Abstract
Racine's "Phaedra" is archetypically impressive because its pessimism is so extreme. Scholars point out that Racine wrote "Phaedra" shortly after he had converted to Jansenism - a Christian sect that believes that all people are born sinful and can become good only through the assistance of divine spirits. This analysis focuses upon Phaedra's role in the play, and explains her perfect symmetry of light and dark, passion and guilt.

From the Paper
"Phaedra's tragic flaw, of course, is that she is madly in love with her stepson Hyppolytus. After Phaedra's husband goes away for long periods of time and leaves her alone, she is even more enrapt with the idea of being with Hyppolytus. This passion is not only the cause of being alone, but Venus also plays a role in Phaedra's mad, passionate love for her stepson."

Tags:play, drama, French, 1600s

Abstract
Both "Tartuffe" by Jean Baptiste Moliere and "Phaedra" by Jean Racine are plays about passion and the momentary defeat of reason. The paper explores these themes in both plays. It shows that "Tartuffe" is as much a tale of hypocrisy as of passion and a suspension of reason and that "Phaedra" is about a powerful and passionate queen who is mocked by the object of her passion, Hippolytus, her stepson. The paper also uses Saint Thomas of Aquina's "Summa Theologica" for his views on reason.

From the Paper
"Although Tartuffe appears to be an extreme case of irascibleness, his hypocrisy must be his perceived "proper" strategy to survive. Reason is entirely absent in his life, which leads to the inference that his life experiences may have completely eliminated its inherent power in Tartuffe. But in Orgon, the loss of reason is temporary and condition by the presence of the light of truth and reason, which his wife Elmire brings back to him. Just as enormously erratic as Tartuffe is Phaedra, whose fear of age and perceived loss of attractiveness, lead her to crave for Hippolytus. She also suffers a blackout of reason. Looking closely, it is a resistance of death in aging that conditions this fear. And Hippolytus' youth, as well as his challenging improbability as a pursuit, makes him seem like the solution to Phaedra's problems with mortality. She has yet to discover that physical life is not the only, or the better, kind of life there is. But she loses the chance and the time to discover the true answer and solution by destroying herself, finding no more reason to live."

Tags:Orgon, Elmire, Valere

Abstract
This paper compares and contrasts Moliere's play, "Tartuffe" and Jean Racine's play, "Phaedra." It specifically compares the theme of lust that can be found in both stories and shows how they are presented in different forms. Specifically, the paper discusses the characters displaying the lust, the way in which surrounding characters react to that display and why the authors chose to use the methods he did to form the overall theme.

From the Paper
"Racine shows Phaedra in more sympathetic manner because he is not focused on singling out a type of person, but rather, an idea. Racine's intent is to shed light on the limitations of rationality over passion and lust. He wants to show Phaedra as human and as someone more identifiable with. By doing this, Racine better displays his idea. The futility of rationality over passion is in all of us. It is a human universal and thus can not be changed. Moliere is more focused on showing the hypocrisy in certain types of behavior. He takes every opportunity to show what type of behavior it is that he wants our attention drawn to. From the beginning of the play until the end, Moliere has his characters say things like "Shall you conclude that all men are deceivers, and that, today, there are no true believers? Let atheists make that foolish inference; learn to distinguish virtue from pretense" (Act V sc. 2, 1. 46-50) in order to let us see how he wants us to change. He wants us to see these types of behavior in our everyday lives. By making us dislike Tartuffe, Moliere makes the reader more likely to see the hypocrisy. The dislike will leave a more lasting impression and effect how much we notice hypocrites outside of the story as well as inside of it. By invoking more obvious emotions, Moliere's story is more likely to inspire us to affect the outside world either by changing our own actions or understanding other people's actions."

Tags:act, passion, behavior, character

Abstract
The paper focuses on the secondary characters in Racine's classical drama, "Phedre", who take the form of a confident or confidente. The paper looks at their functions that involve being a listening ear to whom the central characters divulge all kinds of secrets, taking actions and power from their masters and placing them into their own hands and finally, acting as a tool for literary unison. The paper clearly demonstrates how these seemingly ancillary characters are in fact key to the reader's understanding and appreciation of the text.

From the Paper
"In Racine's classical drama, Phedre, there can be found a large number of secondary characters, with Phedre, Aricie, Hippolyte and Thesee each having a corresponding consort in the form of a confident or confidente. These seemingly ancillary characters are in fact key to the reader's understanding and appreciation of the text and serve many a purpose.
"Most fundamentally, as their title would imply, the most obvious of these functions appears in the form of an advisor, a listening ear to whom the central characters divulge all manner of secrets. For example, it is to Oenone that Phedre first admits the burning passion that so torments her. Moreover, it is in this capacity as bearers of privileged information that the confidants serve as a method of exposition for Racine."

