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2019 Exploring Guilt and Shame Through the Myth of Phaedra Ravital Goldgof

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

EXPLORING GUILT AND SHAME THROUGH THE MYTH OF PHAEDRA

By

RAVITAL GOLDGOF

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: [Spring, 2019]

Goldgof 1

Phaedra1: a queen cursed by her bloodline to fall in love with her stepson. Since first authored by Euripides, the myth of Phaedra has been revisited, as Linda Hutcheon termed

“adaptated,” over centuries and mediums. Seneca the Younger, Jean Racine, and Sarah Kane, a modern British playwright, have all been inspired by the myth. Taking inspiration from a study by Kevin Calcamp on the sexuality of Hippolytus in several versions of the text, I have extended the conversation to include Kane’s play, while shifting focus away from issues of sexuality and moving towards shame and guilt, as they relate to free will. While many studies on adaptation work on the movement between mediums, through this specific study, I hope to better understand how emotions are created or evolve through retellings of the same medium over time, and how those emotions may be influenced by a specific time period’s cultural milieu. My hypothesis is that there will be a correlation between representations of free will and determinism in a text and the characters’ level of shame versus guilt. In times of a renewed sense of determinism, the characters’ levels of guilt will be lowered in comparison to a more free-will oriented space.

While each adaptation’s plot varies on the whole, the myth follows Phaedra, daughter of

Minos and Pasiphae. Pasiphae was cursed to fall in love with a bull, and therefore create the

Minotaur. Phaedra continues suffering from the same curse which afflicted her mother, forcing her to harbor incestuous feelings towards Hippolytus, the son of her missing husband, Theseus.

Consumed by remorse, in all the adaptations, Phaedra admits her feelings to a confidant and later to Hippolytus.2 To avoid a wholly tarnished reputation, the confidant recommends that Phaedra

1 Throughout my study, I will be using the Anglicized forms of the characters’ names in the myth. For consistency and simplicity, even when considering Racine’s adaptation, I will stick to the designation of Phaedra, Hippolytus, Theseus, etc. 2 It is interesting to note that in Euripides’ adaptation, the nurse tells Hippolytus against Phaedra’s wishes about her forbidden feelings. Furthermore, the adaptation by Euripides is actually the second version of this story by him. The first version featured a Phaedra who lacked Goldgof 2 accuse Hippolytus of raping her. This action sends both Hippolytus and Phaedra towards their inevitable death. It is important to note, in certain adaptations, there is a heavier presence of goddesses and, on occasion, Phaedra’s confidant, a nurse, plays a more mischievous part in the play and tells Hippolytus of Phaedra’s feelings behind her back. These plot differences cause great variation in the levels of responsibility, and therefore shame and guilt that Phaedra and other characters experience. Jean Racine himself remarks on the subject in his preface, “For

Phaedra is not altogether guilty, and not altogether innocent” (23). This focus on Phaedra’s internal struggle by all of the authors and the fact that these emotions are the ultimate catalyst for the play’s action, motivated me to focus on these concepts.

In order to evaluate how emotion varies over time, one must first understand the terms of shame and guilt, and their related subjects, such as responsibility and culpability. Their definitions can be interpreted through a historical, psychoanalytical, psychological, or even a linguistic perspective. It should be noted that the concept of shame had a large influence on

Grecian culture, as honor and reputation were extremely important. Douglas Cairns discusses that there was an “emphasis on the good of reputation [and] on one’s public persona” (44).

Defining guilt and shame as separate concepts has its issues, as emotions can be interpreted and defined differently depending on the time in history. Ancient Grecian and current western interpretations of emotion are distinct from one another. A major problem for discussing

Phaedra’s guilt and shame is that there is no separate word for guilt in Greek. There is only

“aidôs,” which is translated as shame in English, despite encompassing other emotions such as embarrassment. Therefore, when it is unclear whether guilt or shame is being referred to, I will use the psychoanalytical definitions of the two emotions. Guilt, as we recognize it today, was any sense of shame or guilt around her curse. Not popularly received, Euripides rewrote his play to what we know of today. Separately, Kane’s interpretation of the myth is quite different. For more specific details on Kane’s plot changes, see page 21-22 of paper. Goldgof 3 defined in the realm of psychoanalysis in the 19th century (Heimowitz). Sigmund Freud describes guilt as a feeling of tension after violating a moral code, and the desire to relieve that tension is what prompts someone to take action. Shame, on the other hand, is a “response to a failure, shortcoming, or other transgression of what society expects or what a person expects of him or herself” (Ungvarsky). A person can feel both shame and guilt at the same time; however they are distinct from one another. Guilt is caused by internal sanctions that people place on themselves, whereas shame is caused by the fear of external sanctions (e.g. criticism from society).

