Example Classics Essay

Illustrate the importance of the themes of self-control, shame and desire in Euripides' Hippolytus. How does Euripides connect these themes to the world of the Athenian audience?

Euripides' Hippolytus (1972)is a paradoxical play that, at its heart, deals with the outcomes ofconflicting human emotion. As Charles Segal suggests in his study Euripidesand the Poetics of Sorrow (1993) commensurate with a great many of theplaywright's other works - Alcestis, Hecuba etc., Hippolytus examinesthe divisions and conflicts of male and female experience (and) all threealso experiment with the limits of the tragic form (Segel, 1993: 3).

There are no clear cut moraldemarcations in Hippolytus,the ethical sense and movement of the piece is symbolised by the figures ofAphrodite and Artemis who straddle the drama both symbolically and physicallybeing as they are present in both the first and last scenes. As we shall see,the outcomes of the narrative veer more towards a psychological questioning ofwhat it is to be human than any moral proselytizing and the characters showboth weakness and strength in their dealing with the Gods and their quixoticnatures. With this in mind, in this essay I would like to look at this conceptin Hippolytus but more specifically how it relates to the notions ofself control, shame and desire, all subjects that form an integral part of thedrama's ultimate socio-ethical meaning.

Firstly, I will look at the dramaitself, attempting to illustrate and draw out instances of moral thinkingwithin it, then I will move on to examine the ways in which these are blurredand made complicated by Euripides before going to suggest ways in which thismight have been specifically tailored as both a critique and a lesson to thecontemporary Athenian audience.

Aristotle, in his Poetics(1965) calls Euripides our most tragic of poets (1965: 49) chiefly throughthe misfortune that befalls many of his leading characters at the conclusionsof his dramas. However, Aristotle also criticises Euripides for the faultymanagement of other aspects of the plot, and the moral and ethical position ofhis characters must be one of these. Let us, for instance, consider thecharacter of Hippolytus himself. On the surface, he seems to fulfil the rubricset by Aristotle that states a tragic hero must be better than average (Aristotle,1965: 52) in terms of morality and humanity; Hippolytus is a follower ofArtemis, the Greek goddess of constancy and self control, as is stated byAphrodite in the opening passges:

that son ofTheseus born of the Amazon, Hippolytus, who holy Pitteus taught, alone of theall the dwellers in this land of Rroezen, calls me the vilest of the deities.Love he scorns, and , as for marriage, will none of it. (Euripides, 1972: 225)

It is this self control that is themain focus of the play, as Hippolytus is shown to be, as Aristotle states ofbetter than average moral worth. However, there are subtle psychologicalsuggestions that beneath the external veneer of moral constancy, Hippolytus isas weak and as human as his audience. We can witness, for example hismisogynistic tirade after the Nurse reveals Phaedra's actions:

Great Zeus, whydidst thou, to man's sorrow, put woman, evil and counterfeit, to dwell whereshines the sun? If thou wert minded that the human race should multiply, it wasnot from women they should have drawn their stock (Euripides, 1972: 230)

This scene could be interpreted, asindeed Barnes and Sutherland do in Hippolytus in Drama and Myth (1960:82)as the reaction of an overtly moral consciousness to the very object he sees asthreatening it. However, this scene could also be indicative of what MelanieKlein called projection (Klein, 1991; 1997) in which the subject attributestraits and failings of their own self to another.With this in mind, it is easy to see that what one witnesses in Hippolytus'misogyny is much deeper than a mere hatred of women and the projection of hisown self hatred, brought about by the constant repression of his desire.

This, at once, adds a psychologicallayer of complexity to Euripides' characters and also distinguishes them fromthe, relatively, simplistic tenants of Aristotle.

What then are the outcomes ofHippolytus' moral conflicts? What are the tragic results? According toAristotle, the tragedy is characterised by a change in fortune from prosperityto misery (Aristotle, 1965: 48) and we can see this is certainly the case witha number of the characters. Theseus makes this journey in what we could thinkof as a typically Attic manner. We can note his initial moral position as beingone of conviction as he defends the honour of his wife against the perceivedlaxity of his son, as in this passage:

Behold thisman; he, my own son, hath outraged mine honour, his guilt most clearly provedby my dead wife (Euripides, 1972: 232)

We can also see, however, that thisis short lived, as we become witness to what Aristotle called the anagnoresis,or the discovery; the goddess Artemis being the facilitator of this action. Inthe character of Phaedra, however, this situation is, to an extent, reversed.She begins the play as an innocent victim of Aphrodite's wish to reap revengeon Hippolytus:

