Socrates In Clouds Analysis

Socrates is a great classical Athenian philosopher and he is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. When we talk about this person, we all know that he is known for bringing up a lot of great ideas, such as the Socratic methods. The ideas are characterized differently back in the ancient time. During the ancient Athenian time, there were two different images about the characteristics of Socrates. One of the images was written in Clouds by Aristophanes and the other was described in The Apology by Plato. Before getting into the details of these two different images of Socrates, we should have an idea that the purpose of each author should be completely different because of the difference of the genres. Clouds was a work of comedy, …show more content…
By Aristophanes, Socrates was obviously different from “philosopher” though he was called the philosopher, and he was even not the student of philosophy and truth. As describing in Clouds, a pupil of Socrates revealed that, “But the other day he lost a great idea because of a lizard” (line 168). According to our knowledge, a professional teacher should never be interrupted by anything if he was focusing on his thinking. What the pupil said had told that Socrates was not professional or focused enough, and he was even less serious about what he was thinking because he could easily lose his mind. Then, Aristophanes also characterized Socrates as the one who supported Atheism, “What do mean, ‘the gods’? In the first place gods aren’t legal tender here” (line 247). In Athenian 's’ eyes, the existence of Gods should be absolutely respected, and it was the responsibility of every person to believe in Gods, but what Socrates said was the opposite of what Athenian believed, he claimed that gods did not exist and he did not believe or respect anything about the gods, and things happened was because of normal behaviors. Later, Aristophanes provided an image that it should not be seen by a teacher. As we knew, patience was always needed for being a teacher, to Socrates, it was not, “What a moron! You’re a throwback, truly a neanderthal” (line 398). What Socrates said to Strepsiades was never the words that should …show more content…
In Clouds, Aristophanes expected the readers to understand that the existence of sophists could cause a lot of harm not only for the youth but also for the whole society, and this existence could even challenge the belief of Gods and Goddesses. Nevertheless, in The Apology, Plato provided a normal picture of philosopher, and Socrates was the one that truly lived in the life of pursuing the truth. Nowadays, it is difficult to decide which is the real image of Socrates, but there is no right or wrong to believe in either