According to psychoanalyst Gerhardt Piers, guilt is created when a boundary is touched or transgressed, whereas shame occurs when a goal is not being reached.3 In other words, Phaedra feels guilt about her feelings for Hippolytus and shameful about not living up to her queen mother title. Guilt is also more closely related to free will: people feel guilty when they have crossed a boundary themselves, whereas shame can occur whether the person is responsible for their actions or not. As will be enumerated later, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, Phaedra is mostly relieved of a sense of culpability, as the goddesses openly admit their own role during the beginning and denouement of the play. However, this does not stop her from feeling a massive sense of shame. Phaedra laments at length about “bringing disgrace upon [her] husband [and] the children [she has] born” and mourns her lost reputation (51, 53). In a more deterministic world, the feelings of the characters are skewed towards those of shame. In Hippolytus, where the characters believe most of the time that the gods are responsible for what they are enduring in the human world, guilt is more rarely felt.

The amount of free will depicted in the plays correlate with the emotions of each character. Since Plato’s time, philosophers have debated whether it is free will or determinism

3 Read more about shame in the context of Ancient Greece in “Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature” by Douglas Cairns. Goldgof 4 that rule our lives. A broadly accepted definition for free will is the power of human beings to choose certain actions, uninhibited by any type of coercion (Ruth). Of course, one must acknowledge that Phaedra is under the influence of the gods, but does she have any agency to impact her own fate? In order to open up the possibility of that question, I adhere to American

Philosopher Harry Frankurt’s interpretation of free will which argues that free will is the choosing between a person’s base impulses, or first-order desires, and their more intellectual option, second-order desires (O’Connor). In contrast to a more deterministic way of life, seen heavily in Racine’s work, Frankfurt’s definition means that while Phaedra was pushed towards the incestuous impulse of Hippolytus, she could have chosen a harder path where she did not confess her feelings. This view of free will is reflected in Seneca’s Phaedra, as will be discussed later.

In order to numerate and compare the subjects discussed above, I classify instances in the plays as evoking guilt versus shame and free will versus determinism by tracking specific words and phrases, as well as interpreting certain passages as demonstrating these themes. Where it is not clear, I refer to these themes’ psychoanalytical definition. This reversion to psychoanalytical interpretation occurs most frequently in Euripides’ Hippolytus, due to the lack of named emotions in the ancient Greek language. Some of the specifically tracked words are: guilt, culpable, shame, honor, dishonor, responsible, doom, and free/free will, to name a few.4

Hippolytus mentions the word “doom” frequently in Kane’s adaptation (e.g. Kane 29, 30). The word doom evokes images of helplessness—as if Hippolytus has no ability to change his fate, therefore implying a lack of free will. Doom is therefore a signifier of a deterministic-leaning world. However, in the same text, there is free will, as previously noted, as that is what makes

4 This includes any variation of the base word, including related verbs and synonyms. For example, in the case of guilt, I will be searching for guilt, guilty, to guilt, etc. Goldgof 5 humans different from animals (Kane 35). In Racine’s Phèdre, words such as “coupable” and

“honte,” which roughly translate to guilty/culpable and shame, are tracked. Although in a different linguistic and cultural perspective, I treat these French words with the same psychoanalytical distinction, as their extended definitions are similar. According to the National

Center for Textual and Lexical Resources, someone who is “coupable” (culpable) is someone who has voluntarily committed a fault of some sort. Once again, having guilt has to do with the act itself. However, “honte” (shame) has to do with transgressing a line that society has drawn and the dictionary cites it as being related to dishonor.

Euripides and the Entangled Gods

Euripides was the first playwright to work on the myth; he presented Hippolytus in 428

BC (Gerhard). This play varies in that Phaedra dies halfway through the play, lending a more egalitarian focus to the other characters. Furthermore, one must note the unique inclusion of gods in this adaptation. The audience learns at the beginning and in the finale that the characters are victims of the gods’ whims. In the first few verses of this adaptation, Aphrodite expresses her frustration at being dismissed and ignored in prayer by Hippolytus. A few verses later,

Hippolytus is seen declaring, “No God who uses the night to work her wonders find[sic] favour with me (42).” He then chooses to pray to Artemis over Aphrodite. This pattern of behavior prompts Aphrodite to take revenge on Hippolytus, spurring all of the tragedy to follow. Another important role is that of Artemis, the goddess of hunting and a symbol of purity. She appears after the king, Theseus, condemns his son to die. She explains to all of the characters what has happened, “Cyprus, who will stop at nothing, planned it so” (78).5 The addition of these goddesses is a stark one because, from the beginning to the final verses, the audience is aware that it is Aphrodite, not Phaedra’s famous family curse, which precipitates the drama. It should

5 Cyprus is another name for Aphrodite. Goldgof 6 be noted that Aphrodite and Artemis play roles only in this adaptation. This sequence did not survive in Seneca’s Phaedra: there is no Cyrus or Artemis equivalent (i.e. Venus, Diana). As most of the following adaptations take their primary inspiration from Seneca’s work, the character of Aphrodite is not revived. This complicates Phaedra’s fate, as she is afflicted both by

Aphrodite and the curse of her bloodline. This is important to remember when discussing

Phaedra’s emotions and levels of culpability in this piece.

Based on the inclusion of Aphrodite and Artemis, one might assume that all responsibility falls on the gods. However, throughout the text, Euripides points personal blame at several of the characters individually. First, there is the nurse,6 who Phaedra says that “thanks to

[her] bungling interference” will cause Hippolytus to tell Theseus about her forbidden love (58).

