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Comparing Socrates 'Clouds' And Aristophane's Apology

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CLAS 1110 Second Paper Assignment
JoAnn Luhrs Spring 2017 Socrates was viewed by many people in Athens as insane. Two writers dedicated their plays to share their opinions about Socrates with an audience. Aristophane wrote a play called Clouds and another writer, Plato wrote a play called Apology. Both plays made fun of Socrates belief system and character. Aristophanes wrote how Socrates theories were ridiculous and Plato made Socrates to disagree with Athenians opinion about him. Aristophane created a comedy about how Socrates theories were absurd and how his philosophy …show more content…

That scares me. (SOCRATES) These Clouds do, as they roll around. STREPSIADES But how? Explain that, you who dares to know it all. SOCRATES When they are filled with water to the brim and then, suspended there with all that rain, are forced to move, they bump into each other. They’re so big, they burst with a great boom. STREPSIADES But what’s forcing them to move at all? Doesn’t Zeus do that? SOCRATES No—that’s the aerial Vortex. STREPSIADES Vortex? Well, that’s something I didn’t know. So Zeus is now no more, and Vortex rules instead of him. But you still have not explained a thing about those claps of thunder. Socrates Weren’t you listening to me? I tell you, when the Clouds are full of water and collide, they’re so thickly packed they make a noise. Aristophane included this in his play to show how foolish Socrates theories could be. Clouds …show more content…

Since Plato was a student of Socrates and became more interested in looking for wisdom because of his influence on him. He tried to explained to people who thought Socrates was corrupting the youth, his reason why he was doing those things Plato's depiction of Socrates is as a person who is wise, a person who thought outside the box, but it wasn’t ridiculous like Aristophane tried to make it. He is depicted as a skilled orator, meanwhile in The Clouds he is viewed as someone who tries to be an

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How out of date you are! Do you mean you think Zeus exists?” Strepsiades responds with, “He does” and Pheidippides quotes back what his father told him days earlier, that “Vortex is king now; he has driven Zeus from power” (1469-1473). For some reason Strepsiades changes what he believes from the Clouds and Vortex to Zeus. He claims that “[he] only believed that because of this image here” (1473).

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Making enemies and becoming the topic of conversation, the Athenians began to view Socrates as a threat to their beliefs and way of life and sought to end it. In order to end this, Socrates was accused of blasphemy (Mod1SlideC7). Socrates’s accusers took him to court and after Socrates did not play their game by asking to be sent into exile, and in the end, he was sentenced to death. After reading the textbook and Plato’s writing influenced by Socrates, I realized that in the period of his life Socrates was indeed truly a threat to the Athens society, because he looked for answers that no one else bothered to find which challenged their culture.

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