Five

Sophocles uses the gods to evoke fear and pity from the audience because when Oedipus and the Chorus talk about Apollo it is assumed that everyone knows who it is. This should be true because the audience were the Greeks who were familiar with Apollo and the idea of The Gods. This casual talk referring to the gods connects the audience to be familiar with the same things that the characters are familiar with; therefore connecting the audience and the characters. The whole story gets more and more obscure (especially to us as the audience) as it goes along. By starting out with something that is not initially out of the ordinary give the audience more ease to get into the story, the audience has time to establish opinions and relationships with the character. By the end of the tragedy, the audience has ease feeling the effects of the tragedy; feeling pity for the character, feeling nervous about the whole situation.