In terms of the plot, the nurse had not been obviously coerced into telling Hippolytus; therefore, one can assume that she has decided to do this on her own volition. This is further supported when the nurse later admits to showing bad judgment regarding this action and, later, in Artemis assigning blame in her speech, stating, “Phaedra suffered ruin through the schemes of her nurse”

(59,75). Artemis also blames Hippolytus for his part in this tragedy. Artemis’ poignant first words are “It is nobility that has destroyed you.” Hippolytus had the option to share the truth of what had happened with Theseus, but instead chose, per his own discretion, to keep an oath of silence he had made to the nurse.

Most interesting in the conversation of free will versus determinism is Phaedra’s practically Socratic lecture that occurs after she admits to her nurse the cause of her sickness

(50). Phaedra ponders why humans do not behave morally correctly, even when the moral choice

6 It should be noted that in this adaptation, the nurse does not come up with the idea of accusing Hippolytus of assaulting Phaedra—Phaedra does this briefly before committing suicide. Instead the nurse simply tells Hippolytus of Phaedra’s forbidden love. It is unclear whether this is done with malicious intent or not. Goldgof 7 is clear, stating, “It seems to me that people go wrong not because of the nature of their minds— after all, many people have sound judgment” (50). Simply the subject of this monologue creates room for free will in this story. She states that when it comes to following through morally, “ We understand and recognize what is good, but we do not labour to bring it to fulfillment, some of us out of laziness, some because we put something else, some pleasure, before virtue” (50). Despite

Aphrodite’s interference, this speech is a clear admittance of free will which aligns perfectly with our working definition of the term, based on Harry Frankfurt’s original definition discussed earlier: free will is choosing between a person’s base impulse and their more intellectual option.

Phaedra goes on to describe her more intellectual option of keeping her love for Hippolytus hidden by way of self-control. Phaedra admits to the audience that there is a clear way out of

Aphrodite’ curse but, as the audience will see, does not go through with the more intellectual option. Reminiscences of the second half of this speech, where Phaedra evaluates her options, can be found in Racine’s adaptation, as well (53). In Euripides Hippolytus, while the gods may bring about certain actions such as Phaedra’s love and the bull that is to kill Hippolytus, the characters are offered opportunities to choose a different path. Euripides demonstrates the struggle between the circumstances the gods have brought about and the characters’ reactions.

This tug-and-pull between free will and determinism fits seamlessly with the times Euripides lived in. Ancient Greece was “dialectical:” there were the influence of Greek myths that involved gods and goddesses, blind seers, and family curses, and the influence of Greek philosophy that encouraged the exploration of moral choice and justice (Notomi).

Therefore, in a world that fluidly mixes the rational and the spiritual, and the role of fate and the role of the individual—one may expect that both guilt and shame would be expressed, although this is not the case. For equivalency’s sake, I have tracked mainly Phaedra’s emotions, Goldgof 8 aside from Racine’s where one can see a modified Hippolytus, in these texts. As a reminder, shame is a “response to a failure [or] shortcoming of what society expects or what a person expects of him or herself” (Ungvarsky). For Phaedra, society expected her to be a noble queen, a loyal wife, a doting mother, and an appropriate stepmother. By harboring feelings towards

Hippolytus, she simultaneously fails to reach all of these goals. The nurse explains that, even if she dies, she will “betray [her] children” as they may no longer be in line for Theseus’ title and fortune (49). This, coupled with the stressed importance of honor and reputation in Grecian culture, which would also be tarnished by her curse, and the god’s responsibility in the play,

Phaedra’s sense of shame is much higher than her guilt.

From Phaedra’s first scene, she cries out, “I am ashamed of what I have said,” after raving about wanting to flee to the forest, mountains and hillsides—all nods to Hippolytus’ favorite hobbies and places (45-46). Although she dies about halfway through the play, Phaedra explicitly mentions shame twelve times. Since shame is closely tied to not living up to the expectations of society, it is also worth noting that she explicitly mentions her failed roles, as queen and mother, and her honor and reputation (or lack there of) a total of nine times. While in comparison, she only explicitly mentions her guilt once, although including non-explicit mentions, the total comes to three. For example, Phaedra does at times bring up her sense of guiltiness, admitting, “a pollution has stained my mind,” however, this admittance is coupled with the words, “My hands are pure (48).” Phaedra seems conflicted as to whether she has actually transgressed a boundary, as Gerhardt Piers defined guilt. Therefore, even when

Phaedra’s guilt is present, it is depthless and falls short of the full emotion. This suggests that despite her Socratic seminar on a human’s ability to choose voluntarily a more virtuous path, she still believes that she is not responsible for her feelings or actions. Despite a fair amount of Goldgof 9 hinting at free will within the character’s speech, the role of the gods ultimately determines

Phaedra’s emotions. While Ancient Greece seamlessly mixed the rational and the spiritual, I would argue that the world Euripides creates, despite some more philosophical phrases, is quite deterministic leaning, making the increased level of shame more expected.

Seneca and the Shameless Nobility

Seneca the Younger’s Phaedra differs from Euripides’ work by presenting both a freer world, where each character’s culpability increases significantly, and augmenting the focus on shame, as a way to critique the nobility. Written in the first century, Seneca the Younger’s adaptation finds itself in a very different time philosophically and politically. Seneca was well known as a Stoic. Stoicism emphasized self-control, independence, and the avoidance of “useless agitation” in order to achieve happiness (Marietta 150). On the topic of free will versus determinism, Stoics believed in fate working hand-in-hand with freedom and responsibility.

