‘No Exit’ in Racine’s "Phèdre": The Making of the Anti-Hero

Author(s): Theresa Varney Kennedy

Source: The French Review , October 2014, Vol. 88, No. 1 (October 2014), pp. 165-178
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French

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The French Review, Vol. 88, No. 1, October 2014 Printed in U.S.A.

'No Exit' in Racine's Phèdre:

The Making of the Anti-Hero

by Theresa Varney Kennedy

In an interview with John Gerassi, Jean-Paul Sartre directly associates th

emergence of the anti-hero with Racine:

Starting in ninth grade, the literary contradictions began to set in. Corneille was
no problem; his heroes, Horace, Le Cid, Rodrigue, were real heroes; but Racine
made me hesitate. His heroes are really anti-heroes. And that sort of fitted with
what I read about the war. It reinforced my suspicion that happiness is objective
and communal—hence, in the bourgeois world, nonexistent. (30)

While the Merriam-Webster dictionary characterizes the anti-hero—first define

in 1714—as a protagonist "conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities," Sartre takes
the definition a step further, and contextualizes the anti-hero within an oppressiv
environment.1 He relates the Racinian anti-hero's absolutist milieu to his own po
World War II, capitalist-driven bourgeois society, in which the individual's pursu
of happiness is sacrificed for the needs of the greater good. According to Sartre, t
anti-hero then reveals the inconsistencies and corruption in a society that places
its stifling values above individual freedom. Among Racine's characters, there is
no greater anti-hero than Phèdre. Paralyzed by the gods that curse her very
existence, Phèdre accepts her insignificance and embraces the forces that oppose
her. Yet while the anti-heroine's circumstances may be blamed in part on the go
influence, her crime is, in fact, all too evident. Racine himself stated in the prefa
to his play that Phèdre "n'est ni tout à fait coupable, ni tout à fait innocente" (3
Phèdre blames her confidante, Œnone, for her predicament, demonstratin
Phèdre's 'bad faith,' or, a refusal to take responsibility for her own actions. Phèdr
serves as a victim of circumstances while simultaneously playing the role of the
victimizer.

Thus, as an anti-hero, Phèdre exhibits the following characteristics: 1 ) Doomed

to failure before the action even begins, she is forced to accept the presence
oppressive 'powers that be' that determine the course of her life; 2) yet, in acceptin
her fate, she denies her own flaws by blaming others for her own immoral behavio
While she may function as a victim of circumstance, she becomes 'unheroic' the

165

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166 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

moment she begins to drown in bad faith by making excuses for poor
choices. Phèdre's bad faith manifests itself then by her projecting onto CEn
responsibility for her crime. Thus, as the anti-hero, she poses a ques
responsibility, and functions as the didactic tool par excellence in two way
she serves as a vehicle for social critique. Phèdre reveals the injustice of th
who detain her. As the seventeenth-century public grew more suspicious o
monarchy, it identified less with the classic hero and more with an anti-h
who fails to embody the 'glory' of an absolute ruler.2 At the same time, Phèd
example demonstrates that we should be held accountable for our actions,
our predicament.
I will argue that Sartre used Phèdre as an early prototype when he defin
an anti-hero looked like in Huis clos (No Exit), his play about tragic space a
judgment of others. My study focuses on the conditions that contribute to
understanding of what constitutes an anti-hero, and the environment from w
(or she in this case) emerges in Racine's Phèdre. I employ historical and com
approaches to explore these similar contexts. Sartre suggests that his tw
century society, caught up in 'bourgeois' capitalist values, is similar to tha
which Racine's anti-hero emerges. In a Sartrean capitalist-driven societ
competition plays a role, human relationships are "defined by hatred and vi
an unprecedented degree" (Wood 196). In a similar manner, seventeenth-ce
courtiers, competing for the king's pensions, lived in a society ruled by v
corruption. While the impoverished and "domesticated" courtiers were no
victimized by Louis XIV's absolutist policy, they did not challenge the Sun
power.3 It thus becomes possible to connect the courtier anti-hero to the exis
anti-hero. For both, their search for the self is seemingly hopeless against
drop of overwhelming political and social powers, yet they do not take respo
for their own immoral choices.
My concluding remarks will suggest that we may see Sartre's tragic an
in Huis clos as a response to Racine's tragic anti-hero in Phèdre, the latter
in which the gods may be held accountable at least in part for the h
predicaments. It is important to note that, even in her blackest transg
Racine allows his public to pity this anti-heroine, whose suffering lead
commit suicide. Sartre's anti-hero, however, freed from the bonds of prede
and thus having no excuse for his or her actions, represents a direct respo
Racine's seventeenth-century anti-hero. For Sartre, the existentialist hero,
his own actions, should define his own essence without bending to the wil
other.' In other words, the Sartrean anti-hero becomes a didactic tool emp
demonstrate that we should not define ourselves according to the wa
perceive us. We will first examine the treatment of the anti-hero and how
defined in Phèdre before applying it to Huis clos.

