Helen

If you had to make a choice between one or the other, would you describe Helen as a tragedy or a comedy? Defend your choice.

Euripides was writing primarily for an audience from mainland Greece, which was the winning side in the Trojan War. Why do you think he presents the outcome there as a catastrophe for both sides, rather than a clear-cut victory?

Evaluate the portrayal of men in Helen. Why does Euripides choose to portray them in these ways? For the male characters who were already well known in Greek legends (Menelaos and Teucer), is Euripides’s portrayal of them a fair one?

Helen is full of statements about the heartbreaking costs of war, which is interesting for a play that was written in the middle of an active war. Research the events of the Peloponnesian War up to 412 BCE, and consider how Helen would have been received by its Athenian audience in light of those events.

What role does Theonöe’s apparent omniscience play in the story? Why would Euripides include an omniscient prophetess in a play that warns about the dangers of trusting prophecy and divination?

How does the use of single stage-set (King Theoklymenos’s palace doors, with Proteus’s tomb to one side) affect the narrative of this play? If you could rewrite the play using multiple sets, what scenes would you add or take away?

Evaluate the use of the deus ex machina device in the final scene of the play. Does it fit with the plot and with Euripides’s intentions for the play? Does it make for a satisfying ending?

Some scholars think that Euripides was lazy when he wrote Helen since it borrows the overarching plot structure from another of his plays, Iphigenia in Tauris. Research the parallels between the two plays. Do you think this critical assessment is justified?