Chuck Rathfelder

5-28-98

Reaction Paper—Aristophanes

Aristophanes, in his plays Lysistrata and Acharnians, certainly has many agendas he is trying to promote and points he is trying to make, many of which, perhaps, I—living, as I do, a few thousand years removed from the man—will never be able to understand, but I think that one of the most significant points that he is trying to make in these plays—whether consciously or not, I don’t know—is that individual pleasure is supreme. Obviously, in the two plays, he has slightly different agendas that he is trying to promote, and the plot of the two plays is radically different, but a theme that comes up in both plays is that it’s best to do what we feel like we want to do, not what we should do. I think this point is very significant, and gives us clues about the way some people felt in the Athens of the Peloppenesian War.

In both of these two plays, the basic point that Aristophanes is trying to bring across is that Athens should seek peace in it’s brutal war with Sparta. In the Acarnians, Aristophanes uses the character of Dicaeopolis, or "honest citizen" as an example of someone who understands that things like the ability to trade freely with other cities, the freedom to live in one’s own home, and the prospect of a life free of harassment by enemy troops is far more desirable than things like the good of the state, and the honor of the city. Dicaeopolis is an extremely hostile character to those with which he disagrees, and doesn’t show any of what we would think of as politeness or respect. By portraying his protagonist in this way, and by subsequently naming him "honest citizen", Aristophanes is telling the reader that this is the way people should be, more concerned with getting enough food to eat, and the opportunity to attend nice parties than with the well-being of the state, and even of the soldiers of Athens. The end of the play features a series of comparisons between Dicaeopolis and Lamachus, and instead of Lamachus appearing brave, as one could possibly think, Aristophanes attempts to belittle him, and make his efforts look foolish, next to the hollow pursuits of Dicaeopolis. By equating the lives of these two men, Aristophanes is attempting to say that the War against Sparta is no more important, noble or intelligent than the party that Dicaeopolis is preparing for, and later attends. By these things, Lamachus is trying to get across the point that war is a futile effort, in a sense, since all that we should care about is the pleasures of the now, that all other efforts are wasted. Aristophanes goes to great effort to belittle Lamachus’ efforts and to debase him to the same level as Dicaeopolis, in order to support his hedonistic view of the world.

In Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ primary aim, once again, is to say that the war with Sparta should be ended at any cost. This time, instead of appealing to the desire for sex, wine and food, as in the Acharnians, he appeals solely to the desire for sex, but the end result is the same. Aristophanes once again attempts to paint a picture of everyone who is against the war being more wise and having more "common sense"—in other words of having pleasure as their first goal—while portraying the people who are for the war as being, for the most part, enfeebled and foolish old men, wasting their lives away—in the view of Aristophanes’ hedonistic policy, at least—with thoughts of war and state, rather than with thoughts of sex. Aristophanes portrays the men who try to force the women out of the Acropolis as being old, bumbling and incapable of even carrying tree trunks up to the Acropolis, in order to try to break their way in. On the other hand, the women that are trying to heroically bring peace to the land are portrayed as likable, humorous and generally happier people. Aristophanes uses this parallel, as in Lysistrata, to attempt to belittle the position of those that he disagrees with, but he ends up, in my opinion, coming across only spiteful and petty. In Lysistrata, as well as in the Acharnians, the protagonists have as their primary motivation the base desire for pleasure. The women simply want their husbands home for their own lustful reasons, not for the good of the whole, or of the state, but simply for their own pleasure. Only by convincing the women that it will mean more sex in the long run does Lysistrata convince them to go along with her plan, not, it should be noted, because the women have anything necessarily against war itself. This attitude of "pleasure first" is also manifested when the women make their vow, by the choice of sacrifice that they use. Rather than actually sacrificing an animal, to seal their vow, they "sacrifice" a bottle of wine. This event is used by Aristophanes to show that it is really more important to enjoy your sacrifice than to please the gods, and at no point does Aristophanes mention that the gods are displeased with the offering. In fact, at no point does Aristophanes mention that there even are gods, and the insincere, supposedly humorous act here portrayed shows how lightly Aristophanes held religion. In fact, it is the recurring theme of the two plays that tradition is foolish except when it leads to personal pleasure, and Aristophanes’ favorite way of illustrating his point is by portraying the characters that disagree with him as merely bumbling, confused, and deluded idiots. Although these two plays are very good for political satire, at least considering how old they are, the lack of character depth or of morality—perhaps even the immorality in the plays—prevents these works from ever being considered next to any truly great playwrights such as Sophocles, who subtly creates very real characters and through them illlustrates lasting moral messages.

The reason for Aristophanes’ hedonistic attitude is not something that we can easily pinpoint, but one that has dire consequences later in Greek history. As the Greeks go, through the course of the Classical Age, from small, independent polises to worldly, and much more powerful members of imperial leagues, the people gradually leave behind the old morality and embrace the search for pleasure as their primary goal. The Dionysiac cults, and the desire for personal riches contributed, I think, as much as anything, to the eventual downfall of Greece, as is so symptomatic of the fall of great civilizations in general. Although it would be ridiculous to suggest that Aristophanes had any appreciable impact in turning people toward the search for pleasure, his plays can be seen as a symptom of the trend. Perhaps, also, we should see the plays as reactions to the remarkably devastating war of the Pelopennese, which people in Greece, I’m sure—understandably—simply wanted to be over. In the reaction against the war, it is understandable that Aristophanes, and many others, could overreact, and completely abandon the old stystems of morals in favor of a more Bacchic view, and perhaps this is what we are seeing. In any case, I think, the attitude is suggestive of the direction Greece would later take, and is, really, somwhat saddening.