Racine is known as a tragic poet, and his play Phèdre is a great example of tragic poetry written during the neoclassical period. Phèdre is a neoclassical work because it is a play based on an older work, Hippolytus, written during ancient Greek by Euripides (484-406 BC). In this work, the theme is mainly based on passion, lust, jealousy. The main character, Phèdre, must overcome the guilt and shame she feels from loving her stepson, Hippolytus. Phaedra becomes influenced by her overwhelming passion, which leads to her to commit crimes no stepmother should ever commit. As the play unfolds, it is certain that Phaedra knows that her love for Hippolytus can never be fulfilled, and the shame that she feels from the passion is real. After confessing …show more content…
When Phèdre first realizes she loves Hippolytus, she is certain that is wrong and quickly tries to distance herself from him; however, it is not so easy to escape lust. She continues to think of him, even when he is not around. He consumes her mind, and she soon understands that there is no escaping the passion she feels for her stepson. Phèdre is not the only lustful character in this story. When Phèdre receives news of her husband’s death, she attempts to make a mends with Hippolytus, but she inevitably confesses her love to him instead. Hippolytus is disgusted and puzzled that he leaves without his sword. When Theseus, the king, returns, Phèdre lies and claims that Hippolytus came on to her. Even though Hippolytus is known for being a righteous and just man, his father refuses to believe a word he says. Hippolytus tries to explain to his father that it is not true, and he has found love elsewhere. Hippolytus tells his father that he is also hiding a secret yarn for a love he knows is forbidden. He lusts after the woman related to his father, king Theseus, greatest enemy in gaining control of Athens. This woman has been forbidden to marry anyone due to the king’s fear that she will give birth to an avenger of her brothers and father, of which he has killed. Hippolytus also tries his best to resist the lust and passion he feels for this woman, Aricia, but is unable to and succumbs to it by confessing his love to her. Aricia is …show more content…
The play introduces him as a man who cannot love, but we soon find out that he has fallen in love, and he chooses to hide it. This play is of the greatest tragedy, for Hippolytus does nothing to deserve his downfall other than loving another human being. His love for Aricia is pure, but his stepmother, Phèdre, claims Aricia to be her rival and is consumed by jealousy as she considers exploring her husbands help to get rid of her rival. Feeling confused and helpless, Phaedra allows Oenome, her servant, to place the blame on Hippolytus, and this causes Theseus to banish his son and ask Neptune for help in killing him. Hippolytus attempts to flee with Aricia, but he is attack by a huge sea creature by the ocean shore as he is riding his horses out of the kingdom. Before this happens, Phèdre gets close to confessing the truth, but instantly changes her mind when she learns that the man she is in love with loves another. Instead of telling the truth, she keeps her mouth shut out of jealousy. Hippolytus should have told his father what his stepmother did, but he would rather expose himself to death than accuse his
Hippolytus is secretly in love with his father’s political prisoner, Aricia, and is almost at the point of losing all of the unloving pride that he is so proud to have maintained all his life. At the same time, his step-mother, Phaedra, is almost at her breaking point of revealing her overwhelming love for her step-son. Just like any normal teenager, Hippolytus craves the relationship with the pretty young girl and is appalled at the thought of the relationship that his step-mother is attempting to pursue. Likewise, in Tartuffe there is a young man, Damise, who longs to marry the sister of his sister’s future husband. Damise’s father, Orgon, calls of the wedding between Damise’s sister and her fiancé, Voliere, and instead tells her she will marry his deceitful guest, Tartuffe. Thus, it becomes impossible for Damise to marry Voliere’s sister and Damise is appalled by the relationship of his sister and Tartuffe. Tartuffe, the hypocrite praised by Orgon, tries to warm up to Orgon’s wife when he is not around, making another forbidden relationship that Damise does not want to
“I have revealed enough. Spare me the rest. / I die, and my grim secret dies with me.” (Racine 193) Phaedra has a huge secret: she is in love with her stepson, Hippolytus. She has reoccurring thoughts of suicide, and a desire for this burden to be lifted. Her forbidden passion has a gigantic affect on her mental capability and her ability to be independent. She does not want anyone to know about her repugnant desires for Hippolytus and her mental health slowly begins to weaken as she maintains this information to herself. As we look closer into the life of Phaedra, we find she exhibits a lustful, weak-minded, guilty, gullible, and reliant personality.
