Gender Imbalances, Celestial Ascents, and Self-ignorance in Aristophanes’ Clouds

Abstract

This paper examines issues of gender in Aristophanes’ Clouds, highlighting the importance and the dramatic function of Strepsiades’ subordination to various women and female entities such as the Clouds. Strepsiades’ hypergamic marriage with an upper-class woman represents his first mistake, which disempowers him and triggers the chain of events that lead to his ruin. By maintaining a position of passivity towards various female entities, Strepsiades relinquishes his dignity as an Athenian citizen and his stature as a comic hero, proving that he does not know his place in the world. The theme of gender imbalances and that of self-ignorance develop within a spatial metaphorical matrix built on the relationship between low and high, as illustrated for instance by the fact that Strepsiades often feels dragged upward against his will by female figures such as the procuress. By shedding light on the interactions between these thematic and semantic clusters, the article explores further layers of complexity in the Clouds.