Unraveling the 'Cloak'

In my reading of the play I was intrigued by the multiple and transforming roles of the “cloak.” It is used to highlight aspects of people’s character, designate victims and victimizers and underlines the theme of trickery and shape shifting in the play. There are several very interesting uses of the cloak in the play and I want to examine them each with a close reading with a lens of the some the plays major themes previously mentioned.

The cloak is first used to showcase negative aspects of Strepsiades’ wife’s character.

STREPSIADES: As for her,


she smelled of perfume, saffron, long kisses,


greed, extravagance, lots and lots of sex.*


Now, I’m not saying she was a lazy bones.


She used to weave, but used up too much wool.


To make a point I’d show this cloak to her


and say, “Woman, your weaving’s far too thick.”

A wife weaving a cloak for her husband could easily be seen as an a gift but this expectation is refuted by Strepsiades who instead turns this act of gift giving into thievery. Yes, she makes him a cloak but with too much wool! Therefore Strepsiades implies she is not being economical enough and costing him money as suggested by his previous descriptions of her as greedy and extravagant. In this light her gift of a cloak is a way of thieving. What could have been viewed as generous nature instead through Strepsiades eyes is twisted into a greedy one. Thus the two binaries of generosity and greed are left questionable and unstable.

The next usage of the word is a very significant because it addresses gift giving and thievery of a cloak in the small story by the same character.

STREPSIADES: Well, well. What did Socrates come up with,


to get you all some food to eat?

STUDENT: He spread some ashes thinly on the table,


then seized a spit, went to the wrestling school,


picked up a queer, and robbed him of his cloak,


then sold the cloak to purchase dinner.*

Socrates steals a cloak but that that same cloak is turned into a gift to his students when he sells it to provide them with food. The idea of the cloak seems to be a shape shifter in itself being a stolen item and a gift. And likewise Socrates in just a four-line story shifts from being a thief and a generous provider. No wonder he’s such a good debater he can shift words’ meanings and connotations from one thought to the next.

This is a very minor example but I believe it does show support for the cloak as a shape-shifting symbol throughout the play.

STREPSIADES: [lifting his cloak to cover his head]


Not yet, not yet. Not ‘til I wrap this cloak


like this so I don’t get soaked. What bad luck,


to leave my home without a cap on.

In this case the cloak becomes more a physical shape shifter from a cloak to a cap instead of the more metaphorical or symbolic roles in carries throughout the rest of the play.

SOCRATES: All right, take off your cloak.

STREPSIADES: Have I done something wrong?

SOCRATES: No. It’s our custom


to go inside without a cloak.

STREPSIADES: But I don’t want


to search your house for stolen stuff.

SOCRATES: What are you going on about? Take it off.

Strepsiades then removes his cloak and shoes. This was a section where I think it’s very valuable to read the foot note: “Legally an Athenian who believed someone had stolen his property could enter the suspect’s house to search. But he first had to remove any garments in which he might conceal something which he might plant in the house.”

This is a great example of trickery! Strepsiades is prevented from being able to steal from the students of Thinkery, by entering with a garment to conceal, and yet the same students steal this cloak (presumably). The custom is transformed in a tricky ploy and the possible victimizer is transformed into a victim.

But of course binaries are not stable in this play and the flip is again switched when Strepsiades turns his possible victimizers into victims by lighting their school on fire. Overreaction?

STREPSIADES: Yes, it is—


and lots more, too. But everything I learned,


I right away forgot, because I’m old.

PHEIDIPPIDES: That why you lost your cloak?

STREPSIADES: I didn’t lose it—


I gave it to knowledge—a donation.

The cloak (presumably stolen since it is never given it back) is transformed, in Strepsiades’ opinion, from stolen cloak to a donation or gift. But this opposition is not even allowed to be stable. The oppositions collapse as shown in the end of the play.

STUDENT: Help! Who’s setting fire to the house?

STREPSIADES: It’s the man
 whose cloak you stole.

STUDENT: We’ll die. You’ll kill us all!

Strepsiades now decides that he cloak was in fact stolen and not a donation as he stated previously. Even in the same individual’s outlook binaries are not fixed but constantly shifting to whichever side will benefit him most in the moment. Just like Socrates he is learning to shift the meanings of words to better his case, maybe he has hope as an arguer after all.

The cloak becomes a very useful tool in the play to highlight the tricky nature of its characters and undermine the stability of oppositions. The polarities of giving and stealing are not just confused but absolutely destroyed and in a way ridiculed. The cloak is able to shift its way back and forth as a symbol of generosity and greed throughout the play. It breaks down the boundaries between the victims and the victimizers allowing the characters to easily jump from side to side.

I’m on the wife’s side; a cloak this widely used would need to be pretty thick!