Aristophanes" play, The Birds, is structured in a way that is similar to other pieces of literature written during the same time period. The play's construct is made up of three phases: A social problem, a solution to the problem, and the results or outcome of the solution's implementation.
The social problem that is the first phase of the play is that of Peisthetaerus and Eulipides, who want to leave Athens. They wish to do so for they are fed up with taxes and fines being levied on them, and they yearn for a society that is less obsessed with legality and rigidity.
Their decision to leave Athens leaves them with a question to answer: where to go? And their solution is the second phase of the play. They decide to fashion a new society, a solution that seems to be rather farfetched and unlikely. It is not surprising that their plan is implausible, as the solutions in Aristophanes" plays usually are. Along with the Hoopoe Bird, Peisthetaerus and Eulipides choose to make their city in the sky, in order to create some sort of division or partition between the gods and the people. The gods would now be forced to pay the birds a toll if they wished to receive the peoples" sacrifices.
The third and final phase of the play presents to the reader the impracticality of Peisthetaerus" and Eulipides" plan. By establishing what they felt was a utopian society in the sky, Peisthetaerus and Eulipides would be creating the same problems they were trying to escape from in Athens. Namely, all the people would want to become part of this new ideal civilization, and with a huge population comes huge problems. As a result, when the people begin to trickle towards the new city in the sky, they are turned away, and Peisthetaerus and Eulipides are seen to be acting in the same manner they accused of the people of Athens.
What Peisthetaerus and Eulipides should have realized from this process is that there is no such thing as a perfect civilization, and they should tolerate the laws and principles of Athens.
