Theseus' murderous rage appalled me. Our tragic inability to master our most destructive emotions is portrayed here with clinical clarity. The possibility that we will not, when seized in its grip, be able to release ourselves from a violent passion is deeply frightening. But of course, what frightens me is also precisely what draws me to the play. In Phaedra , Racine's conviction is that our reason is ultimately impotent in the face of our most monstrous passions.
Monster is the image that recurs in the play.
Phaedra, half-sister to the Minotaur, is besieged by a monstrous desire, a lust for her own stepson. At every step, Phaedra knows that not to suppress this desire will be fatal, but she cannot, because in suppressing it she is devoured from the inside. She speaks, unleashing in her husband Theseus a passion so monstrous that it devours his only son and heir. What makes this play so modern is that there is a hideous non-inevitability to the ultimate tragedy. The gods cannot be blamed.