• How does Racine arrange his play to follow the three unities of time, place, and action? Does the Hippolytus/Aricia violate the unity of Action? Why or Why not?
• Examine the relationships of the main characters with their confidants–Hippolytus with Theramenes, Phaedra with Oenone, Aricia with Ismene. What sorts of similarities and differences are there?
• Racine says that, “Phaedra is neither entirely guilty nor altogether innocent.” Do you agree? Give specifics to support your response.

Answer preview

How Racine Arrange the play to follow unity of action

Racine confines the lives of the characters` in the play to one single setting. Limiting the lives of the characters helped the author to spend a brief span of hours in describing the tragedy. The author reduces physical conflicts and instead filled characters with psychological conflicts. The author also reduced trappings by the time the curtains are raising the crisis of the tragedy is already brewing.  Hippolytus and Aricia relationship doesn`t violate the unity of action because the author can confine the happening within the development of the tragedy.  In other words, the incidents of both characters concurrently run with the development of the disaster.

Similarities and Differences of relationships between key characters and their confidants

Individuals’ relationships of the main characters with their confidants show high levels of trust. For Phaedra with Oenone, Oenone reveals…