They affirmed that fate is an “auxiliary cause;” therefore, a “person’s actions affect the results of external causation” (Marietta 157). As will be discussed, Phaedra’s curse is much less a focus than in Euripides’ work. Instead, there is an emphasis on Phaedra’s responsibility to restrain herself from pursuing Hippolytus. Politically, this was a muddy time for monarchy. Throughout his life, Seneca was a tutor and advisor to the Emperor of Rome, Nero. Nero was well known for his cruel and indecent affairs. To name a few of these infamous incidences— he committed matricide, murdered his second wife during her pregnancy, murdered a woman for rejecting his proposal, and murdered a man in order to marry his third wife. Seneca, himself, fell at the hands of Nero, who condemned him to death after blaming Seneca for a conspiracy against his life. The murder of a parent is mentioned explicitly in Seneca’s play. After the Nurse attempts to push him towards a more liberal lifestyle, Hippolytus declares that he wants to be far away from the “regal Goldgof 10 pomp,” and laments the decay in society, citing that “parents die at their children’s hand”

(17,18). By presenting a world not solely controlled by gods and filled with consequences, as well as creating an unashamed Phaedra, Seneca creates a compelling criticism of unchecked nobility.

The works’ stance on free will and determinism is clear—Phaedra’s familial curse does not leave her without choices in life. Phaedra and the Nurse discuss her feelings towards Hippolytus near the start of the play. Phaedra cites that lust, passion and Cupid force her towards this love

(8). She originally testifies for a deterministic world, where a god has hit her with a love arrow, perhaps to assuage her knowledge that what she is doing is wrong: “My mind knows, but it wanders… and tries in vain to return. What can reason do? Passion, passion rules. One tyrant god has mastered all my heart” (8). Phaedra knows what is immoral and rarely cites her curse as an explanation for her actions. The nurse replies that love is not an excuse for action and that

Cupid forces no one, stating “the fiction that love is a god was created by base lust” and is used as a “license to sin” (8). The Nurse describes that Phaedra is free to make her own responsible choices, if she chooses to do so. She reminds Phaedra that the gods are no excuse for her behavior as the “average sort of people keep their emotions sane, and practice self-restraint” (8).

Here, one can see the influence of Stoicism: gods or no gods, Phaedra is responsible for her behavior and her reactions to this love towards Hippolytus. Even Phaedra seems to later admit that she can control her behavior and is not indebted to an already written fate when she later agrees that her “noble heart has not yet lost all restraint” (10).

This is all a grand departure from Euripides’ Hippolytus, where Aphrodite takes responsibility for Phaedra’s misfortune and little could be done against the actions of this goddess. In Seneca’s Phaedra, Aphrodite has no role and the characters constantly discuss self- Goldgof 11 restraint, something that cannot exist in a wholly deterministic world. The Nurse urges Phaedra,

“Do not indulge yourself, if you resist from the start and drive our love, victory is certain…” and later states that the first step to behaving morally is knowing what is good and “setting a limit to one’s sins” (6). After urging her not to sin, the Nurse states, “Sinners are worse than monsters.

Monsters are caused by fate, but sin by character” (7). This suggests an antithesis between monsters and sinners, and those affected by fate or by choice. Euripides’ Phaedra seems to be fighting fate, Seneca’s Phaedra seems to be fighting between what she knows is right and wrong.

Furthermore, Theseus’ actions are depicted as being entirely caused by his own choices.

After learning about Phaedra’s plot, he states, “I caused a cruel, unprecedented murder… I killed

[Hippolytus]” (36,37). In Euripides’ work, when Theseus learns that the accusations against his son are false, Artemis appears to tell him that he should not feel too bad, as Aphrodite is entirely to blame for everything that has happened. The absence of both Aphrodite and Artemis in this adaptation, allows for a completely culpable Theseus. I argue that, in order to properly critique noble’s behavior and as an echo of Stoicism, the world cannot be altogether deterministic; characters must be culpable for their actions.

This critique of nobility is seen throughout Seneca’s work and is interestingly an essential theme in Kane’s adaptation of this myth, as it takes on the “social decay [of] post-Thatcherie

Britain” (Sierz 2001, 4). Although, in comparison, this theme is somewhat muted in Racine’s version. From the very start, the play is riddled with lines evaluating the sinfulness of royal behavior and their shamelessness. This critique pushes shame, or the lack thereof, to be more central in Seneca’s Phaedra than in Euripides’ work. Rather than Phaedra being the sole

“shameful” character, we see multiple family members being deemed less than honorable. The character holding the highest level of nobility, Theseus, is the one who shows a lack of shame Goldgof 12 and morality first. Phaedra condemns Theseus for his lack of “fear or shame [in] his quest for rape and forbidden sex” (5). In the other adaptations, the readers are not informed of where

Theseus has gone. However, Seneca explains that Theseus has gone to the underworld to assist his friend, Pirithous, in stealing Hade’s wife, Persephone. In a more general sense, the nurse laments her own downfall into a more shameful lifestyle, one where she will falsely accuse

Hippolytus of rape by stating, “Reverence for monarchs means abandoning justice; expel honor from your heart; shame is no good servant of royal power” (14).

