In Racine’s Phaedra, Phaedra is the main character is she is influenced by her passion and lust throughout the novel, which leads her to commit the crimes she commits by the power of guilt and shame. In Act 1, scene 3, Phaedra confesses her love for Hippolytus to her nurse. Phaedra knows that her love for Hippolytus can never be fulfilled and she feels shame for having this lust and passion for Hippolytus. Phaedra is very sneaky in how she tells her nurse, and never actually says his name as the man that she is in love with. “ Whom do you love?”
“You know the son of the Amazon- the prince I’ve harshly used.”
“Hippolytus! Great Gods!
“Tis you have named him… Not I” (Racine 1.3.1472)
After she confesses her love for Hippolytus, she curses the Gods for torturing her soul and making her love someone that she does not want to love, she is so upset about his that she even asked the God’s for death.
“From the empire of my senses; when beneath
A yoke of shame I
…show more content…
At this point in the story you can actually feel the shame that Phaedra is feeling. She is torn between her husband, Theseus the man she should been love with, and Hippolytus the man she is in love with but cannot be with. Phaedra is feeling completely confused and helpless as to what she should do. She allows Oenone to plot a scheme to accuse Hippolytus of loving Phaedra, instead of Phaedra loving