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Racine's Phèdre 167

Closed Spaces, Dead Ends, and Imposing dances

Racine's Phèdre (1677) can be likened to a veritable huis clos, or locked room,
from which there is no escape from unjust voices of authority.4 In the mysterious
absence of her royal husband, Thésée, Phèdre declares her love to Hippolyte, who
is Thésée's son from a previous marriage. Hippolyte shuns her, however, because
he is in love with Aricie, sole survivor of the royal house supplanted by Thésée,
and under a vow of chastity against her will.5 Upon Thésée's surprise return,
Phèdre's servant Œnone encourages her mistress to save face (and avenge herself)
by claiming that it was Hippolyte who made sexual advances. Thésée, infuriated by
his son's apparent disloyalty, exiles Hippolyte, whereupon he is killed after battling
with a treacherous sea monster conjured up by Poseidon at Thésée's bidding. All
the while blaming Œnone for her predicament, Phèdre commits suicide in the
final scene.

The huis clos in Phèdre reflects the one inhabited by the playwright—an abso
lutist court society. Phèdre was written at the height of Louis XIV's reign, during
which impoverished courtiers obsessed over political and social advancement,
their livelihood depending upon the king's granting of pensions. In court society,
the king's absolute power thus takes center stage, while his subjects carefully guard
their moves. In this setting, all of the courtier's entrances and exits are closely
observed by his rival, or 'the other' who is also attempting to gain the king's favor.6
Court society thus becomes his prison and his stage.
As the king's historiographer and favored playwright, Racine was subject to
the king's wishes, but his success was inextricably linked to his ability to please
the court as well. Phèdre, Racine's last non-Biblical play,7 was not well received at
the premiere performance at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in January 1677. Maurice
Cambier maintains that the courtiers must have responded badly to the play, since
Racine had been directly implicated in l'affaire des poisons, which had greatly
affected morale at court.8 Cambier also confirms that Racine's enemies made
trouble for him by lending support to a mediocre playwright who staged a play on
the same subject.9 These negative events resulted in the playwright's early retire
ment from the professional stage. We may conclude that individual talent must
bow to the whims of the intricate and unforgiving social system that characterizes
the seventeenth-century court.
In this light, Phèdre may be read as a critique of the political and social injustice
of seventeenth-century France. To interpret Phèdre as a Jansenist play10 is problematic
since the masterpiece does not concern itself with a Christian message—especially
in light of the gods' destructive nature: "For the Christian, there is a single omnipo
tent deity and all is under his providence, whereas in the world of Racine's play,
there is a plurality of independent deities with conflicting policies which produce
moral anarchy and disaster" (James and Jondorf 86). Put simply, these multiple

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168 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

