Aristophanes Clouds Essay

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Background**(Aristophanes born in Athens between 450-445 B.C.E. was a Greek writer, wrote plays about Athens. During the Peloponnesian war, Athens was starving and not doing so well but Aristophanes wrote his plays of humor and satire to please and communicate with the community in Athens.) Aristophanes Clouds is a satire written prior 423 BCE in Athens, Greece. It was first performed in 423 BCE in the original version. This satire play starts with Strepsiades worrying about his debt because his son Pheidippides expensive hobby of keeping/racing horses. Strepsiades has an idea to send his son to a Thinkery so he can learn the unjust logic, which is a way of arguing and persuasion of getting out of debt. Pheidippides refuses to go to the Thinkery…show more content…
If everyone follows the unjust path and receives what they desire, there will never be order in society. By arguing yourself out of debt it makes anything seem possible with a little unjust logic. Aristophanes displays this unmoral Socrates in his play so that people will not go against the government. It was play to show that Socrates was actually corrupting the youth, so the rightly thing that the government did was to sentence him to death. Going along the themes of education the differences of “new” and “old” it is not encouraged to learn new traditions because in Athenian society the old traditions are the only way one should go. If one follows a new way there might be harsh consequences such as the one in the play when Strepsiades is attacked by his own son, then his son goes off and threatens people and burns down the Thinkery because not everyone can handle knowing the knowledge of the world. It’s better for people in society to not know and live life in the path of the old tradition because that has worked thus far. There is no reason to do something new if the old is
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