When arguing the statement, the character of Pentheus in the Bacchae is portrayed as earning his fate, whereas the character of Hippolytus in the Hippolytus is portrayed as an innocent victim of the god, I must both, agree and disagree with it. I would definitely agree with it on a shallow point of view, but would have to disagree with it upon dissecting both the stories. The stories tell of Hippolytus being killed for something he did not do, while Pentheus was killed for not accepting the god Dionysus. But when you look deep into the meaning of each story, the apparent black and white assumptions of innocents and guilt change from definitive to doubt to say the least.
Pyrocles arrived in Arcadia and fell in love with Philoclea with a picture of her, then with Philoclea herself. Pyrocles who at this point is infatuated with Philoclea decides to become a woman. The reader understands Zelmane takes advantage of the forms of courtesy and friendship, trying to seduce Philoclea.
In the play,Hippolytus hates women. He openly insult women and thinks low of them. However, Hippolytus conception explain why he hates women so much. Hippolytus parents were of king theseus and an amazon. Hippolytus was raised by his Thesis. However, His mother abandoned him. Hippolytus did not have mother. He did not have some to teach him to respect women and he did not have a women to respect, thus why he acts the way he does, and makes people feel sorry for him, thus validating the
In the story, the supreme ruler of Athens, Thesius ends up marrying Hippolyta, the Queen of the Jungle. However, during the whole story, Hippolyta never throughly discusses her feelings and ideas about the marriage. She acts as if she has no choice but to marry Thesius. This can be proven by examining Hippolyta's position in the relationship between herself and Thesius. Hippolyta was captured by Thesius during battle and Thesius intimidates Hippolyta into marrying him since he is a supreme ruler and she was defeated by him. Thesius reveals that he capture Hippolyta in battle in the following quote, "I wood thee by my sword/ And won thy love doing thee injuries" (Act I, Pg 7). The above quote and the fact that Hippolyta never discusses her feelings about the wedding leads the re...
on the life of Electra. In Sophocles's version, the play opens with Orestes learning his fate. from the Pythian Oracle; he must revenge his father's death unarmed and. alone. He sends his pedagogue Pylades, as a spy, to learn about the situation in Mycenae. Electra mourns for her father's death. She is Unable to avenge her father's murders without the help of Orestes, her brother. She is also mad about how her mother and her lover waste her father's riches and desecrate his name. Her half-sister Chrysothemis is. no help to Electra and refuses to help in the murder of her mother and mother's love of the world.
The play's plot, in a nutshell, develops like this. After solving the riddle of the Sphynx, who had kept Thebes under a curse of some kind, Oedipus is invited to become king of the city. He marries Jocasta, the widow of the previous king, and they have two children. When the play begins, Thebes is again under some sort of curse, and Oedipus tries to find out its cause so that he can rescue the city. He is told that the cause of the curse is that the murderer of the previous king is still in the city and has gone unpunished. In the process of searching for the murderer, Oedipus discovers that it is he, himself, who is responsible and that he is actually the son of Jocasta and her previous husband. Horrified by his sins of incest and murder, Oedipus claws out his eyes. Jocasta commits suicide because she is so disgraced.
