Hippolytus As A Tragic Hero Analysis

Since the fall of the Greek empire, the concepts of a tragic play have been largely unchanged over the course of centuries. In fact, Aristotle’s concepts of what constitutes a tragedy have provided people with a template for close to two thousand years. Although there have been minor adaptations to what constitutes a tragedy, the general outline from Aristotle has provided a way for people to distinguish tragedies from comedies. One of the most notable playwrights of classical Athens, Euripides, is one of the few whose works have survived the test of time – both literally and figuratively. One of his most critically acclaimed works, Hippolytus, is consistent with other playwrights’ works in that it largely focuses on characters that ultimately …show more content…
This play essentially introduces readers to three major characters, and as we follow their lives it becomes clear that each of them can be defined as the central character of the story. The first of these characters is Phaedra, and as is the case with many other tragedies at the time, she paints the picture of a woman with underlying conflicts. For this reason she can be a candidate as the tragic hero in this story, but upon further inspection is becomes clear that she fails the test. Phaedra is the wife of Theseus, and because Theseus is king of Athens, she acts as the queen of Athens. After Theseus heroically vanquished the mythical Minotaur, she travelled with Theseus to be his queen out of gratitude by her father and king of Crete, Minos. At the start of the play, Theseus is not present as he has voluntarily decided to exile after committing murder, as an act of penitence. However, his desertion sets up the future conflict. Hippolytus is the title character of this play, and is the bastard son of Theseus. Hippolytus has been groomed from an early age to be a champion warrior and hunter, and for that reason is highly devoted to Artemis – the goddess of hunting. Out of jealousy and spite, Aphrodite decides to test Hippolytus’ devotion and chastity, and tries to seduce him into worshipping her instead. However, Theseus has a strong moral compass, and refuses to be ensnared by Aphrodite’s advances. Aphrodite then decides seek revenge against Theseus, and to do so, she places Phaedra in a hex that makes her fall in love with