Christopher Gonzalez-Crane
In Assemblywomen and Lysistrata, Aristophanes couches his most radical political ideas in the easily dismissible female voice. The women of these plays ascend to positions of political power, and attain varying degrees of agency, but remain, despite their power, within their traditional gender roles. In both plays, the mode through which the women assert their power reinforces Athenian gender conventions. Furthermore, Aristophanes use of common stereotypes do not, as Groben asserts, "put women in a position of power" but rather serves to mollify his male audience. Women are not the thematic end, but rather a practical means through which Aristophanes can articulate his more radical political ideas.
In Lysistrata, the use of sex as a political tool supports the conceptions of women as serving only sexual and household needs. Although the women ascend to political power, their portrayal remains absurd, with lines which reinforce commonly held stereotypes, " Oh what a low and horny race are we" (144) and "By twain gods, is difficult from females to sleep alone without the hard-on"(148). Furthermore, the use of sex, as the "means of agency" or a Groben states, "the use of their bodies to extend their limited household power into the public sphere", does not demonstrate an attempt to gain control of male institutions but rather reinforces the female position as gratifier of male sexual needs.
In Assemblywomen one could also argue, as Groben does, that the attainment of female political power is a demonstration of female agency. However, the women, aside form Praxagora, who asserts political influence, remain largely involved with tasks associated with the household. Furthermore, the play ends with a fantastic vision of the male existence in which the men exist in "a carefree boyhood, with women doing all the chores" (148 Henderson). At the end of Assemblywomen, there is a great feast in which the female ascension to power is tempered by a vision of a "golden age" in which men, served by the women, live free of all work and pain.
The women of Lysistrata and Assemblywomen do not represent, as Groben states, "the ambition to overcome a lack of agency". Nor is the "power of sex" one of Aristophanes central theme. Women in these plays are useful vehicles in which Aristophanes couches his more radical political ideas. The female voice lends a comic absurdity which made Aristophanes ideas more widely digestible and or dismissible.
Chris,
Your disagreement with Carly here points up a really interesting area of contention in the interpretation of comic texts generally. How are we to imagine that the audience responded to women's successful and effective appropriation of power in these two texts? Even granting that the power they take is analogous to the power they normally weild in the household anyway, it still amounts to political power in its new context. Does the suggestion of female power work in some liberating fashion to subvert convention? Or does its absurdity serve to reinforce the status quo? Or is it possible that the audience had no one monolithic response, but rather might react in either way?
Carly also suggested, at the end of her paper, that Aristophanes is using the women as a safe vehicle for his radical political views. You thus might have positioned yourself in a less diametrically opposing position to her paper, and it would have been interesting to develop this point a bit further. In what sense are the women "safe" for use in this manner? And doesn't it matter whether Aristophanes' ideas are digested or dismissed??
Overall you've done a nice job here, but I feel somewhat frustrated that your positions remain at point-counterpoint and don't ever move beyond to some sort of synthesis. A goal for the introduction?
Grade: A-