gods in Phèdre are found to be unjust. They kill off the innocent whi
playthings—as in the case of Phèdre—kill themselves. Phèdre's plight calls
the words uttered by Gloucester in King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are w
gods, they kill us for their sport" (4.1.147). Shakespeare thus poses the ver
question as Racine—whether or not there is justice in society. In Racine
world, Thésée reassures us that Phèdre's death restores political and social o
Yet, the 'order' maintained by the gods in Racine's play is not one of justice.
Goldmann defines the farcical, propagandistic quality of Phèdre: "Ce t
discours de Thésée] est nécessaire, cependant, pour éviter tout malentendu
rappeler au spectateur que, pour les yeux essentiels de la divinité, le cadavr
pas derrière la scène, là où se trouve le corps de Phèdre, mais sur le devant
la personne du roi qui va régner et gouverner l'État" (440). Goldmann
that Racines propagandistic play promotes an absolutist system through Th
who is given the authority to make life or death decisions. Yet, justice is no
Phèdre's death restores the gods' political order, even while pointing to the i
tions of the system itself. Thésée, who in this case represents the absolute m
does not uphold the laws of a righteous God. Instead, Thésée serves to rein
the higher, yet destructive powers of multiple gods. In such an oppr
environment, Phèdre serves the dual didactic function of an anti-hero. Fir
anti-heroine provides a vehicle for social critique, namely insight into the
authorities of an absolutist system." At the same time, her bad example sho
despite an unjust political system, she is held accountable for her actions.

Phèdre as the Anti-Hero

Le ciel mit dans mon sein une flamme funeste;

La détestable Œnone a conduit tout le reste. [...]
J'ai pris, j'ai fait couler dans mes brûlantes veines;
Un poison que Médée apporta dans Athènes;
Déjà dans mon cœur expirant jette un froid inconnu;
Déjà je ne vois plus qu'à travers un nuage;
Et le ciel et l'époux que ma présence outrage;
Et la mort, à mes yeux dérobant la clarté;
Rend au jour qu'ils souillaient toute sa pureté. (Phèdre 5.7.144-45)

As Starobinski notes, Racines theater is a "poétique du regard" (81). Phèdre

and suffers under the condemning presence of the 'other.' Before her very e
unseen forces had already traced Phèdre's destiny.12 Upon entering the cent
she suspects that some dark maleficent power conspires against her. The ine
judgment of the unseen 'other' weighs heavily upon her:

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Racine's Phèdre 169

Que ces vains ornements, que ces voiles me pèsent!

Quelle importune main, en formant tous ces nœuds,
A pris soin sur mon front d'assembler mes cheveux?
Tout m'afflige, et me nuit, et conspire à me nuire. (1.3.52)

The contemplation of a hopeless existence looms over her head, rendering her
body weak and impotent:

N'allons point plus avant, demeurons, chère Œnone.

Je ne me soutiens plus; ma force m'abandonne:
Mes yeux sont éblouis du jour que je revois;
Et mes genoux tremblants se dérobent sous moi.
Hélas! (1.3.51)

Throughout the play, Phèdre endures the hatred of the gods, whose collective gaze
burns eternally: "Ô haine de Vénus! Ô fatale colère!" (1.3.57). Accepting of her
fate, Phèdre seeks death, paralyzed by her inability to escape the curse of an
invisible but ever-present deity. As the anti-hero, Phèdre welcomes her inevitable
death, traced by a hidden god who will not allow her immoral acts to be covered.13
Phèdre enslaves herself to those who judge her.
Phèdre cedes to a distorted image of herself colored by Œnone's attempts to
please her mistress. In order to rise above her unfortunate situation, the anti
heroine gives in to the illusion. Phèdre is narcissistic, needing ears to hear her and
eyes to approve her. Œnone, whom we may consider as Phèdre's "talking mirror,"
is not simply a confidante. She takes Phèdre's words and directly engenders action
by formulating that which Phèdre is afraid to say or to do.14 Œnone is Phèdre's
voice and interpreter, seeking to bring to light her mistress's hidden desires. Upon
Thésée's supposed death, Œnone convinces Phèdre that she is right to declare her
love to Hippolyte.
This inflated image of the self does not comply with reality, leading inevitably
to self-denial and bad faith. While Œnone feeds Phèdre's innermost desires, it is
only through the eyes of Hippolyte that Phèdre finally sees her true self, as if
reflected in a mirror. As Renée Morel highlights (927), the Racinian stare deflects
upon itself. When Hippolyte rejects Phèdre, an overwhelming self-loathing prevails,
as she oscillates between self-love and self-hatred. The reflexive verbs and antitheses
that color her declaration of love to Hippolyte confirm her self-absorbed, conflicted
state of mind:

J'aime. Ne pense pas qu'au moment que je t'aime,

Innocente à mes yeux je m'approuve moi-même, [...]

