Oenone's cryptic description of the queen's mortal anxiety in Scene 2 is a highly dramatic preparation for Phaedra's entrance—a shrill trumpet blast.
Scene 3 completes the exposition. Now we know what the theme is going to be: Phaedra's conflict between conscience and an overpowering, sinful passion. Racine isolates one moment of a lengthy evolution. We are not privy to every step of the disease's inroads—for love in Phaedra is a disease—but to its imminent victory. Phaedra, exhausted by her unsuccessful struggle against her love, is contemplating suicide.
This scene, however, is not mere exposition. It is one of the great moments of the French theater. After Corneille's grandiloquent tirades, we are presented with something new, the subtle description of psychological tension. First Phaedra expresses her weariness and her shame, then, very indirectly, a hint of her trouble. The confession spills out slowly, reluctantly. Without Oenone's insistent prodding she would not have said anything at all. In fact, she never manages to bring herself to pronounce the forbidden name. Pathetically, she waits for Oenone to say, "Hippolytus." Her rejoinder, "You are the one who named him," is one of Racine's most felicitous inventions. In a few simple words, innocuous in themselves, but very eloquent in their context, Phaedra expresses her immense relief and her instinctive defensiveness as her secret now comes out in the open without her deliberate participation.
Oenone's role contributes decisively to the authenticity of the scene. Without her insistence, justified by her maternal affection, Phaedra would have carried her secret to the grave. The confidante of French tragedy is too often a mere theatrical device to allow the major characters to express their feelings frankly, but Oenone has her own individual characterization. Her all-devouring love has a frightening intensity, and she also contributes significantly to the development of the play. Oenone enhances rather than undermines the unity of the play. She is the faithful servant of Phaedra's worst impulses, Phaedra's evil nemesis.
Stylistically, Racine maintains his poetic tone. He paints images that have passed into the language as bywords: "It is Venus completely fastened to her prey," remains in French the classical evocation of love as great destroyer. Mythology continues to play its evocative role. An extended metaphor is introduced with Phaedra's address to the sun when Racine begins to treat the play's conflict in terms of darkness and light.
