Racine's Phaedra: Here There Be Monsters

Macfarlan 2The theme of monsters is introduced at the beginning of Phaedra via the ideal ofmonster-slaying: an ideal to which Hippolyte, Phaedra, and Theseus all aspire. Providing asetting to the story is Theseus’s heroic past—not greatly described in the text, but idolized byHippolyte. As Hippolyte recalls:Men’s longing for another Hercules—Those monsters slain, those brigands all undone.(Racine 1.1.78-79).Unfortunately, Theseus’ many conquests are not limited to the heroic realm, but includethe romantic; Hippolyte also speaks of Theseus’a infidelity. King Theseus is described both asmonster-killer and faithless lover; as Erica Harth notes, Hippolyte “indicates a wish to emulatehis father in the former role” (21), proving himself a hero to become worthy of Aricia’s love.Racine, as a writer of the Enlightenment, viewed the ancient story of Theseus through thelens of his age. The Enlightenment period, also called the Age of Reason, was preoccupied withmankind’s quest to triumph over what society considered barbarian—the superstitious andillogical: metaphorical monsters. Racine’s Theseus is a hero not only for slaying literal monsters,but metaphorical ones: the “brigands” and barbarians threatening Greek civilization. Armed withsteely determination to keep his throne, Theseus killed all fifty of Aricia’s brothers when theythreatened to overthrow his line. The monsters menacing the characters of Phaedra are the samethat Neoclassical society feared: chaos and irrationality.Phaedra, in addition to Hippolyte, expresses the desire to kill the monster. Possessed by aperverse lust for her stepson, she fantasizes about Hippolyte, not Theseus, slaying the Minotaurin the Labyrinth of King Minos:You would have slain the Cretan monster then,