-->

Helen of Troy

Helen is the only Greek character that was presented not to have enduring personality traits. (Austin:1994) However, anyone reading about Helen does not obtain this unified perspective by various writers. According to some authors, Helen is an inspirational female, transcending the strict boundaries imposed on Greek women. According to others, she is a deceitful and shameful woman, the sole cause of the deaths of thousands of brave Geek and Trojan men. These extremely contradictory views of Helen can be seen in lyric poetry, art, and in epic tradition. Some writers take on entirely negative views of Helen, such as Homer and Alkaios, while some have clearly positive attitudes to her, such as Sappho. Other authors are unclear as to their view of this complex woman, and vacillate between positive and negative opinions, which can be noted in works by Stesichorus and Euripides. Even in art, we see many contrary sentiments regarding this complex character.

Helen is responsible to all of her actions but what happened was not enough to condemn her. (Rayer:1991They accomplished this by retelling the story of Helen so that she never in fact went to Troy. Only Sappho maintains that she did in fact leave her husband, Menelaus, but she celebrates the way in which Helen exorcised her individual judgment in complete disregard for social consequences.

The most celebrated poet in Greek literature, Homer slightly touched Helen’s character in his The Iliad. (Austin:1994) The Iliad is filled with negative references toward Helen from every character that mentions her name. Whenever Helen is present in the story, she displays self-consciousness about the scandal of her behavior, in leaving her husband for a foreigner and causing the war at Troy. Shame is her distinction, for this author who holds the virtue of honor above all others. Not only does Helen disgrace herself by choosing a foreigner over her own husband, but she disgraces all of Hellas who goes to war for ten years over such an unvirtuous woman.

Helen was treated to be a hopeless character not just the cause of the Trojan but the if it will look deeper she was just one of the factors that lead to the Trojan war. She became the type of all women who bring woe to men. However, this entirely negative view of Helen is made more complicated by the fact that Helen is marked by undesirability (Suzuki, 1989). It is unclear whether the war is over Helen or for her numerous possessions, and it is ambiguous as to whether Aphrodite forced Helen to leave Menelaus for Paris. But if Aphrodite is seen as an abstract embodiment of passion, Helen’s act was motivated by lust. Her undesirability as a trait can also be seen in her crossing over the boundary between the male and the female spheres; Helen presides over combat scenes, and does not merely stay at home. It is uncertain whether Homer views Helen as a completely base character when he uses her as a scapegoat who allows the warriors to affirm their community with each other. It seems that Homer questions the idea that the war could be due only to Helen, and underscores her inadequacy as a symbol of war by combining her abstraction in the minds of the Greeks to the concreteness of their wives, children, and the home they left behind.

References

Austin, Norman. (1994). Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.

Rayer, Diane, J., tr. (1991). Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkely, CA: University of California Press.

Suzuki, Mihoka. (1989). Metamorphoses of Helen. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.