Despite the author and audience deeming the characters as “shameful,” this does not affect how Phaedra feels during play. Seneca’s Phaedra experiences significantly less shame than

Euripides’ Phaedra. Rather than attempt to hide her love and make herself sick, Phaedra boldly declares to the Nurse, “…Love has conquered even wild beasts… If he runs even through the seas, I will follow”(9). Phaedra does not fear the return of her husband, she openly disapproves of his comings and goings, calling him “Pirithous’ companion,” a “friend of mad desire…not restrained by fear or shame [who quests] for rape, and forbidden sex,” and “a solder of a shameless suitor” (5,9). The Phaedra we encounter in Seneca’s adaptation is audacious and unashamed. In Euripides’ work, she is ashamed about not being a fit mother, queen, and stepmother. She mentioned her children, her honor, and her reputation, nine times in her short time during the play, as she committed suicide halfway through. Despite living through all five acts, Seneca’s Phaedra only mentions her honor twice, and never mentions her children or her failings as a mother.

However, Seneca’s Phaedra does explicitly feel guilt, citing that only death can set her free from guilt (35). It is worth noting that this mention of guilt and her second mention of honor come only after Hippolytus’ death. She feels no shame in fulfilling her title, but experiences guilt Goldgof 13 over Hippolytus’ death. She is aware that her accusations led to his death. Based on the fact that she did not take her own life until after Hippolytus was killed, it seems that Phaedra ultimately chose to die over her guilt towards Hippolytus’ death and her desire to “join [their] deaths” (35).

Phaedra does not want to die because of her lost honor or reputation, as one could hypothesize

Euripides’ Phaedra did, but because of a lost love. One reason for the intensified feeling of guilt in Seneca’s adaptation as compared to Euripides’ is the lack of gods. As mentioned earlier,

Aphrodite takes responsibility for the action during the play. Without Aphrodite, all the characters feel the weight of the actions much more heavily. When studying different adaptations of the myth of Phaedra, addressing Phaedra’s guilt and shame is integral to understanding her character, as either feeling can be seen as a motivator in her death.

Racine: All Things Determined

Written in 1677, Jean Racine’s Phèdre, while heavily dictated by Classicism, the most popular literary movement at the time which is characterized by a return to Greek and Latin literature and thought, departs significantly from the previous two adaptations of the play. The play no longer includes a rivalry amongst goddesses and there is no scene that features

Hippolytus offending Aphrodite. The Hippolytus readers encounter in Racine’s work is altogether unique, no longer sharing the disposition to his Greek counterpart who detests women, which is mirrored in Seneca and Kane’s work as well. In fact, in Racine’s work, the audience is introduced to a secondary forbidden love story between Hippolytus and his star-crossed lover,

Aricie.

The world created by Racine echoes many Jansenist ideas. Racine was educated by

Jansenists and even chose to be buried in Port-Royal, known as the center of this religious movement. As Wallace K. Ferguson details in his book, Jansenists believed in three main Goldgof 14 doctrines: the doctrine of original sin, of irresistible grace, and of predestination (24-25). The latter two are most important in understanding the characters in Racine’s work. The doctrine of irresistible grace explains that those who receive God’s grace will lead exemplary lives, no matter their own actions. Those who do not lead exemplary lives are damned. The doctrine of predestination continues this thinking even further, explaining that a hidden God has already determined each person’s fate. Whether one will be blessed with God’s grace has already been decided, whether one does or does not know his or her fate before death. Jansenists affirmed that human beings are not only at the mercy of a hidden God, but “of emotions over which they have no control and that therefore they have very little control over their lives, ” which is in direct opposition to the Stoic view of life. Moreover, the decision to remove the physical presence of gods but keep their influence over the characters echoes the Jansenist concept of a hidden God.

As Lucien Goldmann details, “That God should be always absent and always present is the real centre of the tragic vision” (37). With this paradox in mind, it is unsurprising that Racine decided to take on the myth of Phaedra as a subject for his play.

While still heavily stressing the themes of pride, honor and virtue, Racine’s Phèdre removes itself entirely from the debate of nobility’s behavior, seen in Seneca and Kane’s work.

Additionally, although missing the physical inclusion of goddesses who posses lines, there is no doubt that Phaedra’s fate is set from the first few pages. Aside from addressing Venus specifically, the themes of doom, fate, and destiny are echoed in nearly every scene. There are over twenty direct references to these themes. Notably, there are seven references to doom, six references to fate, and four references to destiny.

