic role, but rather functioned as apparatus of communication amongst men in the society. The other consequence of the ironical status of the female was that it developed her target of much men resentment and hostility, which showed itself in diverse ways that seemed to control her, to explore her as sex vessel and to reject her, in spite her significance, as a subordinate other. In this “war” which was based on gender, violence and rape there was inevitable strategic practices within this society as the men dominated this society (Henderson 534).The element of misogyny also manifested itself in severe forms all over the ancient Greek way of life, and it depended on the play specifically to attain this end. It was both literary and performative genre that capitalized on women as an object of sexual comedy. In this play, women were represented as ideal comic targets where men in the society could easily exploit to fulfill their own sexual desires. Women subjection to this discursive treatment, paradoxically established and celebrated her objective nature in the society, and at the same moment men embrace unity over and against women in the society as the enemy other. In the play, women were considered to be “enemies within” by men and they associated women’s body to the geographical features on the earth surface. There were two associations placed upon women, whereby women’s nature of productivity was associated with the productivity of land. The play presents women as mere objects that need to be explored by men sexually to produce children. The women in this society are expected to used acquire resources, which will be owned by men. In the last part of the play, there was the element of peace and reconciliation before them and the load of sexual withdrawal still heavy upon men; they hurriedly conquer their differences and embraced the element of peace. Therefore the quote on the play suggested that the ownership of the material things in the society were men, while the women on the other hand were merely sexual objects. Women was also perceived by men to the genesis of the problems in the society especially war, and they were the same people who could be used to stop the war (Henderson 537). Work Cited Henderson ,Jeffrey. Gender, Space and Warfare in the Early Plays of Aristophanes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2007,print. Read More