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170 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

Je m'abhorre encor plus que tu ne me détestes; [...]

Tu me haïssais plus, je ne t'aimais pas moins. (2.5.81-82)

Nevertheless, she recognizes her illicit passion as a crime. Her passion for Hi
and her hatred of her own self splits her. Her tortured expression of passion fall
on Hippolyte, and through his eyes, she sees herself as a monster:

Venge-toi, punis-moi d'un odieux amour:

Digne fils du héros qui t'a donné le jour,
Délivre l'univers d'un monstre qui t'irrite. (2.5.82)

Her guilt-driven self-centeredness leads to her own suicide, as she cannot s

see her own horrific reflection. In the end, Phèdre's fate echoes that of N
who died self-absorbed in his own reflection.
The anti-hero is like the seventeenth-century courtier who lives in a w
false appearances. Likewise, in the Racinian world, "the truth is deformed
desire to suppress it" (Campbell 221). In the end, the "truth" is covered
one only sees what one wants to see, and distortion, or even violence prev
make matters worse, instead of taking personal responsibility, Phèdre
others for her crisis, a symptom that Sartre would refer to as 'bad faith.' Rather
own up to her mistakes, Phèdre claims Œnone led her astray. In act III
horrified Hippolyte rejects his stepmother's advances, Phèdre blames Œnon
her own actions:

J'ai déclaré ma honte aux yeux de mon vainqueur,

Et l'espoir malgré moi s'est glissé dans mon cœur.
Toi-même, rappelant ma force défaillante,
Et mon âme déjà sur mes lèvres errante,
Par tes conseils flatteurs tu m'as su ranimer:

Tu m'as fait entrevoir que je pouvais l'aimer. (3.1.89)

In this scene, Phèdre scolds her confidante for having ill advised her during her
vulnerable condition. Yet, Phèdre falls into the same pattern once again. Upon
Thésée's unexpected return, Phèdre fears that Hippolyte will tell her husband
about her attempt at seduction. Œnone then proposes that they accuse Hippolyte
of forcing himself onto Phèdre. In front of her husband, Phèdre allows Œnone to
speak on her behalf. In deceiving Thésée (who believes the lie), Phèdre not only
seals Hippolyte's fate, but also that of her mistress and her own. By the time Phèdre
realizes what they have done, it is too late. Thésée has already banished Hippolyte,
and the consequences cannot be undone. Once again, she blames Œnone at the
end of act IV:

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Racine's Phèdre 171

Qu'entends-je! Quels conseils ose-t-on me donner?

Ainsi donc jusqu'au bout tu veux m'empoisonner,
Malheureuse! Voilà comme tu m'as perdue;
Au jour que je fuyais c'est toi qui m'a rendue.
Tes prières m'ont fait oublier mon devoir;
J'évitais Hippolyte; et tu me l'as fait voir.
De quoi te chargeais-tu? Pourquoi ta bouche impie
A-t-elle, en l'accusant, osé noircir sa vie?
Il en mourra peut-être, et d'un père insensé
Le sacrilège vœu peut-être est exaucé.
Je ne t'écoute plus. Va-t'en, monstre exécrable! (4.6.123)

Phèdre, blind to her own fallibilities, makes Œnone out to be a monster. Yet
Œnone, Phèdre's alter ego, is an extension of her own self—a monster constructed
by her own illicit desires and bad faith. In banishing Œnone, she banishes herself,
and soon follows her confidante's disastrous fate. Even with her last dying breath
she blames Œnone for her actions. She expresses remorse, but places the respon
sibility squarely on her confidante's shoulders for having carried out the goddess's
plan of vengeance:

Le ciel mit dans mon sein une flamme funeste;

La détestable Œnone a conduit tout le reste.

Elle a craint qu'Hippolyte, instruit de ma fureur,

Ne découvrît un feu qui lui faisait horreur.
La perfide, abusant de ma faiblesse extrême,
S'est hâtée à vos yeux de l'accuser lui-même. (5.7.144)

Meanwhile, Œnone is no better. She places herself in her own personal hell by
basing her entire existence on Phèdre's own happiness. She cannot exist without
Phèdre. Her final words in act IV reflect her self-effacement: "Ah! dieux! pour la
servir j'ai tout fait, tout quitté; Et j'en reçois ce prix!" (4.6.124). For Sartre, to live
as the walking dead by shirking one's moral responsibilities is the greatest crime
of humanity. This truth will become the underlying message in Huis clos.