These counts do not include instances that indirectly reference the fate of Racine’s characters and their lack of free will, for which there are many. These indirect references emphasize a Goldgof 15 character’s lack of autonomy. One should note that some of these indirect references have less relation to the gods’ control over humans’ lives and more emphasize the power of love. Phaedra bemoans, “Je m’égare, Seigneur, ma folle ardeur malgré moi se declare” [Do what I will I cannot hide my passion] (80-81). In Euripides’ adaptation, Phaedra often laments her fate and the curse of her bloodline, which can never be evaded. In comparison, Racine puts less emphasis on

Phaedra’s curse and the gods’ involvement in human affairs. Instead, he addresses both the hidden hand of god, and also the control passion itself wields over humans. In this way, Racine demonstrates a tenant of Jansenism previously mentioned: human beings are at the mercy of their emotions. This is best seen by the addition of Hippolytus and Aricie’s story. Hippolytus has no family curse in play and, as far as the audience knows, no god has obviously forced him to love

Aricie. However, in a speech to Aricie, Hippolytus declares, “Je vois que la raison cède à la violence…Moi qui, contre l’amour fièrement révolté… asservi maintenant sous la commune loi… Contre vous, contre moi, vainement je m’éprouve” [Reason I see gives into the violence of passion…. I, who so long the enemy of love… now find myself subject to the same law. My heart, I struggle vainly to be free from you and from myself] (72-74). He goes on to call himself a “slave” and a “captive,” and his search to steer away from love “futile.” From Hippolytus’ description, one can observe that, despite multiple attempts, he is unable to separate himself from

Aricie. While no physical god controls him, love does. Of course, one could argue that a hidden god has destined him to this love. No matter the determinants, be it the control of Hippolytus by emotions or by a god, he seems to lacks the autonomy to steer clear of Aricie.

This stress on the power of passion and emotion is not to say that Phaedra’s curse or the roles of the gods in humans’ lives are altogether ignored. Phaedra declares outright that “Les Dieux m’en sont témoins, ces Dieux qui dans mon flanc ont allumé le feu fatal à tout mon sang; ces Goldgof 16

Dieux qui se sont fait une gloire cruelle de séduire le coeur d’une faible mortelle” [Gods who in my veins have poured this burning fire, a doom to all my race; the Gods who take a barbarous delight in leading a poor mortal’s heart astray] (84-85). She describes herself as the “objet infortune des vengeances célestes” [unlucky object of the spite of Gods] (84-85). Other characters also cite the gods as being ultimately responsible for their fate. Hippolytus, for example, just prior to his death, states, “Le ciel m’arrache une innocente vie” (162) [The Gods have robbed me of a guiltless life (163).]

One should note that there are a few mentions of free will in the play. However, personal agency does not undermine the predetermined world that Racine has created, and in my opinion, creates an even more tragic world, where certain characters believe they have a way out and believe they are acting on their own volition, despite their fate being completely set. For example, when advising Phaedra, Oenone declares, “mille chemins ouverts y conduisent toujours” [always a thousand paths… open to us] (44-45).7 While Oenone seems to believe choice is possible, it does not appear true based on the actions of the play. Despite what the characters do, their fates are already determined and in motion. If there were actually a thousand paths available to Phaedra, one can assume that she would have chosen one that did not end in suicide and in tainted honor. The most a character can do is react to their fate. Phaedra is all too aware of her curse and her lack of ability to change her future. After her illicit love becomes known, she states, “Cet aveu si honteux, le crois-tu volontaire?” [This so shameful declaration I have made is voluntary? Can you think so?] (86-87). Later Phaedra cries out, “Laisse-moi le soin de mon sort déplorable” [let me command my own poor fate at last] (140-141). Phaedra wants to control her uncontrollable fate, but knows it is not a voluntary choice that she has the power to

7 The nurse is named in Racine’s version of the myth, unlike in the plays of Euripides and Seneca. Goldgof 17 make. In Racine’s Phèdre, there is little doubt, whether it is by the Gods’ will or love’s will that the characters are living in an already determined world where they may merely react to the predetermined actions around them.

Referring back to my hypothesis, I expect to see a relationship between the type of world an author has created, scaled from totally deterministic to fully free-willed, and the levels of shame and guilt seen in the characters. In a totally deterministic world, I expect a Phaedra with very little guilt but full of shame. In a world that may echo a level of determinism by the gods, but where freedom of choice and self-restraint can still be found, we should find a Phaedra who feels quite guilty, but expresses few feelings of shame. I have found this to hold true in Euripides and Seneca’s plays. Having established that the world created by Racine as a predetermined one, where each of the characters have little ability to act outside of what is destined, I find that, as expected, Phaedra suffers high levels of shame and fairly low levels of guilt. Focusing specifically on Phaedra’s own words, I find eight direct mentions to her own feelings of shame.

She mostly refers to her feelings towards Hippolytus as her shame. For instance, Phaedra calls her declaration of love, “[un] aveu si honteux” [a shameful declaration] (86-87). After this declaration, she states “Et combien sa rougeur a redoublé ma honte” [And how his blushes made me sink in shame!] (92-93). This count of eight does not include the times that Phaedra indirectly mentions her shame. As detailed earlier, shame is a response to a shortcoming of what is expected of oneself, by the self or by society. There are multiple occasions when Phaedra discusses her failings as a mother, a stepmother, and/or a queen, or her failing honor and glory in reference to her titles, without using the word shame. I consider all of these indirect references to her feelings of shame. For example, when discussing her motivations to die, Phaedra declares “Je voulais en mourant prendre soin de ma gloire” [I wish in dying to preserve my fame] (52-53). Goldgof 18

In contrast to Euripides’ work, where Phaedra feels shame but where guilt is entirely absent, Racine’s Phaedra still feels some level of guilt, although it is very low when compared to her high feelings of shame. Phaedra does declare, “J’en ai prolongé la coupable durée” [I have endured a guilty life too long] (44-45). Most instances where I tracked for “coupable” and

“culpabilité” (guilty and guilt, respectively), I have found that these instances are either condemnations of the character by others, rather than an emotion felt by the character herself.

