Aristophanes and Plautus
From the beginning of time women have been seen as inferior to men. Since creation to present day, females have been denied rights, mistreated and held unaccountable for complex thought and reasoning. The views of women held by the citizens of each historical period and generation has been depicted in the literature from that time. The role of the women in the Bible was to be man's helper and this idea traveled from generation to generation. In ancient civilizations women were still seen as servants to their husbands and having a lack of intelligence and reason. Two playwrights from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome keyed into this aspect of human relationships. Although the plight of women may have improved from the Greek world to the Roman world, it is not evident in the plays written by famous authors, Aristophanes and Plautus. The literature from these two men holds the same, condescending view that women were servants and incapable of more than domesti!Although most minorities progress over time, and the women may have, it does not show through comparing the writings of Aristophanes and Plautus. Both show negative views of women, but unlike Plautus, Aristophanes realiz
Another patronizing comment made in the play is when Megadores says, "The wives would learn obedience, and the husbands wouldn't have to spend so much money"(The Pot of Gold, 30). Here Megadores believes it is the woman's duty to obey the husband and act as his servant. Still at the time of the Roman Empire women were thought of as property. They were passed on from father to husband and their feelings ignored. An example of this is in The ------------------------------------------------------------------------ es that women are capable of thinking for themselves. The evidence to support this is in his famous play, Lysistrata. Lysistrata, an Athenian woman, has conjured a plan to end the Peloponnesian War. Her plan is to gather all the women from Athens and Sparta, and collectively all abstain from sex with their husbands. "We can force our husbands to negotiate Peace, Ladies, by exercising steadfast Self-Control-By Total Abstinence"(Lysistrata, 360). This will bring peace because the men's need for affection outweighs the need to fight. Under the leadership of Lysistrata, these women take over the Acropolis and eventually force peace on the city-states. Several scenes in this play portray women as brave and intelligent. The fact that a woman could form! ulate a plan that could actually end the war shows this. The women take over the Acropolis and eventually the men realize they cannot do anything about it. The men don't expect the women to stand their ground, but they do. Lysistrata says, "O
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Approximate Word count = 1032
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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