The Existentialist Crisis

Le lieu racinien est, par excellence, un lieu clos, un lieu muré [...] les murs de
Racine sont chauds. Ils brûlent. Et derrière ces murs, un grouillement de [...]
traîtres en puissance, le foisonnement des intrigues, une conjuration de silences
[...] toute une épaisseur poisseuse et moite qui isole les héros raciniens, les
étouffe, les opprime. (Dort 8)

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172 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

The Racinian theatrical realm, described above as an enclosed space in w

its victims burn and suffocate, is echoed in Sartre's Huis clos. Yet in this cas
characters have condemned themselves by allowing the criticisms and judgm
of others to determine the course of their lives. 'Heroes' become isolated and
oppressed as they are unable to hide from the burning glances of'the other.' Joseph
Garcin, Inès Serrano, and Estelle Rigault are condemned to spend eternity together
in hell, a space represented as a room with no windows, no mirrors, and a locked
door. The tasteless Second Empire furniture only aggravates the feeling of nausea
that overwhelms the characters from the beginning of the play. All expect to be
tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each
other, which they accomplish by probing each others' sins, desires, and unpleasant
memories. Inès accuses Garcin of being a coward for deserting the army during the
war. He attempts to relieve his despair by engaging in a love affair with the
narcissistic Estelle, but he soon grows weary of their game. Their union would
represent a partial escape, but they are an impossible match. As in Phèdre, love is
depicted as an illusionary, destructive force. Estelle cannot satisfy Garcin's need to
be coddled. She does not care whether he is a coward, and she has little or no desire
to truly understand his feelings. Garcin is the only one who is given the chance to
escape, when toward the end of the play he demands to be let out and the door flies
open. However, he chooses to stay because of his need for validation by 'the other.'
He opts to stay in hell so as to convince Inès that he is not a coward.
Sartre, like Racine, wrote during a time of great artistic and political oppres
sion, since many forms of entertainment, including plays, had to be approved by
German censors. The play, published in 1943, was performed in May 1944 at the
Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, just three months before the liberation of Paris.
As Simone de Beauvoir tells us, the setting of the play was inspired by living con
ditions during the war: "He at once thought of a situation in camera as it were: a
group of people shut up in a cellar during a lengthy bombardment" (qtd. in Hill
80). Clearly Huis clos reflects the oppressive conditions of the time period in
which it was written.

That said, Sartre's Huis clos is easily related to the context of occupied Paris
and Hitler's domination of Europe. Yet, if anything, the play speaks more to Sartre's
World War II experience which reinforced his disdain for bourgeois capitalism.
Both before and after the war, Sartre saw a society enslaved by a love of money. He
believed that capitalism so threatened intellectual freedom and one's code of ethics
that he actually wrote: "We were never more free than under the Nazi Occupation"
(qtd. in Kamber 21). Philip Wood argues that Huis clos may be read as a political
and social allegory that condemns capitalism: "the indictment of a society which,
as an inescapable environment which sets up the terms for all human relations,
pits all its members against one another" (193). Much like seventeenth-century
court society in which courtiers compete with one another for the king's favor,

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Racine's Phèdre 173

twentieth-century capitalism destroys the identity of the individual and his or her
human relations.

Sartre's anti-hero serves as a response to the bourgeois crisis. Huis clos, viewed
as the theatrical expression of L'être et le néant (published the same year), illustrates
the ideas associated with Sartrean existentialism, namely that man is an absolutely
autonomous individual whose separation from others facilitates unalterable liberty
and free choice.15 Like his Racinian predecessor, the Sartrean anti-hero is crushed
by overwhelming social and political forces. For Sartre, the anti-hero struggles to
assert himself in a post-World War II society plagued by bourgeois traditions and
an unquestioning capitalist mentality. Those cultivated in this poisonous culture—
who taken together constitute 'the other'—create an expectation that one will set
aside individualist thought in order to maintain a certain status quo. This is a
dangerous mentality that infiltrates and breeds, causing competition to take
precedence over ethics. Matching the seventeenth-century courtier's plight, Sartre
examines life's tragic space, in which it is difficult to escape the judgment of others
and think for oneself. The 'pour-autrui' naturally conflicts with, and transfigures,
the image of the thinking 'self or the 'en-soi':