There are only three instances where Phaedra cites herself as guilty (45, 47, 102). The rest are from other characters referring to Phaedra as being guilty of harboring incestuous feelings towards Hippolytus. Unlike in Seneca’s play, where Phaedra feels guilty over her involvement in actions that led to Hippolytus’ death, Racine’s Phaedra feels minimal guilt. One explanation is that she feels very little responsibility in her own tragedy. Not only does she cite her fate in every act, but in her last scene before her death, Phaedra cites the Gods and Oenone as responsible for everything that has happened (166-169).8 As guilt is created when a person transgresses a boundary, if Phaedra does not feel that she crossed the boundary herself, and rather was dragged across it by Oenone and her curse, it makes sense that she would feel little guilt.

KANE: An Extremely Revised Myth

One of the most recent takes on the story of Phaedra was in 1996 by British playwright,

Sarah Kane. Kane is infamous for her shocking plays in the genre “In-Yer-Face”, as coined by

Aleks Sierz, the primary scholar on the genre. These types of drama are meant to provoke the audience, often using explicit language and on-stage gore and violence, which is in direct opposition to the norms of all three previous plays discussed (Sierz 2001, 4). Playwrights

8 Phaedra’s accusation that Oenone is responsible does not come as a surprise. In Phèdre, Oenone plays a protective mother figure, more so than is seen in all other versions. Oenone goes so far as to acknowledge her own responsibility in all that has occurred prior to her own death. She says that she deserves Phaedra’s harsh words: “Je l’ai bien mérité” (143). Goldgof 19 working in the genre, popular for a short time in the 1990s in the UK, would take a concept that the audience feels they have a strong understanding of such as, in Phaedra’s Love, purity versus a lack of purity, and distort that concept in order to get the audience to question what is normal, natural, and real (Sierz 2001, 6). Kane’s life was tumultuous, ending in suicide.9 The times in which she worked, the 1990s, reflected that internal crisis. The decade was a time of great change abroad, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, genocides in

Bosnia and Rwanda, and the creation of the European Union (Saunders 2009, 12). Within the

United Kingdom, the concept of the traditional family suffered huge increases in divorce, even within the royal family who suffered scandal and the death of Princess Diana (Sierz 2012, 1-5).

Kane’s take on the myth is a grand departure from previous works. Phaedra’s Love emphasizes the theme of nobility much like Seneca’s play; however, rather than critiquing the nobility, Kane focuses more on critiquing the public and media’s obsession with celebrity and the royal family, and the grand expectations placed on royals. Phaedra’s Love is a one-act play set in modern times and it is worth noting that, prior to its creation, Kane had only read Seneca’s

Phaedra (Saunders 2009,67). Along with showing violence, such as the death of Hippolytus, and sexual acts on stage, Kane has removed the character of the nurse (Oenone in Racine’s play). In place of the nurse, Kane creates Phaedra’s daughter, Strophe, who acts as her confidante.

Furthermore, this is the only play of the four where Phaedra consummates her illicit love. She is then horridly rejected by Hippolytus who does so by telling her that he has also had sexual relations with her daughter, Strophe. In Kane’s play, Hippolytus takes center stage as the protagonist. Much like Euripides’ work, Phaedra commits suicide halfway through the play, leaving Hippolytus at the center of the drama. The Hippolytus the audience encounters in

9 For more information on the life of Sarah Kane and the varied reception of Kane’s plays read About Kane: the Playwright and the Work or 'Love Me Or Kill Me': Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes, written by Graham Saunders, the primary scholar on the playwright. Goldgof 20

Phaedra’s Love is completely remodeled into a depressed, overweight, mean, and unkempt man who engages in countless meaningless sexual encounters—In grave contrast to the female-hating and chaste Hippolytus seen in the classic versions. Kane explains this character shift by remarking that she found Seneca’s imagining of Hippolytus completely unattractive despite his description as a young, virtuous, and good looking man and felt the curse was the only explanation for how Phaedra could love such a man (Saunders 2009, 70). Therefore, it was no stretch of the imagination to create a wholly unlikeable character in her own play. In scene four,

Phaedra sums up this new Hippolytus and her strange love for him: “You’re difficult. Moody, cynical, bitter, fat, decadent, spoilt… not a thought for anyone…I adore you” (6). His sole redeeming quality is his pursuit of unwavering honesty, which mimics the trait of unwavering purity in Euripides and Seneca’s plays.

