Banned Books 2024

               Broadly speaking, I do not believe in censorship. It is the reason I elected to take this course in the first place. (Small anecdote: when I was younger, one of my favorite books I read for school was  And Then There Were None  by Agatha Christe. The year after being taught to my class, the book was banned in from the curriculum as a result of parental complaints against the text’s original racist title. Twelve-year-old me was simultaneously outraged, and inspired to read as many banned books as possible.)  During class time, we often shake our heads, laugh even, at the absurd criteria so many of the books are judged on. The Hate U Give  banned for “depictions of racism”;  The Color Purple  banned as a result of its portrayals of “homosexuality and African History.” I mean c’mon! How can we not laugh from time to time? However, as I read  Lysistrata , I found myself returning to the “age limit” argument. As a college student, studying English nonetheless, this text was s

Caroline Kunz Dr. Ellis EN 499 28 February 2024 The Significance of Myrrhine in Lysistrata      Throughout the second half of Lysistrata, I was struck most deeply by Myrrhine and her ability to tease her husband, Kinesias, in an attempt to make him give way to the women's scheme. Though the scene is filled with comedy, it contains a more serious, meaningful undertone, as Myrrhine represents the agency, power, and autonomy that the women are gaining in resisting the wishes of their husbands.      First, I noted the ways in which societal stereotypes are represented during this exchange between husband and wife, as Kinesias prompts their child to cry, calling out "come down, my darling...come down for the sake of your child" (64). She responds, "what a thing it is to be a mother!" clearly impacted by the gendered assumption that if she is not attentive, she is not an adequate mother (64). She innternalizes the notino that her husband doesn't "really need

  Tyra Alexander 28 February 2024 EN*499 Dr. Ellis Reflecting on Lysistrata The feeling after reading Lysistrata is far different from my feelings after reading previous texts in this course. The play ends with a happy ending– the war ends and the men get to go back home with their wives. However, lingering thoughts in my head from Monday's class makes me wonder about the true intentions of the play. Since the play features a female heroine but is written by a man, I heavily question the intentions of Aristophanes and what he wanted to convey. In my humble opinion, Lysistrata and her women came across kind of deceitful in certain areas. For example with Myrrhine and Kinesisas, Myrrhine is essentially using the act of seduction to potentially get Kinesias to sign the peace treaty. One may argue that this is a very feminist move and powerful. However, that question mark still lingers given the author of the play. This makes me wonder a lot about how one’s perception of a text may

               Having read Lysistrata before for a theatre history class, I was relatively excited to go back to it. Unfortunately, I ended up disliking it this time around. From a theatrical perspective, the play is incredibly effective, with Aristophanes acting as a pioneer in the comedic field as well as the genre of historical fiction. Looking at it through the lens of its being banned, it becomes much more uncomfortable. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata is, at its core, a comedic approach to two societal issues. The former, the Peloponnesian War the female characters are striking against, and the other being the inherent insanity that lies within a society run by men so sex-obsessed that they let it control their political affairs. The issue here is that Aristophanes makes no effort to pay attention to the gravity of the latter. Sex is a funny subject, I can acknowledge that and move forward with it. As such, a comedic play about sex being full of jokes is fine. Objectively, it’s even a g

     A main aspect of Aristophanes' Lysistrata , and the crux of the comedy's humor, lies within the many ways in which the body betrays the minds and wishes of people. In the context of this play, this is mostl y with regard to the men.       The driving force of the plot is that the men of Athens are constantly at war, and they only act in ways that continue to propagate more war because it leads to an accumulation of land, wealth, and dominance for Athens as a whole--at least, in their  minds it benefits Athens as a whole; the women of Athens, however, make it explicitly clear that they are not benefited at all by the constant warmongering. Lysistrata laments how it is Athenian women who, despite not being on the frontlines of the war, are the ones who bear the brunt of the tragedy: "Nothing! We live like widows—whether our husbands are alive or dead! This war without-end makes widows of us all—proud Grecian women! I can’t even speak of the sons that we have lost. Well

  Sexual themes are incredibly common in ancient Greek plays, whether it be in the form of verbal jokes or the use of explicit props to get a laugh out of the audience. With that in mind, these sexual tones are typically focused on men, their bodies, and their desires. Lysistrata seemingly turns this idea on its head with its depiction of desirous women and their bodily agency , but what does it really imply? The play begins with Lysistrata announcing that “today there will be a feast for Bacchic orgy or a feast for G enetyllus ,” celebrations for the gods of sex and fertility respectively (1) . Such events were not uncommon in ancient Greece, in fact plays like Lysistrata would often be performed publicly at celebrations for aforementioned Bachis (also known as Dionysus) . Such productions would includ e “ Satyr Plays,” shorter stories featuring actors dressed as half-goat half-human hybrids with a raging sexual appetite and enormous prosthetic phalluses. Aristoph