C'est comme objet que j'apparais à autrui, ce n'est pas une vaine image
dans l'esprit d'un autre. Cette image en effet serait entièrement imputable
à autrui et ne saurait me "toucher." Je pourrais ressentir de l'agacement, de
la colère en face d'elle, comme devant un mauvais portrait de moi, qui me
prête une laideur ou une bassesse d'expression que je n'ai pas [...] Je
reconnais que je suis comme autrui me voit. (L'être et le néant 276)

For Sartre, the fact that others do not see us in the way we wish to present
ourselves as individuals will inevitably lead to further complications with 'the
other.' Imprisoned by the opinions of others, we twist our self-perception to meet
the cultural and moral expectations of'the other.'16 At the same time, the Sartrean
concept of bad faith (i.e., blaming others) cuts off the kind of self-reflection that
accounts for one's own flaws.17 Realizing his or her own self-image conflicts with
how he or she is seen by'the other,' the anti-hero refuses to take responsibility for
his or her actions. This kind of self-deception becomes a stumbling block for the
anti-heroes in Huis clos just as it did for Phèdre. Yet, the Sartrean anti-heroes will
have no one to blame but themselves.

The Anti-Hero in Huis clos

As in Phèdre, from the very beginning of Huis clos, the judgment of others
confines and condemns the anti-hero, making him feel as though he is eternally
doomed. Although he tries to act nonchalantly in the doorman's presence, Garcin

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174 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

is unable to escape the crushing feeling that he chooses to spend eternity und
watchful eye of'the other.' Paralyzed by a situation he deems as fated, he allud
'the other' as the one who conspires against him:

Le bronze... (Il le caresse.) Eh bien, voici le moment. Le bronze est là, je le

contemple et je comprends que je suis en enfer. Je vous dis que tout était prévu.
Ils avaient prévu que je me tiendrais devant cette cheminée, pressant ma main su
ce bronze, avec tous ces regards sur moi. Tous ces regards qui me mangent... (92)

As though this hellish existence had been etched out for him by others
"devoured" his free will, Garcin resigns himself to his fate—a seemingly "ba
existence—but one in which he is consumed by the fiery glances of thos
impose their will on him.
'The other' also reflects a distorted self-image for the anti-hero. Just as C
does for Phèdre, in Huis clos, Inès plays the role of the distorting mirror. Narc
Estelle desires the constant approval of others, thereby allowing Inès to fun
as her mirror.18 Even worse, Inès is a lying, distorting mirror:

INÈS. Qu'est-ce que tu as là, au bas de la joue? Une plaque rouge?

ESTELLE, sursautant. Une plaque rouge, quelle horreur! Où ça?
INÈS. Là! Là! Je suis le miroir aux alouettes; ma petite alouette, je te tiens!
Il n'y a pas de rougeur. Pas la moindre. Hein? Si le miroir se mettait à
mentir? (48)

Later Inès agrees to feed Estelle's aggrandized image of herself, so long as E

responds to Inès's advances: "Viens! Tu seras ce que tu voudras: eau vive, eau
tu te retrouveras au fond de mes yeux telle que tu te désires" (71-72). Once
rejected by Estelle, Inès becomes a vengeful mirror that emphasizes Estelle's
Estelle becomes dependent on 'the other's' judgment, deterring her from eval
her own 'self.'
Inès also serves as a mirror to Garcin, reflecting his fear of being ca
coward. She distorts his self-image in a way that makes him hate her becau
does not want to see the truth. He tries to make himself out to be comf
with his past decisions. But Inès sees through the façade. Smelling his fe
becomes disgusted by the twitching in his face, belying his lack of conf
"C'est ce que je vous reproche. (Tic de Garcin.) Encore! Vous prétendez êt
et vous laissez votre visage à l'abandon. Vous n'êtes pas seul et vous n'ave
droit de m'infliger le spectacle de votre peur" (26). She does not see the
self-image he attempted to portray to a generation at war. Garcin goes so f
to be seen as an adulterer rather than forego his self-image of a pacifis
Thus, when asked why he is in hell, he readily admits to cheating on hi

