The art of performing plays in front of audiences had been around years before Ancient Greek society. Even earlier civilizations used plays to entertain and embody happiness, sorrow, and anger, sharing these emotions with their audiences. It wasn't until the Golden Age of Greece that the ancient art of storytelling would be reborn - taking on a new look, a newly defined purpose and importance in the history of art, theater, and literature. The Golden Age of Greece is considered the birthplace of modern-day theatrical tragedies. Aristotle defined tragedy as, "The imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself." The Greeks perfected these artistic plays by adding a definitive structure of what elements are needed to create and perform a good tragedy. Although the Greeks didn't necessarily invent theater, they certainly improved and established grounds for the future of this ancient art. Sophocles, a famous Greek philosopher, wrote Oedipus in 420 BC. He is considered one of the most brilliant people of his time. Sophocles contributed numerous amounts of work to the theater while he was alive. He wrote plays, theatrical guidebooks and even acted in a few plays himself. He is considered the "Father of Tragedy" for his framework of what a good tragedy must consist of (Frederick 8). He taught that for a tragedy to be successful, it must include certain key elements.
             As Sophocles taught us, every good tragedy is based upon a tragic hero who, though not perfect, is in some way morally superior to the audience. This tragic hero must have hubris (arrogance) which leads to his hamartia, or in other words, tragic flaw. The tragic flaw occurs when the hero has an error in judgment, caused by his arrogance that he can outwit fate or violate the moral law. This error leads the hero to some kind of catastrophe, resulting in peripeteia. Peripeteia is the tragic hero's complete reversal of fortune from happine...