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.
Background
Literary Context
Atwood is a much-lauded Canadian writer, noted primarily for her feminist concerns and her ability to write in wide ranging genres. She is a Royal Society of Canada fellow and has been awarded sixteen honorary degrees as well as numerous writing awards. She is famous for being a feminist writer, due to the success of her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, but this is a role which she has alternately resisted and embraced. Although she most often writes from a female perspective, she gives her characters complex feelings and actions that do not always fit into a particular category. Similarly, while she critiques toxic masculinity in her work, Atwood does not shy away from the complexity of women and how they treat one another. Atwood cares deeply about sexual politics, class inequity, the environment, and other social problems. Her poetry and fiction often touch on societal repression, the trampling of human rights, and environmental harm. She writes about these subjects in every style, including poetry, essays, Gothic romance, historical epics, spy thrillers, and speculative fiction. She also retells myths and fairytales, or classic literature. Upending known tales allows writers to discuss contemporary concerns in a new way. Criticizing contemporary life through familiar stories allows Atwood to refocus the lens on contemporary concerns.
Mythological Context
The poem “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing” heavily relies on our understanding of Helen of Troy, who was a figure in Greek mythology (See: Further Reading & Resources). Helen was the daughter of Leda, who was married to the King of Sparta. Leda was seduced by the god Zeus who famously disguised himself as a swan. Birthed from an egg, Helen grew to be considered the most beautiful woman in the world. As a child, she was carried off by Theseus, to be kept as a future wife, but she was rescued by her brothers. Later, she married Menelaus, but then fled to the Greek city of Troy with Paris, the son of the Trojan king, who seduced—or depending on the version, kidnapped—her. Paris earlier had been asked to judge the beauty of the goddess of Love (Aphrodite), the goddess of Wisdom (Athena) and queen of the gods (Hera) for the prize of either invincibility, immense wealth, or Helen. Choosing Aphrodite gets Paris the reward of Helen, but this betrayal leads to the Trojan War, as Menelaus must then retrieve his spouse. Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon—who hopes to gain riches from the invasion—form an army to besiege Troy. Aphrodite sides with the Trojans, while Athena and Hera help the Greeks. Eventually the Trojans are defeated, Paris is killed, and Menelaus retrieves his wife, whose beauty convinces him to spare her life. Helen has been the subject of many works of art and is often portrayed as a shameless woman. However, in Euripides’s play The Trojan Women (415 BCE), Helen defends herself against the charges of adultery by telling her audience she had been toyed with by the gods. Atwood’s poem borrows heavily from the imagery of the myth but subverts its sexism by letting Helen tell her own story.
Related Titles
By Margaret Atwood
