Family and the Polis Essays -- essays papers

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: â€Å"I here proclaim to the city that this man/ shall no one honor w ith a grave and none shall mourn†. 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... ...oney 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.