  Xavier de Venecia             While I admire Aristophanes for attempting to address major societal issues, many of which persist today, I think the play has many flaws when attempting to approach these ideas. One of the main issues that the play addresses is the social dynamics around sex. This has many components but a large one being female sexuality and sexual desire as opposed to male sexuality and desire. Countless jokes are made about these topics and it seems like there isn’t a page without innuendo. While this does serve the play’s purpose as a comedy, I think the amount of innuendos and jokes was way too high and at a certain point it just became somewhat annoying and consumed a bulk of the text, this greatly detracted from the gravity of the issues that were discussed. By the end of the play, the actual meaningful message of the play was buried beneath the amount of comedy, although it was so over-saturated that it ceased being comedic. Another factor that played into thi

     Something I found really interesting about the ending of Lysistrata is the presentation of the capabilities of women.      Women are presented as knowledgeable in most areas of the world––at least in terms of war and money––since they were present and listening to their husbands and sons talk and learn about these things, and also because they are "taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation / While, miserable greybeards, you, / It is true, / Contribute nothing of any importance whatever to our needs" (28). This shows that women are doing most, if not all, of the work of maintaining and growing society, while the men contribute nothing to women's being; everything that helps men comes from women, and everything that helps women also comes from women.      Lysistrata also instructs Reconciliation to "see you lift no rude or violent hands-- / None of the churlish ways our husbands used. / But lead them courteously, as women should" (40). This shows th

           While inherently a story about Starr Carter and her relationships with those around her following a tragedy, The Hate U Give provides an interesting portrayal of a family-oriented Black man in Maverick Carter, Starr’s father. Living in Garden Heights, referred to repeatedly as “the ghetto” (Thomas, 197), there is an immediate assumption that a man like Maverick would abandon his family or fail to move forward in life, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Maverick’s role in Starr’s life is incredibly large, as he works not only to provide for his family on a surface level but also to protect them, and to help his community.      Far into the novel, when Starr’s witnessing of Khalil’s murder begins to affect her life more directly, Maverick makes it a point not only to try to shield her, but to help other inhabitants of Garden Heights. When a news reporter stations themselves outside of Mr. Lewis’ store, Maverick actively tries to dissuade him from speaking to them, l

Caroline Kunz Dr. Ellis EN 499 14 February 2024     The Hate U Give is truly one of the most powerful novels that I've read in a long time. I have studied and consumed various books and media regarding police brutality in the past, however, non struck me quite so much as this novel. Part of this reason has to do with the conversation that we had in class last week regarding whether or not reading is an adequate form of contact with real world issues. The Hate U Give  stands as one of the more effective resources that I have read in the process of educating myself on issues of police brutality, racism, and representation, as I was not reading about injustice through the eyes of a reporter or watching it through the eyes of a filmmaker, but experiencing it firsthand alongside a young black girl coming of age amidst injustice. I developed true empathy for Starr in reading of her perspective and experiences. The novel so poignantly allows readers to care for Starr, her family, Khalil

      A central theme of this coming-of-age novel, "The Hate U Give" is bravery. Starr, the main protagonist, experiences the traumatic event of her childhood friend, Khalil, being murdered by the police. She has to face this loss and the expectations from others, as the witness, to speak up about what happened, all while trying to navigate her grief and typical teenage drama. In the beginning, after this event, Starr just wants to be able to grieve in peace and to be safe from backlash about her being the witness. People around her are constantly telling her she was brave for surviving and for speaking up but Starr does not personally feel brave. She feels she has not done enough, said the right things, or been a good enough friend to Khalil. But when she is about to testify before the Grand Jury her mom explains to Starr what being brave really means.  “Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, Starr,” she says. “It means you go on even though you’re scared. And you’re doing th

  Maverick Carter is a man who cares for his family and his community as a whole . A key example of the prior is sending Starr and Seven to Williamson, where they can get a better education so that they can achieve the best life possible . He gives back to his community through his employment of former gang members, like Khalil and DeVante. Although the two a re very differ ent , these two characters echo each other and reflect Maverick’s guilt about Khalil’s death.   While in a fight with Lisa, Maverick explains how he wants to stay in Garden Heights because he wants to help change his community for the better: “ Let’s say we move...Then what? We just like all the other sellouts who leave and turn their backs on the neighborhood. We can change stuff around here,” ( 180 ). Maverick does this by employing Khalil and De V ante at his store, and while this may be a pessimistic viewpoint, a major reason that Maverick is so insistent on this and hires DeVante is that he feels as i