Overall!

I really enjoyed this play! In contrast to the other plays it really showed the power of women, and how they are not completely dependent on men. I liked the new twist where the men were the desperate ones instead of the women :). The play really shows how unity and coming together to reach a common goal really works. It is shown through the women achieving what they wanted as well as in the end where the men realize they are all the same and going through the same thing and can look past their differences to get what they want. Im not sure if the men truly did it because they love their wives or because they really love sex but its clear that they do have love for their wives either way so I guess it doesn't matter what the motive for piece really was as long as it was accomplished.
This was a really good book to me it was funny and entertaining. And I think it has a really good moral that you can relate to any current event. I shows that people can come together and solve a problem. And it shows that you should never underestimate the power of a woman! Good story.

Would This Work Today?

I wonder if this would work today to solve a modern issue. It doesn't really seem like it would. In the book there a strong unity between men and women. And like I said earlier the men just seem really loyal to their wives. Whereas today this would probably not be the case. It would be very hard to get all the women to take the idea seriously and really participate. And if even one or two women did not stick to the plan they could ruin it for everyone because the men would have a way to get what they wanted without giving into the women. It just doesn't seem likely that all the women would actually participate and that the men would actually not cheat. However I still think that women do have the power to do something like this individually, and that women have the power to get what they want through other means. Just maybe not this way. I dont know. Maybe someone else would argue differently but thats what I think.

Stage Directions

Stage directions are a very important part of this play. They are important in a lot of plays but in this play because it is so simple and doesn't have sub plots to help characterize certain characters the stage directions really help the reader in characterizing certain characters and showing how they react to certain things, etc. If we didn't have stage directions in this play it would be very hard to understand some of the characters and how they say certain things because there are no other sub plots or settings to help express ideas.

PEACE

One of the puns in the end of the play is peace. Peace is what the women want the men to want and peace is a YOUNG beautiful woman as well. This pun was very clever to me. I don't know what I really think about it to be honest. I know that the fact that they are refering to different places they want as body parts could be considered somewhat degrating but Im not sure if thats what the author was going for. Maybe it was just supposed to show how closely the women are related to peace? or to remind you how the play reached this end...through the women. I don't know what I originally thought was that it was just about showing what the men were really after which was just the woman and to show that maybe in the end they still really hadn't even reached the point of comprehension of WHY their should be peace besides the fact that without it they would not be able to have what they desired most.

"War" of the Sexes

This seems to be one of the main themes of the play right? Well I was just thinking to myself how ironic this really is. I mean the play is to end a war and the way that this goal is reached is by creating two seperates "forces" or "armys" of men and women. So in order to end the "war" with their wives the men have to end the other actual war that they are fighting. I don't know it just seemed funny to me that the theme had the word war in it because if you look at it that way it just becomes kind of ironic. There is a war created to end another war. Even though obviously the war the women create is not about using actual weapons or killing or anything. They use their own weapon to hurt the men emotionally until they give in. Just an interesting thought I had on how ironic that can be if you look at it that way LOL.

Myrrine and Kinesias

One of my favorite parts of the play was the exchange between Myrrine and Kinesias. It says a lot about how the "War of the Sexes" is going and whos going to win, and without it I don't think it would really be clear how much power the women really did have over the men. The way Myrrine is able to get so close to Kinesias without doing anything really shows that she is in the fight for as long as it takes. She is able to lead him on so much and she never falters. Even though she obviously has a clear opportunity to have sex with him she doesn't! And he really thinks that she is going to thats the funny thing. And she is even controlling his actions because he is so desperate, making him lay down and get back up repeatedly. She just makes him want her more and more its so funny to me. She just has so much power over his actions and emotions. And she's still on the womans side showing how strong the womans "Army" really is, as a whole at least, considering it is clear not everyone on the womens side would have been so strong if given the same opportunity.

Choruses

The choruses of the old women and the old men are interesting to me. They add an interesting point to the play because it really shows you that not only are the young men and women a part of this so are the old men and women. They each help their own and help get the point of the wholes across. I think this adds a lot to the theme of the "War of the Sexes" it shows how all the women can come together and really prove a point and get what they want. And how unity is important in accomplishing a task like this. Without the choruses this play would be even simpler and I think it would make the overall actions of the play less signifigant. Because it would seem to be affecting a smaller group and would take away from the overall idea.

Punny!

The puns in this book were very interesting to me. They added a lot to the book and some even created a deeper meaning for example the "peace" pun in the end. Whereas others really just added to the humor of the book as a whole, such as "Who penetrates our positions" (79). Its just so funny when your reading and you see a simple pun like this. I think its really cool that the play has a comedic element to it. Because it could have easily been written without puns. But the puns really do add a lot to the book overall. And to be able to laugh to yourself while you are reading a play is always fun. Its better than having it be completely serious. Because like I said it could definetely have been written without but it just shows you how witty women are, even maybe unintentionally. Overall I just think it adds a lot to the characters, plot, and meaning of the play. I never knew puns could become such as important element of a play!

Love, Not Merely Sex?

In the introduction it was mentioned that this book is about "Love, Not Merely Sex" (9). After reading the play in some ways I do agree with this. Granted it all takes place in 24 hours to maybe after a longer period of time this would not be true, but based on what happened in this 24 hours it seems as though the men would have remained loyal to their wives and would not have cheated on them even though they practicing abstinence. You know what I mean? Like the men never showed interest in any one other than their own wife. So maybe that says something about love? Because today that might not have been the case. Maybe the men just didn't have any opportunities to cheat in the book because it was something being practiced by majority of the women. Or maybe they did and they just really loved their wives. Anyway I suppose that is a good example of how much the husbands loved their wives, because I mean they were really desperate but their eyes didn't seem to wonder over the course of the play. The women were somewhat worried about the young girl being around their husbands though so maybe if the play would have been over a long period of time things would have went differently. And maybe it would have become less about love and more about sex because of the mens desperation.

My Expectations

After reading the introduction to Lysistrata I was very interested in seeing how the play would go. I liked the idea that the book was about "Love, not merely sex" (9) and "the bond between husband and wife" (9). The introduction gave me a great insight as to what was to come in the book.
Even though it did give you these main idea, i still had a lot of things to wonder about. Even though I knew the play involved sex and love and of course married couples and I knew the plot I was wondering how they would talk and how the abstinence for peace would come about and how simple or complex the language would be. But I definetely felt more prepared to read it because I knew the basic ideas.
Over all I think the introduction helped a lot in developing an idea about the play and looking back now I can understand more of what its talking about than I could before I read the play.