Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Comedy
Shadow of Darkness
When we meet Strepsiades, our first instinct is to feel pretty sorry for him. After all, he's in a whole mountain of debt thanks to his son's bad habits, and he's trying to figure out how in the world he's going to pay them off. Unfortunately, his first instinct is to just find a way to shirk the debt by convincing his creditors not to pursue him. To do that, he decides that someone in the family needs to learn some fancy argumentation skills.
Pressure of Darkness
Strepsiades tries to get his son to go to the local Thinkery (helmed by uber-famous philosopher Socrates) to get that training in argument or "sophistry," but Pheidippides refuses. So, Strepsiades enrolls instead.
Unfortunately, despite Socrates' best efforts, Strepsiades is not the greatest student, and Socrates ends up dropping him. However, Strepsiades will not be defeated, and finally convinces Pheidippides to enroll and learn everything he needs to know to argue effectively against the creditors.
Everything Comes to Light
The good news? Pheidippides is a much quicker student than dear old dad and learns the principles of "Worse Argument" easily. The bad news? Pheidippides decides to use his newfound knowledge for his own purposes—for example, to justify beating his own father.
When Pheidippides uses the Worse Argument for that purpose (which obviously doesn't seem cool to Strepsiades), Strepsiades realizes he's made a huge mistake in trying to use argumentation for the twisted purpose of getting out of a debt.
So, he decides to burn down the Thinkery, presumably to punish Socrates and prevent other people from falling into the trap of thinking that knowledge and thought should be used to do immoral things.