The main conflict in Phaedra, by Racine, can be stated in various ways.
Although they differ slightly, the meanings are basically the same. The
characters struggle with reason versus emotions, feeling versus restraint.
Hippolytus loves Aricia, but his father, Theseus, condemns this love.
Hippolytus tries to deny and hide his love. He says about his father's
disapproval for the woman he loves, "He's doomed her to be single all her
days. / Shall I take up her cause then, brave his rage, / Set a rebellious
pattern for the age, / Commit my youth to love's delirium?" (Act I, Scene I, p.
173). Hippolytus's mentor wisely tells him, "if love's appointed hour has
come, / It's vain to reason; Heaven will not hear it."
 

Phaedra loves Hippolytus but her love is condemned by society because he is
her husband's son. She knows that her feelings are wrong, and tries in vain
to change them or at least suppress them. At the end of Act IV, scene VI,
Oenone tries to console the queen, telling her that emotions cannot be
constrained by reason and will. She states that "weakness is natural," and
that Phaedra should "accept her moral lot" (p 201). Phaedra then lashes out
at the nurse, saying that her arguments make excuses for evilness and desire
and, "smooth the path for them the way to sin and wrath" (202). Phaedra
realizes that the only way to control her passions, to end them is to end her
life.
 

Aricia also tries to deny her feelings for Hippolytus, at first, because she
does not like love very much at all. She too sought to avoid love and was
even thankful that Theseus helped her in this quest. She told Ismene during
Scene II of Act II, "You know how I, a lifelong enemy/ Of love, gave thanks
for Theseus' tyranny, / Since he forbade what I was glad to shun" (181).
In the end, however, none of the characters was really able to use reason,
restraint, or their own will to dampen their passions. On the contrary, love
and passion doom the characters. Theseus is also done in by his passionate
feelings when he curses his son without thinking or using reason when
examining the case against Hippolytus.

The conflict of the play clearly is between man and his own nature. Which side of man comes out the winner in Racine's play? Hippolytus gives the answer when he states, "My reason can't
rein in my heart, I see" (Act II Scene II pg. 183).