Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Online Behavioral Targeting and Consumer Privacy Issues Essay
Sophocles prolific writing has rarely produced a woman of much(prenominal) stern persuasiveness of character as Antig oneness. Inversely the comedy of Aristophanes Lysistrat was among the get-go to introduce a strong willed female protagonist, who is non a goddess. The intervention of both great writers differs in the fact that the backdrops and the moods are distinctly different. succession Sophocles zeroed in on the sombre tragedy, Aristophanes chose to inject feminist revolt against supremacy through zestful comedy. From a g abrogateer perspective it is of import to debate the motives behind the actions of the lead characters in both the bits.There bugger off been suicides and suicides in classic tragedies (which almost define Greek tragedies). Sophocles Antigone commits suicide in the darkened dungeon left to starve to death. But unlike the suicide of their amaze Jocasta who decides to end her disembodied spirit when she learns that her marital relationship with Oe dipus was incestuous, Antigones death is a defiant protest against the tyranny of her uncle Creon and an emphasis of her strongly held belief, that her brother should be accorded a ripe burial.There bear been few examples of valour from Greek women who defied the norms of either their contemporary society or their king for a symbolic gesture rather than a cause. In the case of Antigone it was the burial rights to one of her two dead brothers which drives her to go against the will of the ruler, Creon. Antigone begins after both the struggle brothers have apparently killed each other and since Polynices revolted against the evoke and led an Argive army to everyplacethrow his brother Eteocles, he is deemed to be a evildoer against the state.Thus Creone, brother of Jocasta, who becomes the ruler decrees his body to be deprived of proper burial rites to ensure that his soul rots beyond redemption. Antigone, in the beginning of the ladder expresses her wish to accord her brother proper burial. It is a symbolic motion picture of Antigones incorrupt strength that she decides to go ahead in her chosen course though she is unable to enlist the support of her more wearied sister Ismene.This is a marked deviation from the fork overion of women in Greek literature of the condemnation where women were always looked upon as dependent on others for the strength of their convictions. Antigone succeeds in her stated mission and when this becomes known to Creone, an argument rages on the option between the natural law and man-made laws. In another unfearing drift from established norm, the chorus in Sophocles play have the righteous courage to c solely the path of their emperor as the more evil.Creones son and Antigones fiance Haemon comes to her defence and the ensuing debate on the justice of natural laws which should supersede man made laws is a playwrights delight. Creone, however, decides to leave Antigone to starve to death in a blind drunk cave as her prison. The blind prophet Tiresias to a fault advocates against punishment to Antigone and says he will pay corpse for corpse, and flesh for flesh. The declaration of Tiresias that Creon is causing moral pollution causes a switch of heart in Creone. His moral dilemma leads him to conclude that Polynices should be buried and Antigone should be pardoned.But by this time, Hameon reaches Antigones cave with the intention of saving her only to find that she has perpetrate suicide by hanging herself, much like her mother Jocasta sooner her. When Creon reaches the cave he finds Hameon grieving over Antigone and he takes his life by stabbing himself as Creon approaches him. This leads Eurydice, Creons wife to give up her life in the grief of her sons untimely death. Thus Creon loses all his loved ones due to his one fatal erring conviction to bear out the laws of the state above the natural law.The tragic flaw, is thus justified in Sophocles Antigone. It is easy to categorize the play L ysistrata by Aristophanes as a obscene comedy designed to entertain the Greek literature and drama lovers with a lampooning of the results if women begin to take an interest in personal matters of national importance. It is also very convenient to visualize male actors playing all the important roles of the play and the male male characters wearing erect phalluses to depict their maleness might have led to uproarious laughter.However, with passing time and the serve of retrospection help us to begin to understand that Aristophanes might have devoted considerable time and emotional energy in try to decipher what goes through the hearts and heads of women of his time who were modelled to be subservient and unthinking from the affairs of the state. Lysistrata leads a domestic and non violent non-cooperation movement (though the medium of non cooperation seldom ventures beyond the conventional sexual subjugation) to convince the men of the time to end the long standing state of wa r (apparently the Peloponnesian war) and bring back peace.The play is an apparent comedy that it depicts women as sex crazed and spine less(prenominal) characters for whom rising beyond their daily chores is a daunting task. Except fro Lysistrata, no other woman comes across as strong willed enough to give in any way to the cause of the play. One can consider the gusty laughter the scene involving the swearing of oath by deglutition wine from a shield as it was a portrayal of women as being incapable(p) of self restraint (from all good things in life, including wine and sex).Though Lysistrata as a play has a propagate of titillate the viewers, it has been seen in modern light as a exposition on the plight of women who have no say in the affairs of the state entirely decide by the men but have to silently suffer the consequences. This has remained unchanged even after the liberation ages of the twentieth century. Aristophanes does write out to draw a caricature of Greek women as incapable of with holding sex or thinking beyond sex as the only weapon in her armour to control or change society.It is possible though to excuse this caricature as Aristophanes attempt not to ruffle the feathers of his contemporary society while at the same time recording for future history that women did harbour different opinions on the approaches of the state to war and peace. The widowhood and martyrdom of a mother who loses her children to the ravages of war are not mentioned, perhaps because they would have added the much relegated sobriety to this deemed comedy.Gender domination is a visible thread in Lysistrata, but whether Aristophanes designed this play as a comic fiction based on improbable scenarios of liberated women questioning state policies, or as an underhanded attempt to depict female angst of his contemporary Greek society is debatable. However Lysistrata has remained current and pregnant to this date due to its universal themes of Peace being preferred ove r War and has helped several(prenominal) social commentators put across their point during the several un necessary wars that dot world history to date be it the Vietnam war or the latest invasion of Iraq.Whatever be the motivation, both Sophocles and Aristophanes manage to leave behind a piece of Literature which continues to engage readers and historians in a healthy debate on the premium placed on female equality by writers from the Greek age to the present day. whole kit and caboodle Cited or used as referenceHenderson, Jeffrey (contributor) Lysistrata by Aristophanes, London Oxford University Press, 1990 Translated by Gibbons, Reginald and Segal, Charles Antigone by Sophocles, NewYork Oxford University Press US, 2003
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment