Ancient tragedies tended to focus on "great" people: members of royalty,
generals, and the like. Even early modern tragedies went with this bent, though they sometimes
featured people who the audience could more easily relate to on an emotional level (for example,
the infatuated teenagers Romeo and Juliet).
Around the twentieth century,
playwrights started putting ordinary people as their tragic heroes and heroines. Think Willy
Lohman in Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman or Blanche Dubois
in A Streetcar Named Desire. These characters are not members of royalty or
mythic heroes but everyday people that one might know.
Ancientalso tends to
feature awhich comments on the action in a formal way. In modern tragedy, a chorus is not viewed
as necessary, though one may still be included (think the tragic 1979 musical Sweeney
Todd, which has the people of London as the Greek chorus).
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