Women in Ancient Tragedy and Comedy
Both the drama of Euripides' "Medea" and the comedy of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" seem unique upon a level of even surface characterization, to even the most casual students of Classical Greek drama and culture. Both in are female-dominated plays that were produced by male-dominated societies and written by men. Both the drama and the comedy features strong women as their central protagonists, whom are depicted under extreme circumstances, in relatively positive lights. And both plays, despite their very different tones, also have an additional, unique feature in that they show 'the enemy' -- or the non-Greek or non-Athenian, in a fairly positive and humane fashion.
The sympathies of the viewer for female's plights are immediately arisen by Aristophanes from the first scene of "Lysistrata," as Cleonice, the friend of Lysistrata, and a common Athenian housewife states, regarding the lateness of the other women that frustrates the organizing title character: "Oh! They [the other women] will come, my dear; but it's not easy, you know, for women to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep or washing the brat or feeding it. (Aristophanes, "Lysistrata," retrieved on 6 November 2004 from Exploring World Cultures Website, 1997) As observed by Bill Hemminger, a classical scholar on Exploring World Cultures Website "a culture includes both the dominant tradition and its transgression," in other words, both dramas and comedies such as these two validate cultural values such as male dominance, a dislike of foreigners, and military prowess, and also subvert them through humane and humanizing characterizations of the feminine and the feminine plight of dependence upon men for status and protection. (Hemminger, 1997)
True, asserting that Euripides' characterization of Medea as a positive and sympathetic character may seem a more dubious proposition, on the outset. Yet there is no question that this woman is a wronged woman. "She, poor lady, hath by sad experience learnt how good a thing it is never to quit...
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