Phèdre

Phaedra (French Phèdre) is the wife of Theseus and thus the queen of Athens. Her parents are Minos and Pasiphae, the king and queen of the island of Crete. Through her mother she is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios, a fact to which she and other characters allude throughout the play.

In Racine’s play, Phaedra claims to have loved her stepson Hippolytus from when she first saw him. The younger, more virtuous Hippolytus is markedly different from the philandering Theseus, Phaedra’s husband, and his good qualities attract her in much the same way as they attract Aricia. Phaedra is, however, also conscious of her honor and duty, especially where it concerns her son by Theseus: If she ruins her good name by becoming an adulteress, her son’s future would be ruined. To preserve her reputation and her son’s rights, we learn that Phaedra has treated Hippolytus cruelly, playing the part of the wicked stepmother to hide her true feelings. Nevertheless, as the symptoms of Phaedra’s lovesickness worsen, she can hide the secret no longer, revealing her feelings first to Oenone and, eventually, to Hippolytus himself.

Phaedra’s great weakness in Racine’s play is her indecisiveness. Phaedra agrees to go along with Oenone’s plots again and again because she herself cannot decide what course of action to take.