The views on women in this play are shown through Hermia’s recklessness, Helena’s desperation, and Hippolyta’s hypocritical behavior. The women in this era of when Shakespeare wrote this play were subservient to men and had no will and choice of their own. This included marriages that were usually arranged by a powerful male relative instead of giving the woman the opportunity of choosing a husband that she loved. First, Helena was a woman who chased after men. She contradicts her gender by breaking society’s rules. Helena even says, “We cannot fight for love, as men may do; we should be woo’d and were not made to woo” (Rogers, 1998, Act 2, Scene 1, 241-242). Second, Hermia disobeys her father and cannot decide on marriage. She is disrespectful towards her father’s commands. Hermia goes on to say, “I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am bold” (Rogers, 1998, Act 1, Scene 1, 58-59). Lastly, we have Hippolyta who pretends to love King Theseus and is a liar. She stands by through the oppression of different women in the play. Although, Hippolyta shows dominance in her words. “Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; four nights will quickly dream away time” (Rogers, 1998, Act 1, Scene 1, 6). We see the King’s impatience at having Hippolyta, but Hippolyta has the control and patience. “Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, And won thy love,
The character of Theseus from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as the Duke of Athens, is constantly in the light of power. He is closely associated with love and the law, and is meant to keep the characters in line. He is arguably one of the most powerful characters in all the work, though only present for the beginning and the closing acts of the play. His morals and character is questioned because of his relationship with Hippolyta and the reader is left to see if he is actually a man in love and innocence or if he has an obstructed view of reality.
In Racine's Phaedra, the characters face problems that are caused by their passions, in a society based on reason and the roles they play in it. Phaedra finds that she loves Hippolytus, who is her stepson, and she feels guilty about it, because it goes against the grain of society. She is crazed with the passion she feels, and convinces herself, for a time, that she should die without telling anyone, so that her shame is not made worse by being known to others.
As the tale unfolds, it becomes clear that Phaedra is aware that her love for Hippolytus can never be fulfilled, and the shame that she feels from this passion is true. After confessing her love to Hippolytus in Act 2, scene 5, she curses the Gods for torturing her soul by making her love someone against her will, and she even goes as far as to ask for death. The power of shame has overcome her, and she feels that if she can not be with the man that she loves then she wishes to die by his sword as if she were a "monster". When Theseus returns home, her shame is heightened by the presence of him, and by the thought that her incestuous love will be made aware to all. However, this shame quickly turns to the offensive when she allows Oenome to plot a reverse of guilt and accuse Hippolytus of loving Phaedra. The power of shame is no more evident then at this point in the story, because Phaedra, feeling the height of shame after admitting her love to Hippolytus, must face both her husband Theseus, the man she should love, and Hippolytus, the forbidden love. Feeling confused and helpless, Phaedra allows Oenome to place the blame on Hippolytus, and this begins her change from feelings of shame to guilt.
In the first part of the play Egeus has asked the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to rule in favor of his parental rights to have his daughter Hermia marry the suitor he has chosen, Demetrius, or for her to be punished. Lysander, who is desperately in love with Hermia, pleads with Egeus and Theseus for the maiden’s hand, but Theseus’, who obviously believes that women do not have a choice in the matter of their own marriage, sides with Egeus, and tells Hermia she must either consent to marrying Demetrius, be killed, or enter a nunnery. In order to escape from the tragic dilemma facing Hermia, Lysander devises a plan for him and his love to meet the next evening and run-off to Lysander’s aunt’s home and be wed, and Hermia agrees to the plan. It is at this point in the story that the plot becomes intriguing, as the reader becomes somewhat emotionally “attached’’ to the young lovers and sympathetic of their plight. However, when the couple enters the forest, en route to Lysander’s aunt’s, it is other mischievous characters that take the story into a whole new realm of humorous entertainment...
Throughout the play love is used by Euripides as a key plot factor and in many ways sets the outcome of the play. This love was definitely based on a physical attraction between a male and a female, thus making it “Common” love. The fact that Euripides uses “Common” love lends credibility to Pausanias’ philosophical ideas. The appearance of this idea suggests that it had realistic roots. . The events that took place in the play, such as the relationship between Phaedra and Hippolytus, must have been realistic so a Greek audience would believe the story. Even though Hippolytus is a fictional play the events that take place must have their roots in realistic events. This allows us to believe that Pausanias’ philosophical ideal was in fact a real life issue that Athenians dealt with in day-to-day life.
In the plays Medea and Hippolytus, both by Euripides, the female psyche is a point of focus that is not explored in many other Greek tragedies. Through these plays, we can discover the way women were viewed in Ancient Greek society as well as their concerns. We can also pay attention to how women are portrayed differently between the two plays.In Medea and Hippolytus, the women we spend the most time with are Medea and Phaedra. These women have vastly different values, but the cunning and determination they use to get their ways are not as different as one may believe.