Racine's Phaedra: Here There Be Monsters

Macfarlan 4between the two passions by showing their effects. As Thomas J. Braga notes, “Thecrystallization of Phédre’s love for Hippolyte…has not transformed her into a moreunderstanding, caring, and tender person as it has Hippolyte and Aricia. Rather, love has madePhédre see monsters” (293). Phaedra is a tragic character because this monster—jealous,impossible lust—represents the loss of her humanity to the bestial.Monster-slaying is also an ambition held by Theseus. As a hero who has in the pasttriumphed over beasts and barbarians, he is determined to pluck out any irrational thing thatthreatens his kingdom. When Oenone lies to Theseus, claiming that Hippolyte is the one lustingafter Phaedra, the king brands his son a literal monster, calling upon the gods to slay him:Monster, at whom Jove’s thunder should be hurled!Foul brigand, like those of whom I cleaned the world!(Racine 4.2.11-12).Hippolyte desires to slay the monster in order to prove himself; Phaedra wants the monster she isbecoming to be slain; and Theseus is determined to slay the monster of irrationality.Another monster looms in the play’s backdrop: the Minotaur. The dark story of KingMinos’ Labyrinth, though only alluded to in the text, provides important setting to the charactersof Phaedra. The Minotaur killed by Theseus was a monster begat by a monstrous desire:Pasiphae’s lust for and copulation with a bull. King Minos built the walls of his Labyrinth to hidehis wife’s bestial passion, and Elissa Marder identifies Phaedra’s attempts to conceal her lovefrom Oenone as a kind of labyrinth-building, as well: “Phédre’s response…seems at first like onemore circumlocution. Instead of beginning to speak about her own illicit desire, she speaks abouther mother and her mother’s desire” (60). As Pasiphae’s daughter, and therefore the Minotaur’shalf-sister, Phaedra is haunted by an inescapable legacy.