SOURCE: Rothfield, Tom. “Plot as Thematic Framework: Acharnians in Analysis.” In Classical Comedy: Armoury of Laughter, Democracy's Bastion of Defence: Introducing a Law of Opposites, pp. 69-86. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999.

In the following essay, Rothfield analyzes Aristophanes's skill in creating dynamic conflict and his practice of keeping his characters consistent in their own personal behaviors.

Expressed in this simple way, on the face of it, one is bound to ask: why was this plot structure of such great importance to Aristophanes? In which exact aspect lies its value as idea-structure—i.e. an intellectual basis—for each of his comedies? Is it because the military ethos seems to underlie these power struggles whatever their nature? It is illuminating to select a single comedy—and why not Acharnians, Aristophanes' first play to come down to us, and the earliest extant comedy in existence?—to follow the...