With Sophocles, tragedy evokes a more varied range of emotions through an action, which is more conspicuously rendered, and an elaborate dramatic structure. His life spans the period of Athenian ascendancy. He lived the Persian Wars as a child, participated in the creation of the Athenian Golden Age and witnessed the Peloponnesian War. He wrote more than 100 plays, but only seven have been preserved in full. Of those, "Oedipus the King" is perhaps one of the best as it incorporates the inquisitive spirit of the Periclean Age, along with religious questionings, which are defeated in the end. The house of Kadmus in Thebes is destined to suffer as it has insulted the gods. Kadmus' spiritual agony and suffering is passed on to the next generation and his daughter "Antigone" endures pain to protect her values. His main concern was the human destiny of his heroes and the life's influence on their character. He introduced a third actor to add to the dramatic element and reduced the lyrical parts and the chorus' action (although he increased their number to 15 members). He shifted the weight towards the dialectic element through which we can witness the tension created by the antithesis of the characters and the difference of their values. He discussed only a part of the myth and elaborated on it, so that we can witness -through harmony and logic- a more thorough analysis of the characters. The concentration is not on the plot but on the individuals, their mannerisms and their conflicts. There is a closer approach to reality through a consistent character analysis. This character analysis leads him to the conclusion that our lives and choices are permeated by inconsistency and the ephemeral. The divine forces become -in his plays- the stable element and the unchanging values that set the standard as he presents the "better" side of gods. His main concern lies with the human fate. There is a definite freedom of choice as the individual ethics are tested against the permanent divine values.