VOL 3 (2018)
BITACORA
All‟s Well That Ends Well for Female Characters in Plautine Comedy This paper aims to explore the endings afforded to women characters in Plautine comedy and how so-called deviant women are often disregarded when their reintegration into society takes place, while ―virtuous‖ objects of affection are rewarded solely by marriage. This treatment serves as a window into the ancient Roman ideologies and social conditions. This paper considers seven plays of Plautus: Aulularia, Menaechmi, Captivi, Truculentus, Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Casina. Domum servavit, lanam fecit. Kept house, made wool (James, 2017) (Common Roman epitaph)
The slave gains his freedom, the young lover gets his girl with a substantial dowry, and the maiden gets to marry a man who most likely is her rapist - that is the recipe to social harmony. At least, it would seem so from Aulularia and other similar Roman comedies. According to Northrop Frye, a comedy is a play in which at the end, there is a reintegration into society. The central character clearly always gets a good ending, as do most of the male characters, but the end for most female characters is either subversively tragic or they are completely dismissed by the playwright. The ―bad‖ women usually only advance the plot and perform actions for their own personal advantage. These women may be either prostitutes or old nagging wives. In Menaechmi, Erotium, the courtesan, is motivated to make her own personal gains as is her profession and is not driven by love. She plays a part in the plot as the one with whom the titular Menaechmus has an extramarital affair and is the reason he gets thrown out of the house. Similarly, Menaechmus‘ wife is important, in lamenting over his infidelity and nagging him about it, but she is admonished even by her own father for her actions. In the end, as the twin brothers are united, Erotium is forgotten completely. While this may be excused as her being merely the woman he has an affair with and not related to the brothers, Menaechmus‘ slave says this even of his wife: Sale by auction - this day week in the forenoon - the property of Menaechmus- sale will include - slaves, household effects, house, land, etcetera - and a wife, should there be any purchaser. (Menaechmi, Titus Maccius Plautus)
A woman deemed a nuisance is simply discarded in the ending, unlike the important male characters who have a discernible fate allotted to them. It is only the reintegration of males into society that seems to matter. The same is true in Miles Gloriosus where Acroteleutium and Milphidippa are both left in the same states of courtesan and maid respectively at the end of the play, while the young lovers are reunited and the male slave gains his freedom. Even the arrogant knight of the play is portrayed as having learnt his lesson, but there is no change in the lives of the courtesans who play a major role in the trickery involved in reuniting the lovers. Cleostrata‘s victory over her husband in Casina merely lets her take back an adulterer. Without a husband she would have a harder time living, but this hardly a victory. The ―good‖ women are the young maidens who are the objects of affection for the male lovers. In Aulularia, this role is fulfilled by the invisible Phaedria, in Miles Gloriosus by Philocomasium, in Pseudolus by Phoenicium, who has no dialogue and in Casina by the titular Casina. These women are presented simply as objects to be gained. Phaedria, Casina and Phoenicium are not graced
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