The world Kane creates is clear on the characters’ autonomy to act: They possess free will. Hippolytus boldly states, “Free will is what distinguishes us from the animals and I have no intention of behaving like a f—king animal” (35). Despite this declaration of choice and autonomy, Phaedra still posseses the same illicit love for Hippolytus, although her curse and the role of the gods in their lives are altogether removed (29,33). For some reason, whether natural or by way of an unmentioned and implied curse, she cannot resist loving Hippolytus. Phaedra confides to Strophe, “Meant to be. We were meant to be… Can’t deny something this big…

Can’t switch this off. Can’t crush it. Can’t. Wake up with it, burning me” (9). Another line that could be interpreted as a reference to a curse is, after engaging in a sexual act with one another,

Hippolytus states, “Can’t happen again. Wouldn’t be about me. Never was” (22). This could be referring to the curse, as this stands true for Phaedra in all other versions. She was destined to fall in love with Hippolytus no matter what kind of person Hippolytus became or how he acted Goldgof 21 towards her. However, the other editions explicitly mention the curse as the reason for Phaedra’s actions and Kane’s work does not, so the world of Phaedra’s Love is still considered free from a sense of heavenly determinism. Kane iterates this idea, “I wanted the same drive towards destruction at the end but I didn’t want the passion imposed by the external force of the gods. I wanted to give it to the characters, to make it a human tragedy, so I turned him into something quite different” (Saunders 2009, 69).

With the establishment of an autonomous world, I turn to analyzing Phaedra’s emotions of guilt and shame. This presents a challenge because Phaedra’s lines are limited and, as mentioned earlier, she commits suicide halfway through the play. In truth, Kane does not seem heavily concerned with Phaedra or her emotions. However, based on these limited lines, I still assert that this Phaedra is the least shameful of all four editions. Not only does she never say that she is ashamed or even perplexed over her feelings for Hippolytus, she has no problem admitting these feelings to her daughter. As stated earlier, shame is a response to a failure or shortcoming of what society expects of him or herself. Unlike all previous versions, Phaedra never cries out about how her reputation as queen could be tarnished or how her daughter may suffer if this love became public. It is especially interesting to note that in this free world, there is no explicit god who takes responsibility for Phaedra’s feelings or the actions of the play. Phaedra, as far as one can tell, is fully responsible for her actions, and still feels very little guilt, along with little to no shame. The only mention of a feeling of guilt and wrongdoing comes after she has consummated her feelings towards Hippolytus. She states, “I’ve never been unfaithful before” (19). Even this line does not make a strong case for a guilty Phaedra, as guilt is defined as a feeling of tension after violating a moral code and the desire to relieve that tension is what prompts someone to take action. However, she lacks that desire to relieve her guilt, as right after commenting on her Goldgof 22 adulterous act, Phaedra says, “I want this to happen again… I do” (19). This leads to doubt over whether she felt guilty in the first place. There is also no evidence that Phaedra committed suicide because she felt guilty or ashamed, which can be assumed in the other retellings of the myth. In Kane’s version, her suicide is a matter of rejection and emotional pain. Her last words of the play were to Hippolytus. She cries, “Why do you hate me?” (23). She feels “burned” by

Hippolytus after his brutal rejection of her love and his admittance to having had sexual relations with her daughter. The Phaedra we encounter in Kane’s play lacks any sense of shame and guilt and seems to live in a bubble, unaffected by outside scorn from her daughter, a doctor, and even

Hippolytus.

Conclusion

Depending on the intended lesson and audience, as well as the cultural, personal, and religious surroundings of the author during the creation of the play, the characters’ emotions and reactions change. This remains the case despite many of the plot points and resulting consequences of the play remaining the same. In essence, each playwright depicts Phaedra’s reactions (i.e. emotions) to the same action in a different manner. I have found that there is a fairly stable correlation between the world that the author has created and Phaedra’s emotions.

The world which the author has chosen to depict may find part of its influence in the environment of the author’s time period. For example, the influence of Racine’s belief in

Jansenism can help explain the highly determined world of Phèdre. In Euripides’ Hippolytus and

Racine’s Phèdre, the characters find themselves constrained by the whims of the gods and an inescapable curse. In both these versions, the audience encounters a Phaedra with very low levels of guilt and higher levels of shame. In contrast, Seneca’s world allows for a sense of responsibility and a greater freedom of choice, and Kane’s world is entirely independent. In both Goldgof 23 these cases, we encounter a Phaedra relatively free of shame. While the correlation seems to hold up, the specific levels of shame and guilt are different in each play, creating a unique Phaedra in each piece.

By taking the same myth and tracking for a specific theme in several adaptations, one can truly see the influence of literary movements, culture, and personal life on the interpretation of a story. Kane’s piece, for example, feels highly personal, dealing with issues of depression and malaise. On the other hand, Seneca’s piece, its direct predecessor, critiques the choices of nobility, echoing directly the issues of the monarchy at the time, while infusing many beliefs of

Stoicism. It is especially interesting to analyze something such as Phaedra’s shame, which has been an integral and even controversial part of the story since Euripides first increased it in his revision of his original play, and see how it was interpreted by other playwrights at different times in history. Even when keeping the actions, consequences, and characters fairly consistent, each play reads differently and possesses a unique tone—I argue in part due to the evolving interpretation of Phaedra’s shame and guilt. Future studies may choose to take this design of tracking single emotions over several adaptations in order to further illustrate the influences of society on the interpretation of emotion in literature.

Goldgof 24

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