Comment on Tragic Heroines Medea & Phedre

Comment on Tragic Heroines Medea & Phedre

http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10910
Like every tragic hero, both these women suffer from an inner conflict, a battle within and against themselves, and at the same time are engaged in a struggle with their world, their society. Irrepressible passion, a sense of destiny, hatred or love, can drive individuals to go beyond their own limits, whether or not they understand fully what is happening to them or what the consequences are. The other factor in their tragedy, however, is that the social constraints that hold them back have, for one reason or another, been loosened.

There is nobility in the tragic hero or heroine, a determination to break out of whatever circle constrains or holds them down. The reasons for their resolution need not be noble in themselves, or particularly visionary. In Phaedra's case it is love or passion that leads her to hurl herself against the walls that hem her in; in Medea's it is the pain of betrayal. Their failure is inevitable because, while their own world may be falling apart, the world of the future which will operate according to different values does not yet exist. At the end of Racine's play, Phaedra (like Cleopatra), announces her own death. But as Theseus says, in his final speech, the world cannot just be put back in place. When such passions are unleashed, the world changes for ever. That is the revolutionary promise of tragedy: it points ahead to a future as yet undefined that will replace this conflict-ridden present.