Lysistrata: Textual Analysis AIP by Katie Randall and Serene Tai

Purpose

The goal of the project is to analyze the verbiage of “Lysistrata” in order to identify and justify the two most significant agons (struggles) that we have previously discussed in class.

Hypothesis

The most significant agons that we are hoping to identify are: Athenians v. Spartans and men v. women. These agons are thought to be the central themes of the play.

Project Description

In order to justify the result of our discussion in class, this project aims to analyze Aristophanes word usage in hopes to identify the two most significant agons (power struggles) throughout the play. Subsequently, our research will provide analysis of the relationships between the characters who mention these specific words whilst highlighting the central themes of “Lysistrata.” We are going to analyze words whose usage may point to a diagnosis of society by the context in which they are used. The most significant agons that we are hoping to identify are: Athenians v. Spartans and men v. women. We will identify these agons by analyzing and counting certain words; although we do not have a concrete list of words to use for this survey, here are some key words we believe will provide us with a strong foundation: woman/women, man/men, Greece, Athens/Athenians, Sparta/Spartans, wife/wives, husband(s), Peloponnesian, war, peace, celibate/celibacy, responsibility, sacrifice, love, seize, deny, shout, yell, exclaim, duty, cause, and justice.

       

Since this work is significantly older than the other texts we read for class, we felt that a textual analysis of this play could be particularly beneficial. By providing audiences (our peers) with a textual analysis of “Lysistrata,” we hope to improve the general comprehension of the play as well as the socio-political atmosphere of Ancient Greece. We have obtained an HTML/PDF format so that we can run it through a word counter/OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program. Once we have a complete list of words and phrases, we will count how many times they are mentioned throughout the text using the OCR software. When we have compiled this information we will identify what the most prominent agons are by analyzing who said the most frequent terms and in what context they were said. We will also categorize the words into nouns, adjectives, verbs (as suggested by Alice) for better clarification. The results will be presented in the format of a graph of words vs. frequency.

Preliminary results/discussion

Based on our recent findings and discussion, we found that certain words that are strongly related to the central agons hypothesized did not appear as frequently as we thought it would have. For example, the word wife/wives only appeared 11 times and the word husband also only appeared 11 times throughout the entire text. The word justice only appeared once and the word duty only appeared 3 times. On the other hand, words such as love appeared as many as 23 times, need 10 times, as well as want 16 times. We also discovered that the names of ancient Greek deities were mentioned repeatedly by the characters (Zues:15 times, Aphrodite:8 times,Artemis:7 times).

We will continue to search for words and analyze the context of the words. Based on our findings, we hope that this project will help to justify the hypothesis if not suggest other important agons that we might have overlooked in class.

Katie Randall and Serena Tai Present Lysistrata: Textual Analysis AIP

We will analyze the verbiage of “Lysistrata” for our final integration/application project. By analyzing Aristophanes word usage, we hope to identify the two most significant agons (power struggles) throughout the play, as well as provide analysis of the relationships between the characters who mention these specific words whilst highlighting the central themes of “Lysistrata.” We are going to analyze words whose usage may point to a diagnosis of society by the context in which they are used. The most significant agons that we are hoping to identify are: Athenians v. Spartans and men v. women. We will identify these agons by analyzing and counting certain words; although we do not have a concrete list of words to use for this survey, here are some key words we believe will provide us with a strong foundation: woman/women, man/men, Greece, Athens/Athenians, Sparta/Spartans, wife/wives, husband(s), Peloponnesian, war, peace, celibate/celibacy, responsibility, sacrifice, love, seize, deny, shout, yell, exclaim, duty, cause, and justice. 

Since this work is significantly older than the other texts we read for class, we felt that a textual analysis of this play could be particularly beneficial. By providing audiences (our peers) with a textual analysis of “Lysistrata,” we hope to improve the general comprehension of the play as well as the socio-political atmosphere of Ancient Greece. We have obtained an HTML/PDF format so that we can run it through a word counter/OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program. Once we have a complete list of words and phrases, we will count how many times they are mentioned throughout the text using the OCR software. When we have compiled this information we will identify what the most prominent agons are by analyzing who said the most frequent terms and in what context they were said. If the agons are contrary to our hypothesized agons, we will discuss this data on our tri-fold presentation. 

