Pheres Character Analysis in Alcestis

Pheres is Admetos’s elderly father. He and his wife both refuse to die in Admetos’s place. He and Admetos have a heated confrontation in the middle of the play, when Pheres brings funeral gifts to honor Alcestis. Admetos angrily rejects Pheres’s gifts and calls him a hypocrite and disloyal for having refused to die. Pheres, in turn, condemns Admetos’s cowardice and presumption, arguing that while parents give their children life, they are not obligated to die for them.

Pheres Quotes in Alcestis

The Alcestis quotes below are all either spoken by Pheres or refer to Pheres. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

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PHERES: I am not obliged to die for you as well.
Or do you think my father died for me?
There is no law, no precedent, in Greece
that children have a claim upon their fathers’ lives.
A man is born to happiness, or otherwise.
He is born for himself.
Everything you had the right to get from me, you got.
I made you ruler of a rich and populous country.
And I intend to leave you all the vast domain my father left to me.
So how have I hurt you? What more do I owe you?
Life?
No. You live yours, and I’ll live mine.
Do your own dying. I’ll do mine.

Related Characters: Pheres (speaker), King Admetos

Page Number and Citation: 68

Explanation and Analysis:

Pheres Character Timeline in Alcestis

The timeline below shows where the character Pheres appears in Alcestis. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Admetos enters, and Alcestis’s body is borne from the palace, ready for the funeral. Then, Pheres enters, dressed in mourning and carrying funeral gifts. He and Admetos face one another on... (full context)

Obligation, Limitations, and Fate Theme Icon

Pheres praises Alcestis and offers his gifts, explaining that “We must honor her in death as... (full context)

...father’s cowardice, telling him “you let a woman / […] do your duty for you.” Pheres had nothing to lose, he claims, and yet he refused to repay Admetos’s loyalty to... (full context)

Pheres demands to know who Admetos thinks he is. Pheres is a prince of Thessaly and... (full context)