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Racine's Phèdre 175

while covering up his desertion. The truth is that Garcin fears he is a coward. At
the end of the play, this fear causes him to choose damnation. He chooses to stay
in hell, where he is condemned to eternally seek the approval from those who
will not grant it.
Meanwhile, by holding others accountable for her actions, Estelle serves as a
model example of anti-heroic bad faith. Prior to landing in hell, Estelle had cheated
on her husband with another man who became the father of a child she later

drowned. She does not see killing her lover s baby as a crime, since it would have
destroyed her marriage and reputation. Nor does she hold herself responsible for
the subsequent suicide of her distraught lover. Instead, she blames the entire
episode on her sick younger brother. In fact, Estelle sees herself as a martyr for
having married a wealthy but older man who could provide for her brother's
necessary medical attention. She adheres to no moral code. She does not hesitate
to resort to violence. And just like Phèdre does with Œnone, Estelle blames her
predicament on someone else. Like her Racinian predecessor, Estelle drowns in a
pool of narcissism and bad faith by seeing herself as the victim.

The Audience as the Anti-Hero

I have argued that Racine's Phèdre inspires Sartre's conception of the anti-hero
who falls prey to his or her own bad faith, becoming a victim of'the other' just as
much as he or she is a victim of himself or herself. In Huis clos, Garcin's final
words—"Eh bien, continuons"—describe the vicious cycle of the individual who
allows himself to be continually victimized by 'the other,' simultaneously making
excuses for his own immoral behavior. Sartre's anti-hero teaches us that we should
not define ourselves according to the way others perceive us, nor should we assume
the just authority of the 'powers that be.' At the same time, Sartre's anti-hero
expresses the symptom of our inability to construct our own identities—'the
other.' Yet, unlike Racine, Sartre does not make excuses for his anti-heroes.
Ultimately, they are personally accountable.
The success that Racine's controversial Phèdre had in the seventeenth century
demonstrates that we need not admire a central character's actions in order to
learn from him or her. Centuries later, Sartre echoes the same message, as his anti
heroes instruct us to beware of the monsters that lurk behind the mirror's reflected
image.19 We have seen how sometimes the presence of others allows us to better
identify our own destructive traits within us. The anti-hero thus serves as a didactic
tool by holding a mirror up to the audience itself. Phèdre shows us that we all
resemble monsters at one time or another, allowing our passions and evil thoughts
to consume us. At the same time, Sartre and Racine seek to make us more aware
of an oppressive society's tendency to drown individuals in bad faith. In Phèdre
and in Huis clos, Racine and Sartre depict a world in which the truth is covered up

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176 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

by lies and half-truths. Bad faith would have us believe that there is no exit
this dark world in which we live everyday of our existence. Nevertheless, pe
the anti-hero gives us instructional hope. Perhaps he opens the door thr
which we can escape—if we so choose.20

Baylor University (TX)

Notes

'For an in-depth study on the anti-hero, see Furst and Wilson. The editors argue
that "the hero seems to turn into the anti-hero by a process of reduction along a sliding
scale" (ix). In other words, the modern-day hero is an anti-hero.
2The birth of the anti-hero is found in the "democratization of the Classical hero" as

