Chapter 5 - The women of the Epitrepontes

Summary

The preceding chapters treated mistakes about status and mistakes about character separately because they rely on different background knowledge. Mistakes about status require an understanding of the significant divisions of Athenian society; mistakes about character require familiarity with New Comic stock types and contemporary attitudes towards their real-life counterparts. This division is somewhat artificial, however. Both are manifestations of New Comic agnoia and it is up to the playwright how far to turn mistakes about “who” into mistakes about “what” a character is. The Epitrepontes (“The Arbitrants”) shows how these different forms of misperception can operate together: how “who” can shade into “what” and how personal biases can reinforce errors based on misinformation. The men in this play make typical mistakes about the women, moving from partial or false information about their sexual activities to broad inferences about their motives, intentions, and character. There are actually two mistaken women in this play: a high-status wife who remains offstage for much of the action and a low-status “surrogate,” who acts out her story both literally and figuratively. These women illustrate the relationship between mistaken identity and social and cultural expectations, as well as the problems that arise when women identify with roles they are not entitled to play. The apparent mismatches will of course prove illusory, and Menander uses techniques familiar now from other plays to help the audience recognize mistakes as such.