Movie Suggestion: Easy A

One of my favourite movies of all time, starring my personal girl-crush Emma Stone, is Easy A. This is the story of a young high school woman who spreads a rumor that she's promiscuous, and gains an inordinate amount of popularity because of it. When things start to spiral out of control, she takes matters into her own hands to clear up everyone's misconceptions.

Bonus: it's hilarious.

(vid: source)

But what does it have to do with our class, and why is it even worth watching?

Lysistrata

In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the women use their seductive skills to sexually frustrate the men, and the lack of consummation eventually gets the women what they want. Easy A shows echoes of this concept. Olive, the main character, starts to use the rumor working against her to help the less fortunate. She pretends to have sex with them, but for a price.

Well that's the most awkward screencap I've ever seen.

(vid: source)

The Misanthrope

The connection to Molière's The Misanthrope is less about characterization, and more about wordsmithing. The style of writing used in The Misanthrope was downright poetic. In Easy A, there is an obvious love for words among Olive and her family. They delight in language itself, and find a way to turn this delight into something entirely comic.

"Tallywacker?"

(vid: source)

The Venetian Twins

In The Venetian Twins, Goldini used a method called "breaking the fourth wall" that allows the characters to speak directly to the audience. Not only is Easy A broken up into bite-sized segments (or what I would call "acts"), these segment breaks are a direct result of Olive narrating her situation directly to the audience.

YouTube didn't have the scene, so here's a snake in a tiny hat.

(pic: source)

There are a lot of elements to Easy A that relate back to previous texts we've analyzed in class (as seen above). But beyond that, this film masters a tongue-in-cheek humor that is subtle and elevated, and all the more hilarious because of it. Every line is crafted, and if you listen carefully enough, you'll find something to laugh at come every turn.

Movie Suggestion: She's the Man

I think that the movie She’s the Man would be a great movie for us to watch in class.  It can be related to The Venetian Twins and Lysistrata. 

Here is a link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4OhwrMidSU

For those who haven’t seen this movie, it stars Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum.  Amanda Bynes plays Viola, a tomboy whose mother insists on her acting more ladylike.  Viola’s twin, Sebastian, is in a band and gets a last minute gig in London, and Viola comes up with a plan to disguise herself as her brother in order to go to his school and play on the soccer team there.  When she arrives (acting as her brother), she meets her roommate Duke, played by Channing Tatum, and tries to act manly, but just ends up looking like a freak.  There is a big love triangle, which ends up as more of a complicated web of relationships.  This movie is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

I think this movie can be related to The Venetian Twins because one twin inpersonates the other and chaos ensues.  One twin (Tonino/Viola) pretends to be the other twin (Zanetto/Sebastian) and winds up causing lots of confusion and heartache for everyone around them. 

This movie can also be related to Lysistrata because both the movie and the play have lead female characters who do not agree with how the men are doing things and decide to take matters into her own hands.  Viola’s school soccer team is cut, and when the men’s team laughs at the idea of a co-ed team, she sees her chance to pose as Sebastian at a different school where she can join that team and play against her previous school in a big rival match. 

            She’s the Man covers topics like gender roles in society, lies and deception, and breaking stereotypes.  I think it would be a good choice to watch in class and we could make many connections between the film and the plays we have read. 

Laughter: More than Inconsequence

     I always thought laughter was some inconsequential byproduct of an arbitrarily humorous event. Never did it occur to me that it is a subconscious construction designed for societal improvement. Even further than that, my understanding of knowledge would have been unlikely to obtain the notion that laughter could be used as a tool to appeal to the conscience of an audience, in order for them to see just how ridiculous or notwithstanding their perception of something might be. 

