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Meyrowitz offers an interpretation of Euripides' play, Hippolytus, in which Hippolytus is the central character and the other characters are representatives of fragments of Hippolytus' oedipal fantasies. Hippolytus is chaste and pure—defended against lust. Phaedra, his stepmother, becomes smitten with passionate desire for Hippolytus—a representation of Hippolytus' repressed desire for his
father's wife. Hippolytus denies her and remains pure, but he is nevertheless banished by Theseus—recognition that the lust is (unconsciously) his. Phaedra dies but Hippolytus' guilt remains, and he is punished by death, reconciling with Theseus as he is dying. Meyrowitz elaborates the theme with detail from the play and also offers the general observation that in Greek drama the gods represented the passions (id) and man the tamer and resister of passions (ego).