the anti-hero begins to reflect the "general human condition." See Furst and Wilson vi.
3See Apostolidès 13. Louis XIV would proclaim: "La nation ne fait pas corps en
France, elle réside tout entière dans la personne du roi."
"The plot of Racine's Phèdre, taken from Greek mythology, had already been
adapted for the theater, notably by Euripides in Hippolytus and Seneca in Phaedra.
5Aricie is the sister of the Pallantides, the sons of Pallas who conspired to seize the
throne of Athens. Thésée slew them and made Aricie his prisoner, placing her under
a vow of chastity in order to end her family line.
6The courtier's obsessive attention paid to formalized behavior was satirized by
La Bruyère: "Un homme qui sçait la Cour est maistre de son geste, de ses yeux et de son
visage; il est profond, impénétrable; il dissimule les mauvais offices, sourit à ses
ennemis, contraint son humeur, déguise ses passions, dément son cœur, parle, agit
contre ses sentiments: tout ce grand raffinement n'est qu'un vice, que l'on appelle
fausseté" (140).
7After Phèdre, Racine only wrote plays based on Biblical themes for the School of
Saint-Cyr that Madame de Maintenon directed for girls of impoverished noble families.
On 26 January 1689 the students premiered Esther, Athalie was performed in 1691.
The Affair of the Poisons lasted roughly from 1670 to 1682, starting with the
murder of Henrietta of England who was poisoned. Other poisonings would ensue. A
certain Marquise de Brinvilliers would be accused, tried, and finally decapitated and
burned at the stake in 1676. Many others would be implicated, including Racine
himself. A woman who specialized in witchcraft who went by the name of La Voisin was
charged and burned to death in 1680. Finally, after Madame de Montespan was accused
in 1682, Louis XIV put a stop to the investigations. See Cambier 16-18.
'Madame Deshoulières hatched the plan to have Pradon, a mediocre playwright,
produce a play on the same topic with the same title to be performed at the same time
as Racine's première. Other members of the cabale included the Duchesse de Bouillon,
the niece of Mazarin. See Cambier 13-26.

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 Racine's Phèdre 177

10The Jansenist com

suspected by the King
suppressed in 1661, a
of Racine's career.

"Bruneau (27-28) argues that female characters often play the central roles in
Racine's tragedies because women were more oppressed than men in patriarchal
societies.

12Phèdre is a royal princess of Crete whose father, Minos, is descended of Jupiter

and whose mother, Pasiphae, is the daughter of Helios, the Sun. Helios once offended
Venus by exposing her adulterous affair with Mars. As a result, Venus, in her rage, set
a curse on all the Sun's descendants.

13The Jansenists believed in predestination and in the idea that one could not be
saved by God's grace nor by one's acts. Thus, one is always a slave to one's destiny. For
the development of Jansenism and Port-Royal's influence, see Hildesheimer 35-70.
14Braga (289-98) underlines the symbiotic relationship between Phèdre's "œil
profane et incestueux" and "triste cœur" and Œnone's "amoral" tactics carried out by
her "mains" and "bras."

15The original title of the play was Les autres (Sartre, Un théâtre 240).
'"This is similar to Grégoire's explanation of the "œil oculaire": "L'œil auquel nous
faisons référence, dans Huis clos, est une réalité qui trouve son expression concrète dans
le regard que les personnages portent les uns sur les autres; mais cet "œil", revêt aussi
une dimension métaphorique: l'œil de la conscience qui incite, après introspection, à
se voir comme on est" (288).
"This concept, reminiscent of Lacan's mirror stage, bears some similarity to Sartre's
philosophy. In his 1949 paper, Lacan, while critical of existentialism, defines the reflec
tion an infant sees as an "ideal" fictionalized self: "L'assomption jubilatoire de son image
spéculaire par l'être encore plongé dans l'impuissance motrice et la dépendance du
nourrissage qu'est le petit homme à ce stade infans, nous paraîtra dès lors manifester
en une situation exemplaire la matrice symbolique où le je se précipite en une forme
primordiale, avant qu'il ne s'objective dans la dialectique de l'identification à l'autre et
que le langage ne lui restitue dans l'universel sa fonction de sujet. Cette forme serait
plutôt au reste à désigner comme je-idéal" (90-91).
'"Beauvoir notes that women, who are objectified in a patriarchal society, use the
mirror to help themselves find or create some sense of self-identification. Narcissistic
women are especially desiring of mirrors, or others to admire them: "[Les narcissistes]
ont besoin de regards pour les contempler, d'oreilles pour les écouter; à leur personnage,
il faut le plus large public possible" (530).
"The verb "montrer" is synonymous with the theme of the monster. See Morel
927.

20I would like to thank Vincent Grégoire and Richard Duran for reading earlier
versions of this paper.

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 178 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1

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