     In reexamining Lysistrata, it can easily be seen how laughter can be harnessed as the "spoonful of sugar" with which the medicines of social improvement and criticism can more easily go down. Obviously, nobody particularly enjoys being shown that their current understanding of things is wrong, and thus for this reason social criticisms can be difficult to convey to an uneager audience, just as medicine is often difficult to administer to those unwitting to its value. So, like the sugar to the medicine, the laughter that a comedy can invoke can serve as a lubricant to the delivery of a constructive message otherwise not as amicable to the audience. 

     Aristophanes utilizes many invocations of laughter to convey the point more easily to the audience. Take the scene where Kinesias uses the child between himself and Myrrhine as a means of luring into bed with him for example. In this scene, he tries to get her to give up her cause and return to the way of things before Lysistrata's female-led revolution. This scene exists only to serve as an exposition of the strength and resilience of the Athenian women, especially in contrast to the sexual, simple-mindedness of their counterparts. The Greek men watching this play probably wouldn't have recieved well the raw statement "women can be stronger than you men," between gender-roles associated with the society of their time as well as their arete, or sense of pride in manhood. However, when comic elements of the scene are in place, such as Kinesias's ridiculous, under-breath mutterings to his son for him to scream for his mother, the audience will more easily accept the message and all that comes with it- criticism included. The men can laugh at just how ridiculous and desparate Kinesias's methods are in getting his way, and in doing so are more likely to swallow the virtue of Myrrhine here as well. 

     Thinking of laughter as a form of social-improvement-lubricant, it's quite easy to see just how far off it would be to take laughter as merely an inconsequential by-product. Clearly laughter has both practical purpose as well as physical effect, and has been used for centuries to filter concepts into a language that nearly everyone can understand.

** Sorry for the length, but when I read "in-depth" for this assignment, I wasn't sure if that requirement had changed or not, so I played it safe and took my time developing my thoughts. Thanks for reading!**

The Broken Jug: Blowing Things Out of Proportion

As most people have already established, this play is packed full of symbolism. The “Adam and Eve” allusion practically smacks you in the face. But in my attempt to be studious, I found a connection between this play and another one we have already read. The connecting idea is how these two plays blow things out of proportion.

            For starters, let’s reminisce on Lysistrata. This is what I would call a play of epic proportions. Why? Because everything is a little extreme. Would a war really be stopped dead in its tracks just because some women went on a sex strike? Probably not. Would one woman be able to convince an entire mob of women to join this strike? Unlikely.

            Now back to the play at hand. The Broken Jug also makes things more extreme. Think about it. They are going to court over a BROKEN JAR. Literally! Don’t get so caught up in the fact that it is symbolic of her chastity that you forget that they are still arguing over a broken container made of clay. That seems just a smidge ridiculous.

            As to the higher significance of it all, these authors blew things out of proportion to make a point. They didn’t just do it to show off or horrify the audience. These plays were written to point out the shortcomings of mankind, or as Frye says “ a lack of self-knowledge.” Lysistrata points out issues with gender roles in society and The Broken Jug points out the poor structure of the judicial system. 

Lysistrata- Debunking the Presence of a Feminist Agenda

          As some have by now surely pointed out, Lysistrata might appear to the modern audience to have a somewhat feminist/pro-matriarchal agenda, as admittedly was also my initial impression. However, it surely cannot be so, and I would argue that the purpose of the play was surely more satire than feminist-agenda. There are two details in the play that, when they are compared with what I would consider the typical feminist agenda, reveal inconsistencies in the plot that don't allow for the presence of such an agenda. Let me clarify: these particular inconsistencies are not criticisms of the plot itself; on the contrary, I thought it was amusing. However, if one is looking at the play through the lens of the feminist agenda, the faults become increasingly evident as the play proceeds.

