Phèdre

Love and desire are depicted as both destructive and potentially liberating forces. How and why are love and desire presented in these contradictory ways?

Analyze the relationship between divine punishment and human responsibility in the play. To what extent, if any, do the characters have agency and moral responsibility? What role do the gods play, and how does this complicate the actions of the characters?

Explore the role of confession and secrecy in the play. How are the relationships between Hippolytus, Phaedra, and Aricia and their confidantes—Theramenes, Oenone, and Ismene, respectively—depicted? In what ways do confession and secrecy function in wider familial and social bonds as well?

The main characters of the play all share a preoccupation with honor, but no two characters share the same conception of that value and what it entails. What are the competing conceptions of honor in the play? Can these competing conceptions be reconciled? Why or why not?

Both Hippolytus and Aricia live in the shadow of family legacies. What is the role of hereditary burdens and obligations in the play? How are family ties depicted?

Compare and contrast Phaedra and Aricia. How are these women characterized? In what ways are they different or similar? What do their depictions suggest about ideas of femininity, desire, and/or the nature and limitations of women’s status in the world of the play?

Ancient Greek and Roman drama often centered tragedies around the notion of hubris, or overweening arrogance and pride that brings about a hero’s downfall. What role, if any, does hubris have in Racine’s play? What other “tragic flaws” appear in the play, and what is their wider significance?

Atonement is a fraught issue at the end of the play: Phaedra tries to atone for her falsehoods and destructive passion through death by suicide, while Theseus adopts Aricia as his own to fulfill Hippolytus’s dying wish. How does the play depict culpability and atonement? Are these acts of atonement effective? Why or why not?