Tags:Oenone, intermediaries, advisors, literary, unison

Abstract
This paper looks at elements of freedom and choice in the world through Jean-Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness." In particular it examines his writings on freedom which appear in "Being and Doing: Freedom," Chapter One, part four. The writer focuses on the impact of the industrial age on modern philosophical thought. The paper examines the basic tenets of Sartre's philosophy and provides an understanding as to how this fit in to the meaning and function of life in the post-industrial age.

From the Paper
"Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in, Being and Nothingness, that the first element of freedom is condition of action and that the fundamental element of free action is one that is a choice of the self in the world and by the same token it is a discovery of the world (Sartre, 461). When examining the foundations of our modern philosophical thought, it is necessary to understand that where religion once provided the sole source of philosophical inquiry, the advent of the industrial age was the moment in time when Man began to take control of the world and society in manners that had never before been witnessed."

Tags:choice, industrial, age, philosophical, modern

Abstract
This paper looks at the works of St. Jean De Crevecueur and Tom Paine, both from the early Puritan period, one a Frenchman and one an Englishman who defined the America as seen through their own eyes and illustrated contrary ideas of the new world that was to come. Thomas Paine focused directly upon the United States' aims and objectives by influencing the breaking off of America from England in order for the country to expand itself and be its own free government. Crevecueur saw it being an abundant, affluent and liberated country rich in agriculture.

From the Paper
"Thomas Paine's Common Sense, focused directly upon the United States' aims and objectives by influencing the disjoined of America from England in order for the country to expand itself and be its own free government. Thus, he utilized the metaphor of a "young oak" that became "full grown" in order to symbolize as well as encourage this change. In the novel, Common Sense, the most general theme that run throughout the novel was growth that had to do directly with the extensive landscape, the distended population of the United States, the government system that was becoming more like an adult independent who has grown- up to the mother country and the abundant soil of the Americas, which all reflected and helped to give this rising country (A. Owen, 1984)."

Tags:france, revolution, england, civil, freedom, natural, reason, rights, free, government

Abstract
Through a comparison and contrast of these works, this paper explains how each one reveals a richly layered analysis of 17 century France, its politics, culture and society.

From the Paper
"Moliere's work is greatly respected and vastly studied by contemporary academia, but in the author's time it was frequently shunned and even banned for its elements of harsh criticism against the religious and social status quo. A satirical work, Tartuffe was found so offensive to its audience that it was banned after its seminal presentation (Slater xviii). Not only did Moliere's exposure of the hypocrisy he observed in his environment, but also his discussion of religious wrong-doings gave the French public-not to mention the French bureaucracy-much to criticize."

Tags:madame, pernelle, orgon, celimene, greek, tragedy, experience, unrequited, forbidden, inconvenient

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to discuss the theme of free will and predestination in two plays: Racine's Phaedra and Calderon's Life Is a Dream. A comparison and contrast will be made of the conflict between free will and predestination in the two plays.
Predestination is usually viewed in a negative way in drama, regarded as an unfortunate destiny that leads to doom because of predestined events. Racine's Phaedra is a classic example of this. Free will is the ability to choose freely, insinuating that an individual's choices can be made freely without external constraints, or fate determining the outcome. Calderon's Life Is a Dream is an example of how free will can alter predestination.

Honor in Life Is a Dream acts the same way passion does in Phaedra. Calderon's concept of honor and Racine's concept of (...)"

Abstract
The paper relates that in Seneca's "Phaedra", Hippolytus's innocence is declared by Phaedra when she recants her confession of his crime of rape against her, and Phaedra then kills herself feeling ashamed and unworthy of life. The paper describes how Theseus, Phaedra's husband, regrets cursing his son and causing his death and he expresses his remorse and sorrow by giving Hippolytus an honorable and proper burial. The paper notes that Theseus does not feel the same sorrow and remorse for his wife; Phaedra is not given a proper burial after her suicide.

From the Paper
"In Seneca's "Phaedra', Hippolytus's innocence is declared by Phaedra when she recants her confession of his crime of rape against her. Phaedra then kills herself feeling ashamed and unworthy of life. Theseus, Phaedra's husband, regrets cursing his son and causing his death. He expresses his remorse and sorrow by giving Hippolytus an honorable and proper burial."

Tags:kane, seneca, strindberg

Abstract
This paper observes the role that woman have played in Neoclassical literature. It takes the examples from literary works of both Jean Baptiste Moliere and Jean Racine in order to more closely examine this.

From the Paper
"Women though thought beneath men and lacking specific qualities deemed important at this time, were portrayed as vital significant factors of daily life. As depicted in Tartuffe and Phaedre the qualities and characteristics possessed by women of this era were essential factors in the effectiveness of the plays and helped to reveal the views and ideologies of this time period. The differences are easy to find between these women and women today. The challenge is to look for the admirable qualities of these characters and search for the same within."

Tags:aricia, dorine, elmire, mme, moliere, perenelle, phaedre, racine, tartuffe