Happiness is something Phaedre wants to feel. Happiness is the problem of a person’s libido. There is no rule how to achieve this, however, everyone tries to find it in his own way.
Phaedre and Hippolytus try to reach happiness using different methods. They are absolutely opposite characters, thus, they have different visions on love and happiness. Phaedre loves Hippolytus and gives the first preference to her emotional relationships to Hippolytus. Consequently, she is predominantly erotic. Here we can talk about eroticism and its meaning. Phaedre finds it impossible to ‘deprive her instinct of satisfaction’ (Freud 52). Hippolytus loves himself more than someone else; he does not have feelings towards another person. Hippolytus seeks for satisfaction in his ‘internal mental processes’ (Freud 35). Thus, he is a narcissistic man and is self-sufficient. He cannot understand Phaedre’s passion and desire to him. Hippolytus is a controversial character and he contradicts his actions. He worships Artemis, but does not honor Artemide. Besides, he is full of chastity and abhors women:
Women! This coin which men find counterfeit!
Why, why, Lord Zeus, did you put them in the world,
in the light of the sun? If you were so determined
to breed the race of men, the source of it
should not have been women…
That husband has the easiest life whose wife
is a mere nothingness, a simple fool,
uselessly sitting by the fireside.
I hate a clever woman. God forbid
that I should ever have a woman at home
with more than woman’s wits! (263-264)
However, Hippolytus does not accuse Phaedre of her guilt. She has never acted her passion, but is guilty for her thoughts and desires. Phaedre wants to achieve her goal and she fight for her love-object. Hippolytus says:
Now I will go and leave this house until
Theseus returns from his foreign wanderings,
and I’ll be silent.’ (264)
Phaedre’s love is forbidden by a society, in which the social norms restrict such kind of love, and this love opposes interests and norms of the society. Besides, erotic love was under restrictions in all societies of all times. These are the words of Sigmund Freud, who stresses that ‘erotic life has in all time experienced Taboos, laws and customs impose further restrictions, which affect both men and women. Not all civilizations go equally far in this; and the economic structure of the society also influences the amount of sexual freedom that remains’ (59).
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