Aphrodite: SoPhaedra is to die, an honoured death t'is true., but still to die; for I willnot let her suffering outweigh the payment of such a forfeit by my foes as shallsatisfy my honour. (Aristotle, 1972: 225)

Of course, because of this it isPhaedre's desire that is the motivating force behind the tragedy. She is, inmany ways, the human manifestation of the drives of Aphrodite as Hippolytus isof Artemis. Like Hippolytus, also however, she is caught between the two polesof desire and self control by, firstly, not acting upon her sexual drives and,secondly, by committing suicide. It is only in her letter that, ultimately,damns Hippolytus, that she shows her true nature:

I can no longerkeep the cursed tale within the portal of my lips, cruel thoughits utterancebe. Ah me! Hippolytus hath dared by brutal force to violate my honour, reckingnaught of Zeus, whose awful eye is all over. (Euripides, 1972: 232)

Phaedre's character here altersfrom one of innocent victim of the gods to one of false accuser. Interpreted ina contemporary light, however, could we not suggest that her actions are notthe products of an innate maliciousness but of her own shame? Trapped betweenthe desires instilled in her by Aphrodite and that which she knows is sociallycorrect she not only chooses to take her own life but, in a psychologicalsense, refuses to acknowledge her sin. Again Euripides displays the concept ofprojection only this time it is Phaedre's self loathing and shame that isprojected onto Hippolytus.

The enormity of this act, thesexual longing of an older woman for a younger man and the suggestion of an incestuousrelationship is stressed by James Morwood in his essay on Euripides:

The Athenianlegal speeches attest to the domestic conflicts to which this could lead. Butit could also cause sexual confusion, and the canonical Greek articulation ofthe illicit love of a married woman for a single man, the famous love ofPhaedra for Hippolytus, is compounded by the quasi-incestuous connotations ofthe stepparent-stepchild bond. (Morwood, 1997)

In this, the play must have had adefinite political subtext to it; Euripides serving as a guardian of publicmorality, suggesting that tragedy arises out of illicit love between nearfamily members.

There is, however, another deepermeaning to play, I think, and one that would be just as relevant to an Athenianaudience as a warning against incest. What we see in the play's structure, inits very narrative form, are circles within circles. Each character, ultimatelysuffers and they suffer not only from their individual desires, shames and lackof self control but through each other's. Phaedre suffers through her desirefor Hippolytus and through the actions of the Nurse, Hippolytus suffers throughthe actions of his father and stepmother and Theseus suffers through theactions of his wife and son. Through structuring his narrative in such aninterconnected way Euripides suggests that personal desire and lack of selfcontrol affects not only the individual but those around them; we are, in asense, connected and our actions resonant outwards to those around us.

As Sophie Mills suggests in herstudy Theseus, Tragedy and the Athenian Empire (1997: 19) there is afurther thread to the play, one that concerns the relationship man has to theGods. It must not be forgotten that the tragedy in Hippolytus ultimatelyemanates from the Goddess Aphrodite, it is her actions after all that sets inmotion the entire drama. The two Goddess, as I stated in the earlier parts ofthis paper, form a binary that entraps the main characters of the play andforces them along predestined paths. Euripides' ultimate philosophical subtextis, then, one of man's position to the Gods and to the fate that they representand he achieves this by not only the psychological polarity that the charactersfind themselves in but also a physical polarity of the two Goddesses.

As Mills suggests, the character ofTheseus, in many ways, represents the very populace of Athens:

Where he is therepresentative of Athens in tragedy, Theseus embodies Athenian civilization inall its manifestations, so that he is usually less an individual character withhis own fate than a symbol of Athenian virtue. He is consistently givencharacteristics which are considered as especially commendable in Athenian (andoften Greek) thought, and such characteristics are usually marked as uniquelyAthenian, (Mills, 1997: 57)

Could Euripides be offering awarning to his Athenian audience concerning their own desires and self control?After all, the sexual desire and control of Hippolytus and Phaedre pails intoinsignificance when compared to those of Theseus who loses control and loses ason. Could Euripides also be warning his audience about the vagaries of the Godsand gently reminding them of their humanity both in terms of their self restraintand in their mutability?

As we have seen, Euripides' dramais a complex and, surprisingly, contemporary play suggesting as it does a widevariety of critical and psychological areas; from Melanie Klein's notions onprojection of one's own frustrations and self hatred, to Aristotle's concepts ofanagnoresis and tragic heroes; from issues concerning Athenian politics totheir moral and ethical systems. It is, however, in the combination of thesethings that, I think, Euripides achieves the play's true meaning. Thecomplexity of life is mirrored in Hippolytus by the complexity of thecharacter's interconnected lives and finely wrought psychologies that must havebeen as affecting to an Athenian audience as a modern one.