Hippolytus+Character+List+and+Analysis

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Character list and analysis
Aphrodites plays a major role in this play, though behind the scenes. She directly influences Phaedra into falling in love with Hippolytus in order to punish him for his chastity and scorn of women. She ends up succeeding in her desires to punish Hippolytus, but she ends up incurring the anger of Artemis, who vows to kill one of her favorite humans in return for Aphrodites’ meddling.
 * Aphrodites**

Aphrodites is best known as the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. She is the mother of Cupid, a god who can make humans fall in love with each other via his arrows.

Artemis plays a relatively small role in the play, revealing herself at the very end to conclude the play. She reveals Aphrodites’ intervention and promises Theseus vengeance. She is the favored god of Hippolytus.
 * Artemis**

Artemis is best known as the Greek god of hunting and chastity.

One of the main characters of the play, which is obvious as the play is named after this character. Hippolytus, through a strange turn of events, ends up dying due to his stepmother’s actions. He remains chaste and honorable throughout the novel, though these actions end in his demise instead of benefiting him.
 * Hippolytus**

He worships Artemis as he wishes to live a life of the hunt, and respects chastity. His worship of Artemis and desire for chastity leads to the ire of Aphrodites, who decides to have him put in his place by causing his mother to fall in love with him, which then causes a chain of events resulting in his death.

Hippolytus, in other versions of this story, ends up falling in love with another woman other than Phaedra. When Phaedra offers her love to him he is horrified, and she becomes angry and accuses him of rape, but does not commit suicide. His lover pleads for his innocence, but he is still found guilty. He dies all the same.

A relatively small character in the story. The nurse, believing that all can be resolved in regards to Phaedra’s love, decides to tell Hippolytus of it. This ends up being a rather bad descision, as Phaedra concludes that she must now commit suicide or else risk losing her honor.
 * Nurse**

The stepmother of Hippolytus, Wife of Theseus.
 * Phaedra**

Another of the main characters in the play. Phaedra is faced with a dire situation after being charmed into loving Hippolytus: she must risk losing her honor or she must die to preserve it. After being rejected, essentially, by Hippolytus she decides that she must commit suicide. However, having been rejected, she decides to involve Hippolytus in her death.

She plants a note on her body that is found by Theseus after she hangs herself. Inside the note she lays blame to Hippolytus, occusing him of raping her. Thus, she becomes responsible to some degree for Hippolytus’ death.

Phaedra begins as a character that compassion can be shown for in the beginning of the play, but after she drags down Hippolytus with her, this view is essentially lost. However, one must realize that she herself was manipulated by a god into her lust for her stepson.

Another major character in the play. Theseus is the father of Hippolytus and the husband of Phaedra. Theseus, having found his wife dead when returning home, ends up blaming Hippolytus as his only proof is the letter found on his wife’s corpse. In his anger he curses and exiles his stepson.
 * Theseus**

Theseus ends up being wrong in his decision, as he later finds out that his son is blameless. In the play, Theseus seems to be very much dictated by his quick wrath. He probably serves as a lesson to be reasonable and not be controlled by anger.