What gender ideas does Lysistrata present? How does the comedy comment on serious issues?
Lysistrata plays on and reinforces gender stereotypes about the supposedly proper spheres of men and women in society. It puts forth the idea that both genders lust for sex but that in men, the need for sex is more pronounced than it is in women. The play explores the idea that women can control men through denying them sex. Further, the play works on the assumption that is absurd and comic that women would take charge of the government and the treasury. It raises laughs by showing how the men are unmanned by the women's control of the state.
While the play bases its comedy on playing with gender stereotypes and giving the women the upper hand over men, it does so to make a serious commentary on war. First, it points to how ludicrous it is for the Greeks to be fighting each other when they have a common...
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enemy in the barbarians. More universally, it points to war as the underlying problem: the slaughter and cost of war that drives the women to desperate measures is the true absurdity in this play.
What serious issues does Lysistrata explore beneath its comic surface?
The original question had to be edited down. Beneath the comedy of Aristophanes' work is a significant and serious issue about the nature of modern warfare. War is shown to be a destructive force, something that endangers all human beings. Men and women are shown to be impacted through war. Lysistrata's plan is not meant to ensnare men, as much as it meant to stop war. The Peloponnesian War has ravaged Athens. It has not spared anyone and the plan to stop the war is what motivates the women. The fundamental issue that drives the plot of the drama is how to stop the bloodshed and the destruction that is so intrinsic to war. War is shown to be socially destructive. Nothing of value is shown to be gained by it. Women are challenged by time apart from their men, who are already impacted by the war that they wage. The serious issue about how war can be stopped is where the comedy is most effective. The Athenian desire for conquest and for victory is offset by how the women understand the condition of war that has left them without their men, subject to living lives alone. At the same time, the need to stop war becomes one of the fundamental elements in the narrative, helping to convey something very profound through its comedic approach.