Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - English Family and the Polis Family and the Polis Family and the Polis: Two Very Different Ideals Sophocles wrote a play entitled Antigone. One of the main characters, Creon, is a king who is trying to rule in the best interests of his community. Aristophanes also wrote a play, Lysistrata, where his main character is trying to stop a war within her country, a war between Sparta and Athens. Lysistrata is the only one who succeeds. It is because she focuses on the family issues first. That is what is at the heart of what is best for all of the people of Greece. Antigone is about rights of family and the control of the polis, or the government. Antigone is a strong female character whose two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, were killed by each other in a battle for the throne and power of the city. Polyneices’ body was left unburied and no one was allowed to bury it. Antigone wanted to respect her brother so she tried to go and bury him. Creon, the new king, was her uncle and she was engaged to marry his son. Creon told her that her brother’s body must remain above ground because of the dishonor that he brought upon himself when he murdered his own brother in a battle for power and for the blood that he spilled of his own countrymen. He was a traitor. He turned on the city he once ruled and fought and killed the very brother that he shared blood with. By law his body was to remain above ground for the birds and the beasts to pluck apart. Creon commanded: “I here proclaim to the city that this man/ shall no one honor with a grave and none shall mourn” (pg. 168). Polyneices wasn’t going to be given honor when his life didn’t merit any. Creon saw Polyneices as an exile and a destroyer of the city. He came and attacked the very land that was his own and the very people that he showed have protected. It didn’t matter that his brother wouldn’t share the throne. He should have looked out for the best of his community instead of trying to cause its ruin. Creon saw everything through a political aspect. The polis was the most important thing to Creon. He had just received the throne and the power of the city and he didn't want anything to destroy that. He needed people to respect and honor his rulings. He said (pg. 167): I mean his soul, intelligence, and judgment- Until he shows his skill in rule and law. I think that a man supreme ruler of a whole city, If he does not reach for the best counsel for her, But through some fear, keeps his tongue under lock and key, Creon saw politics as a form of art. Political art, for him, is the highest art of all. Because he felt so strongly about the political word that he was now in charge of, he didn’t let anything get in his way of achieving that power. Creon also stuck to his beliefs because he was disappointed that his own family member could turn on an own relative, especially his own brother. He couldn’t believe that Polyneices could kill his brother Eteocles. Creon says that Polyneices was one: “Who sought to taste the blood he shared with us” (pg. 168). He attacks his own family and then turned on the citizens that he used to rule. Creon couldn’t let Polyneices be buried because of his attack of the gods of the city. He couldn’t stand by while a man was honored for being wicked; “never by me shall the wicked man have precedence in honor over the just. But that he is loyal to the state in death, in life alike, shall have my honor” (pg. 168). He betrayed the gods of his own people and that Creon couldn’t honor. Another issue that Creon couldn’t forgive was the fact that Polyneices was willing to enslave the citizens that he used to rule over. He was their king and he was able to take away the freedom of his friends all because his brother wouldn’t share the throne with him. He didn’t care as much about the people as he did about the power hat they gave him. Creon would rather sacrifice his family for the sake of the Polis. He couldn’t forgive someone who sacrificed the people and their freedoms for his own gains. Lysistrata was fighting for different reasons and issues. She wanted the war to end. Her plan was for the good of her community but mostly for the individuals who were left at home to care for the cities and the affairs of the land while the men were fighting each other. Lysistrata came up with a plan to make the men come home and the war to end soon. She gathered all the women she could, from both Athens and from Sparta and told them that the only way was to abstain. She wanted the women to abstain from sex. She said to the women; “We can force our husbands to negotiate peace. Ladies, by exercising steadfast Self- Control - By Total Abstinence...From SEX” (pg. 360). Lysistrata realized that since the women were waiting for their husbands to come home and excited and ready to sleep with them at the husbands mere suggestion of it, why should the men stay for longer than to receive immediate satisfaction and pleasure. Lysistrata’s plan was for the women to (pg. 362): Paint, powder, and pluck ourselves to the last detail, and stay inside, wearing those filmy tunics that set off everything we have- and then slink up to the men. They’ll snap to attention, go absolutely made to love us- but we won’t let them. We’ll abstain. I imagine they’ll conclude a treaty rather quickly. She wanted to tease the menfolk and make them realize how foolish their actions have been. She wanted peace so that they could be home and stop the needless killing. She wanted a better and real domestic life. She didn’t like the fact the men were fighting and taking the boys that she had given birth to to fight. She wanted her husband to be home and see him daily. She wanted to be a family and the war wasn’t allowing that to happen. She was sick of dreaming about the domestic life. She wanted it now. She wanted to stop the war so that Greece would be a unified region of people and they could fight together as they should have from the start. They could go on with their festivals and be completely Pan-Hellenic. They are Greeks fighting Greeks and that isn’t acceptable. They needed to unify and fight as a people for the good of all the Greeks. Lysistrata wanted the war stopped for the good of all the people of Greece. It had been going on too long, too much money had been spent, too many people had died. To many things had been forgotten about for the mere reason of war The woman wanted their men home and rightly so. The killing needed to stop and the men needed to come home and run the cities and the land once more. She wanted things back the way that they used to be. Her plans were successful. The war was able to stopped and the needless killing ended. The men returned home to their wives and families were reunited. Lysistrata and Creon wanted to help their communities in different ways. Only Lysistrata was triumphant in her plan. She started with her own family and then moved beyond that for all the women and the whole of Greece. Creon was thinking big and acting small. He was focusing on community and the government or the polis first of all and in doing that, he lost what is the most important issue, family. Bibliography: Word Count: 1335
Copyright © 1998-2008 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved. DMCA Notifications and Requests