           In the ancient world, nearly all societies were considered patriarchal, which means that things were both run and done in a very masculine regard. Wars were a source of revenue, men were the only ones given the privilege of serving in the military, and in almost all cases, were the exclusive subjects of artwork, literature, and history. (There were a few exceptions, granted, such as in the case of Hypatia, the mistress of Pericles, but they were so few in number in comparison that little is left to doubt as to the presence of strong record-favorability.) The Greeks regarded the female forms as “defective males,” possibly even going so far as to suggest the birth of a woman the result of improper heating of the growing child in the womb of the mother. (Coincidentally, they could have attributed womankind’s seemingly eternal state of “It’s freezing in here” to this idea.) They even had a term for the perfection and idealization of the male existence, called Arȇte. It should be noted, however, that in Greek society, women had more rights than they had ever had before in almost the entirety of human history, but it still wasn't anywhere close to the level of modern-day gender-equality that we experience. The point to be made is this: even at this time in history, Greek playwrights certainly weren’t going to write for women. At the same time, they probably wouldn't seriously suggest, and to a largely male audience at that, that women could run the government better than the men; that suggestion wouldn’t fall in line with the opinions of the age, and certainly wouldn't have garnered much of an audience.

If that didn't convince you, let's take a look at the whole point of the feminine agenda. Most would argue that in a work designed to promote the favorability of women over men in the making of ancient-world political decisions, it would be unwise to give the audience any reason to believe that the smart, strong-willed women protagonists had any kind of defining trait, or motivation, that they shared with their baboon-like, sexually-driven male counterparts. However, in the play, the reasoning behind the beginning of the coup-de-etat spawned from what seemed to be a very masculine issue: sexual starvation. Now, don’t get me wrong, both men and women obviously have basic, biological desires for certain kinds of… relief… but the idea of sexual starvation is one that most people commonly associate with men, simply because men have a higher sex-drive, on average, than women do. (Don’t believe me? Comedians joke about this subject all the time, there are segments of the Bible that discuss the issue of wives denying their husbands, and so on and so forth.) In my opinion, to give the women this very masculine motivation for their scheme in the first place would seem to undermine their femininity, and by extension, also the potential for a feminist agenda.

           My opinion as to the purpose of this play is possibly a little more sarcastic than it would appear in the modern world. I think the play served as a method by which the author wanted to show that things in the Greek government were getting so bad regarding war that a bunch of women could do things better. It would be like saying “A bunch of five-year-olds could run this university better…” In this case, the women merely serve as the placeholder for anything “less than” a Greek man and his Athenian government. The sexual motives in the play? Merely a vessel (and one that certainly everyone in the audience can easily understand) by which the point can be delivered to the audience: we want these stupid wars to end.

(Disclaimer: I happen to love women, and approach feminism the same way I approach masculism: they're both ridiculous and backward. Men and women were intended to exist in harmony. My pastor said once that "Women are better than men... at being women. And men are better than women... at being men." )

Lysistrata- Housewife and Sex Buddy

Lysistrata is a comedic play written by Aristophanes. During his time, all roles were played by males. That means female characters were played by males, too. Aristophanes seems to empower his women characters in Lysistrata, yet actors in his day were males. Did he empower the female characters to show that women have a voice and that he sided with having equal opportunities for females and males? No!

      The females­­­­ in this play, including Lysistrata, were just tools to help males mature. They’re not becoming independent and equal with males at all. This play implies that females are only useful for being good mothers and enticing, exciting sexual partners. It didn’t matter whether or not Lysistrata or any of the females wanted the war to end. The power is placed in the males to end the war.

Yes, Lysistrata and another female named Peace were there in the end to help delegate between the Spartans and the Athens, but Lysistrata acted like a mother over two quibbling boy-like men. To illustrate this, when the Spartan argues that Kinesias is taking too much land, Lysistrata (the mother-figure) says, “Don’t argue. Let the legs go (pg.448).” Kinesias agrees, and the Athens and Spartans conclude their truce. Lysistrata finishes off her role by saying “Now first attend to your purification, then we, the women, will welcome you to the Citadel and treat you to all the delights of a home cooked banquet…. And every man of you will take his wife and depart for home (pg.44).” Not only does this quote make her sound like a good house wife and hostess, but it also makes it sound like she and the rest of the women are content with just being housewives/mothers and nothing more. Also, another example on pg. 393, the Commissioner shouts,“I DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED. DAMMIT!” Lysistrata replies, “All the more reason. It’s not only Sparta; now we’ll have to save you from you.” This scene is analogous to a mother calming a little boy with a tantrum.

