Many tragic plots are bound on the relationship between mortals and a divine force, be that the Greco Roman gods or the omnipresent God such as that in Christianity. Conflict is normally found when the two worlds collide, when a mortal challenges, disobeys, threatens or breaks the trust of the divine force. Think Adam and Eve with the apple or Marsyas challenging Apollo to a musical duel. In many cases it’s about desire or free willing seeing and individual have aspirations which go against that of a greater system. There is inevitability in the human condition of our ability to have choice which is leads to such peril, this remains a truism regardless of belief. As Milton summarises, we are ‘sufficient to have stood but free to fall’. It is certainly true that the loss of one belief does not bring an end to the kind of peril and conflict represented by the relationship between a moral and a divine power. We have developed, in our increasingly secularised society, new ideas of suffering and hope, new dangers.
In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon the chorus cry: ‘Zeus whoever you are’. There uncertain highlights that the specific nature of the greater force which threatens us, which causes us to be fearful, which presents dangers, is not necessarily important, it is the danger itself and our innate tendency to seek it that is crucial to tragedy.