Chaos Resulting From Mistiming and Miscommunication in “Phaedra”

Chaos Resulting From Mistiming and Miscommunication in “Phaedra”

Throughout life everyone is tempted and feels the urge to make decisions off of emotions

or feelings of love. In Phaedra, written by Racine, we see a perfect example of how situations

can quickly spiral out of control due to miscommunication about these emotions. We also see a

great display of mistiming, things occurring at such an inconvenient time for the people

involved. For instance, in the play Hippolytus, son of Theseus who is King of Troezen and

Athens, has a profound love for a woman that is forbidden to marry due to royal implications.

This woman, Aricia, we discover later in the poem has the same feelings for Hippolytus. On top

of this unfortunate relationship, Theseus has been away for some time carrying out duties in

foreign lands, and is rumored to of been dead. This rumor that goes around is a huge

miscommunication factor that forces the play to go into utter chaos. We also see someone who is

persuaded very easily, and how this as well forces things to go crazy. These several factors in the

play set up a chain reaction of chaos throughout the kingdom of Troezen. The chaos that ensues

throughout the play is all due to mistiming, miscommunication and the power of persuasion.

Miscommunication begins right off the bat of this play when characters Hippolytus and

Phaedra tell their personal assistants, Thermanes (Hippolytus’ tutor) and Oenone (Phaedra’s

nurse), of their secret loves. Had this communication not of occurred, nobody would of known of

Phaedra’s love for Hippolytus, which would have completely prevented Oenone from wreaking

the havoc that she did towards the end of this play. Had she not of known this knowledge many

of the situations that occur would have been extremely limited. While not as big of a deal, had

Hippolytus not of communicated his love to Thermanes, he could have avoided ever having to