Lysistrata may have came up with a great idea with ending the war by comparing her ideas to fleece on pg. 399-400, but ending the war for what? End the war so women can be rejoiced with males and still become housewives or mothers.

Also, the girl named Peace was at the truce delegation. She had no voice. Her only purpose for being there was her body. Of all women, Lysistrata chose her because of her body. It’s most likely she knew Peace’s body would cause the males to come terms quickly and end the war to finally satisfy their hungering sexual desires. They even use her body as a map. The male Spartan said, “We’ll take that butte…. Sparta’s Back door (pg.447).” Kinesias chimed in with, “Let’s try Thessaly…. And down to Megara for the legs (pg. 448).” These words may not be as great as the action, but imagine these men ogling at a young girl with saliva coming down the side of their face as they talk. They treat this girl like an object and her function is to be some enticing sexual partner.

Another example of this degrading role is when Kinesias uses the baby to lure Myrrhine to him: “Where’s you maternal instinct? … How can you be so pitiless?... Come down here, dear. For the baby’s sake (pg.423-424).” He lures her to him and finally gets to his main problem: “You love me? So what’s the trouble? Lie down (pg.426).” He wants to have sexual intercourse with her. He doesn’t care about the baby. That’s what he really sought from her. He may be her husband, but there’s more lust than love in this play. On pg. 433, he does refer to Myrrhine as his “dove, [his] sweet,” but this so-called love is belittled every time his erection and horniness is mentioned.

In conclusion, this play does give women a voice/role. However that role is just being a housewife/mother and being an enticing sexual partner.

Lysistrata and Wordplay

There are a lot of wonderful themes that run throughout Lysistrata. Gender roles, the beginning of a feminist (or not-so-feminist) movement, the Peloponnesian War. But rather than delve into the social politics of 5th century Athens, I'd like to talk about the comedic aspect of the play -- namely, why is it funny?

"Is it butts? It's butts, isn't it?"

(img: source)

I'm a big fan of words. Words are nice. They happen all the time, so much that sometimes we forget words are even a thing. We base an entire civilization of communication (and this includes "comedy") around words, when they're really just mouth noises we eventually wrote down as a series of squiggly lines.

Behold, the English language.

(img: source)

Lysistrata, for all its humor, is the direct result of a biased interpretation based off the original text. So delving too deep into the wordplay of Aristophanes' piece will be fairly useless unless I have a degree in Ancient Greek lying around in my closet somewhere. Barring that, while talking about Aristophanes' play, naturally I'm talking about the translator's choice of words as well. 

And what sorts of squiggly lines were we treated to in this play? For now, I'd like to talk about two specific types of wordplay...

Innuendo

"The sap should rise eventually." (p 383)

"If you lay a finger on her, you won't be able to stop the swelling!" (p 387)

"TO EVERY MAN JACK, A CHALLENGE: ARISE!" (p 401)

For those with minds free from a tumble in the gutter, I'll tell you what's happening here: dick jokes. An acre of them. A field of jokes that end with uncomfortable words such as swelling and jack. I don't profess to know why Aristophanes morphed into a 7-year-old child and giggled at anatomy while writing this play, only that I laughed along with him.

My Hypothesis: Either the squishy parts on humans are hilarious no matter what time you live in, or there's something about the wording of an innuendo -- a cleverly disguised slander -- that incites comedy. In a way, the interaction between audience and actor becomes an inside joke between friends.

"You said 'wood' but you weren't talking about trees! We must be best friends!"

(img: source)

Consonance (???)

"If they start waving lumber, we don't want to be encumbered." (p 379)

"Well, look here, Lookout. I'd like to see Myrrhine. How's the outlook?" (p 420)

Aristophanes often uses a combination of syllabic sounds to push home the point of pointed humor. He plays with his words, like the above "lumber and "encumber" (a rhyme hiding an innuendo), or the way "look," "Lookout," and "outlook" dance around each other.

