The Wasps - Discussion

Discussion

As mentioned in the introduction, The Wasps can be considered one of the world's great comedies. Various factors contribute to its appeal, as for example:

• The central figure, Philocleon, is a 'triumph of characterization';
• The jurors are the most vividly realized Chorus in Old Comedy;
• The juror's son is the most lifelike child in Greek drama.

Philocleon is a complex character whose actions have comic significance, psychological significance and allegorical significance. When, for example, he strikes his son for taking the dancing girl away, the violence is comic because it is unexpected of an old man yet it is psychologically appropriate because he is struggling to overcome an addiction and it represents in allegorical form the theme expressed by the Chorus in the parabasis: the old customs are better and more manly than the new fashions. When the play opens, Philocleon is a prisoner of his son and, when the Chorus enters, the old jurors are found to be virtual prisoners of their sons too - they rely on the boys to help them through the dark, muddy streets. The Chorus leader's boy takes full advantage of the situation, threatening to abandon his elderly father if he won't buy him some figs. The debilitating effects of old age and the dehumanizing effects of an addiction (Philocleon is said to resemble a jackdaw, a mouse, a limpet, smoke, a donkey's foal, a cut of meat, Odysseus and Nobody) are somber themes that lift the action beyond the scope of a mere farce.