18 pages • 36 minutes read
Margaret AtwoodHelen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Choice
In her life as an exotic dancer, Helen insists that all workers are “exploited” (Line 17) and she has “a choice of how” (Lines 18-19) that will happen. If she must make money, she will do it this way rather than be stuck “one place for eight hours [. . .] bundled to the neck” (Lines 8-10). While others insist she should be “ashamed of [her]self” (Line 2), Helen disagrees. Although men use her for their wide-ranging fantasies of reduction or slaughter, objectifying her into the “components” (Line 68) of an “abattoir” (Line 69), or lose themselves instead in a blind worship, Helen herself remains distanced from her immediate surroundings. She locates herself instead as a “foreigner” from “the province of the gods” (Line 57). Whether Helen is really a misplaced Greek figure, imagining the strip club as a contemporary Troy, or a stripper who imagines herself as Helen, this character chooses to envision herself as someone above those who surround her. She floats above them “in the air” (Line 78), haloed in a “blazing” (Line 79) spotlight. The clientele thinks they can define Helen and/or the meaning of her job but she realizes they really do not know her at all. Throughout the poem, Helen chooses to redefine herself from being a “meat sandwich” (Line 11) that is devoured into the one who does the devouring. Her “torch song” (Line 82) of being misunderstood becomes a “torch” (Line 82) that is a weapon. If the clientele should pull her down, she has no hesitation in “burn[ing]” (Line 83) them. Thus, Helen choses how she will perform, and embraces a role as a “goddess” (Line 80) who will not be dismantled by others’ definitions and expectations.
Objectifying Beauty
In her myth, Helen’s beauty is ostensibly the reason a variety of her former suitors enter an alliance to rescue her from Paris and wage war on Troy. For millennia, society has associated beauty with such variables as morality, happiness, wealth, and power, creating correlations that may or not exist. Atwood’s poem details the different responses people have to her Helen’s beauty, as well as Helen’s response. Some of the strip club’s clientele worship Helen for her unattainable beauty and cast “upturned eyes, imploring” (Line 34) to express their “hopeless love” (Line 33). Others want to possess Helen in order to own her beauty. The clients who “lean close” (Line 60) or hope to “touch” (Line 83) fall into this category. Others resent the “desire” (Line 22) Helen’s beauty causes, and imagine breaking her into “components” (Line 68), or slaughtering her altogether. Some hope to belittle her beauty, thinking “they can see through [her]” (Line 73), assuming she is shallow. Others expect her to downplay it and to “get some self-respect” (Line 4). In their eyes, Helen may be beautiful, but she lacks the essential moral qualities a beautiful woman requires. Helen addresses her detractors by fiercely taking ownership of her beauty. She will not feel shame for it, nor let it be destroyed. The “swan-egg of light” (Line 79) in which she “hovers six inches in the air” (Line 78) is not just a description of her solo in the club’s spotlight. It is also a metaphor that shows her beauty is divinely gifted since birth. It is also a “blazing” (Line 79) weapon that can incinerate anyone who tries to dismiss, possess, or damage her beauty.
Dangerous Birds
Helen’s mother Leda is impregnated by a swan, who is really the god Zeus in disguise. Some accounts show this union as consensual, but others suggest Leda was “raped” (Line 61). Atwood’s Helen references this lineage when talking to one of the clients in the strip club, suggesting that if he believes her, she will be more intimate with him. “You can take me out to dinner” (Line 62), she says. This is part-seduction to make the client or “you” (Lines 62, 66, 80) feel special. “I don’t let on to everyone” (Line 50) she tells him, but “you would understand” (Line 68), differing from “the rest” (Line 69). Yet, she also undercuts this by identifying the client as one of “all the husbands” (Line 63) she tells her story to. Like Menelaus and Paris, the husbands of mythic Helen, this man is part of the flock of “dangerous birds” (Line 64) that hover around a beautiful woman. She recognizes his potential to violate her, and to define her as “not a goddess” (Line 80). Like Zeus, he could use his power to “reduce” (Line 68) her or “crush out the mystery” (Line 70). In the myth, Helen’s birth out of a “swan-egg” (Line 79) is connected to the identification of her divinity as the daughter of Zeus. By referring to this, Atwood’s Helen is warning the client that she is also part-bird and a demi-goddess. His need to “touch” (Line 83) will necessitate her need to destroy him. She, too, is a dangerous bird who can assert her power to save herself.
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By Margaret Atwood