My Hypothesis: Honestly, I'm not sure if "consonance" is the proper term to identify what Aristophanes is doing here. It's obviously a play on words, but it's not quite alliteration, and it's not quite a rhyme. I'm not sure exactly what to call that. Regardless, the way he crafts sounds is meant to have a comedic impact.

"Hahahaha you said impact!"

Lysistrata - The Spartans

Perhaps one of the things that stuck out to me most when I was reading Lysistrata was the portrayal of the Spartans. Honestly, my first thought about the way Lampito and her fellow Spartans was Why are they talking like rednecks?  For example:

"I calklate so. Hit's fitness whut done it, fitness and dancin'." -Lampito, page 356.

Whoa, Lampito sounds like she's from backwoods Tennessee!

I tried to reason why our playwright Aristophanes would write the Spartans in such a way that they would seem rather stupid, while the Athenians used perfect grammar and articulation.

Ancient Greece was not the unified country we now know as Greece. Greece was not unified at all, but consisted of several different city-states, which functioned much like separate small countries. Each had its different culture, and as evidenced  from the ongoing wars talked about in the play, did not always get along. The cities of Athens and Sparta were two of these city-states.

Athens had a much more art-filled culture than Sparta. Named for the goddess of wisdom, Athena, Athens gave us such things as drama, the Parthenon, and most importantly democracy. Citizens of Athens were well learned and directly decided their laws  When you think ancient Greece, you probably think of Athens, which is still very much alive today.

Sparta, however, left no ruins for us to admire. The Spartans were extremely war like people, and they did not build their city to last. For the citizens of Sparta, duty to the state was much more important than expressing any individuality. The only real "citizens" of Sparta were the soldiers. Luxury was banned, and Spartans did not make or create anything to trade with (unless you counted warriors.)

Probably because these differences were so stark and apparent, Athens and Spartans were usually at odds with each other, though as Lysistrata tells us on page 446, they had occasionally allied together for their mutual benefit. Athenians thought of Spartans as barbaric, and it is important to note that Aristophanes was an Athenian. He couldn't help to think of Spartans as barbarians and a bit backwards, even if he was writing a play that preached a united and war-free Greece. He certainly did not have to worry about offending any Spartans with his play, because no Spartan would waste his time with such a silly thing as a play when there was fighting to be done.

Lysistrata - A Breakdown of Her Characteristics and Traits

In this play, women were originally portrayed as the husband's helper, rather than their equal. Every day, women start their mornings by fussing over their man, waking up the maid and taking care of the baby. Every woman is taught to accept their place in the society, except for Lysistrata who believes that there are more important matters to attend to. At this point, Lysistrata was already revealed as a mature woman with unconventional thoughts. She then goes on to reveal her plot of stopping the war. Although initially faced with suspicion and rejection, Lysistrata’s idea is eventually accepted by everyone, showing that she had both the wisdom and charisma to lead her people. When the gates of the Akropolis are finally opened, Lysistrata came out to greet the men only to be threatened by the Commissioner and the police. Instead of running back inside the city, she warns whoever tried to hurt her that she is not afraid to fight back. When more archers are thrown at her, Kleonike and Myrrhine are willing to risk their lives protecting her. This proves that Lysistrata is brave and a well-loved leader. When asked of her plans by the Commissioner, Lysistrata described her intentions of smoothing the relationship between both sides, cleansing the city of corruptions, get rid of people who doesn’t mean well to the city and pulling their men back from war. This demonstrated that Lysistrata is wise and well-versed in politics. When a few of her comrades are attempting escape from the city into the arms of their husbands, Lysistrata is alert enough to separate the truths from the lies and had no problems keeping the women in the city. And most importantly, Lysistrata make such a huge deal at stopping the war by getting all the women to abstain from sex because she is a compassionate person who hates to see misery and despair around her. By getting all the men back from war, there would never be deaths and losses to cry about.