Megan Stanton
Dr. Whitworth-European Literature I
Paper Assignment One
October 12, 2010
The Only Real Woman in The Iliad
The women depicted in The Iliad, generally have one of three portrayals. They are either
virgins, seductresses, or mothers. Perhaps the reason for these rather rigid molds was that
Homer, or the male authors of The Iliad, had trouble understanding women. On the other hand
perhaps he had it entirely correct—what else is there for a woman to be but a virgin, seductress,
or mother? Today there some might include the modern role of business woman as a separate
identity for a woman, but generally one of the three terms in question would follow in the short
list of other defining qualities proceeding “business woman.” Men are also type-casted in The
Iliad. Men, however, are shown as warriors, senex figures, or attractive fools—all of which have
at least some positive connotation. But regardless of the balance one might hope to create,
Homer chose these three ways to depict women over all others, and generally each woman was
given only one identity.
Of all the women mentioned in The Iliad, Helen is by far the most complicated to define
in a single term. If one had to label Aphrodite for example, it would be natural to call her a
seductress—Athena, the mighty virgin—and of course Andromache would be described as the
helpless mother. Although some women, such as those mentioned above, are easy to define
Helen was not one of them. In fact, Helen is arguably the most natural, rounded out character—
the most “true-to-life” woman of all the women in The Iliad. Making all the other women appear
as flat, undeveloped representations of the female gender.
When Helen is first introduced in The Iliad, she is described by the narrator as, “weaving
a growing web, a dark red folding robe, / working into the weft the endless bloody struggles /
stallion-breaking Trojans and Argives armed in bronze / had suffered all for her at the god of
battle’s hands” (III. 151-154). Helen is in the position of weaver in this passage, creating before
her the image of the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Another way to interpret the role
of a weaver is to consider them to be a rhapsode, or in even more direct interpretation—a poet.
If the poem is read in this way, this exact part would be considered to be meta-textual because it
is a self-reflexive moment when a poem talks about its own construction.
The reason Helen is put in this role is because of her unique position of knowing the men
on both sides of the battlefield. For instance, after we see her weaving, she then goes into a
rather lengthy description of the men from the Greek army—and what they once meant to her.
After spotting Agamemnon, Helen reacts by saying, “[t]hat man is Atreus’ son Agamemnon, lord
of empires, / both a mighty king and a strong spearman too, / and he used to be my kinsman, /
whore that I am! / There was a world…or was it all a dream?” (III. 214-219) In this passage, it
seems that Helen is genuinely blaming herself for being unfaithful to her people and her family.
The final lamentation about her previous life being a dream, though, stands out as quite strange.
Of course another reason that Helen in particular would feel so strongly about the Trojan
War was because of her direct connection to its initiation. Certainly at some point she was happy
to run away with Paris, but Helen is very clear that she has since changed her mind about her
newfound choice in men. When Aphrodite summons Helen to Paris’s bedside after he has run
away from Menelaus, Helen refuses Aphrodite by saying, “[n]ot I, I’ll never go back again. It
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would be wrong, / disgraceful to share that coward’s bed once more. / The women of Troy would
scorn me down the years” (III. 475-476). Although here Helen expresses her dislike for Paris, it
is very significant that she is concerned with what the women of Troy will think about her rather
than the Greeks.
Another example of when Helen directly expresses her regret in choosing Paris is
towards the end of the poem. Helen says, “I wish I had been the wife of a better man, someone /
alive to outrage, the withering scorn of men” (VI. 415-416). The ironic thing about this
statement is that she in fact was married to a better man, Menelaus, who is raging this war
because of an “outrage” and has become the “withering scorn of men”—Trojan men to be exact.
In these two statements, Helen is rather confusing—it is as if when she made the comment about
her previous life being a dream—she really meant it.
The next time Helen appears in the text, she acts like a completely different person from
how she acted earlier in the poem. Before, Helen was expressing second thoughts about her
choices up until this point in her life. She acted remorseful for leaving her husband for a coward
and she seemed to pity the fighters of her native land over the Trojan fighters. Now in Book Six,
after Hector returns to the city of Troy to force Paris to return to the battlefield, Hector finds
Helen and Paris in their bedroom where Helen says several interesting things. The first of which
is when she says, “[o]h how I wish / that first day my mother brought me into the light some
black whirlwind had rushed me out to the mountains / or into the surf where the roaring breakers
crash and drag / and the waves had swept me off before all this had happened!” (VI. 409-413) In
other words, poor Helen wishes she had been killed before she became a woman and caused this
bloody war. This seems to be consistent with what Helen was saying at the beginning of the
poem; however, here she sounds much whinier, but also more self-accusing.
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Helen then within a few lines makes a completely new image for herself when she says to
Hector, “come in, rest on this seat with me, dear brother. / You are the one hit hardest by the
fighting, Hector, / you more than all—and all for me, whore that I am, and this blind mad Paris.
Oh the two of us! / Zeus planted a killing doom within us both, / so even for generations still
unborn / we will live in song” (VI. 420-426). Although Helen is once again calling herself a
“whore” and implying her regret for causing the war in the first place, in this particular passage
Helen is trying to seduce Hector. This contrasts with how she was trying earlier to have him pity
or empathize with her.
Another interesting aspect of this passage is that Helen is also placing some of the blame
on the Gods. This is the first time that she mentions someone else being the cause for the war.
This is extremely significant because the reader would know just how true this statement really
is. Although Helen’s choice to leave with Paris is a direct cause of the war, the only reason Paris
was introduced to Helen was because of a game the Gods dreamed up and involved him in.
Another important part of this passage is in the final lines where Helen jumps from talking about
the negatives of her choices and the influence of the Gods, to the fact that her choices will make
her infamous. This juxtaposing thought-process may suggest that Helen is not as sincere as she
appears—but it is also possible she is feeling both remorseful and arrogant—making her
thoughts come out in a stream of consciousness that she has very little control over.
What is a woman? Is she simply a ball of emotions that fluctuate with the weeks of the
month? As mentioned earlier, Helen is the most “normal,” or “rounded” woman presented in
The Iliad. Perhaps this interpretation is because women today can identify with some of her
thought processes. Helen seems to be in flux between self-pity, and self-pride each time she is
presented in the text. Like many women, Helen sees things from multiple angles and cannot
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make up her mind which is more “right,” and therefore picks the middle ground. The middle
ground is expressing both separate, and also very different, trains of thought in a flip-flop,
contradictory way.
Although many other female characters in The Iliad would be good counterexamples to
the roundness of Helen’s character, Andromache presents the reader with a stark contrast. For
instance, when Andromache is begging Hector to say she is very concerned for her family,
mainly their infant son, Astyanax. Andromache says, “[r]eckless one, / my Hector—your own
fiery courage will destroy you! / Have you no pity for him, our helpless son? Or me, / and the
destiny that weighs me down, your widow, / now so soon” (VI. 482-486). In these lines
Andromache’s maternal portrayal is easy to see, she thought of her family first and foremost. If
a real woman had been put in Andromache’s position some thoughts about her country—her city
would have flashed through her mind as well. Helen is ashamed of Paris for not fighting, but
surely she does not wish that he died either, at least not initially.
The next time Helen appears in The Iliad, which happens to be the last time, and also
signals the conclusion of the poem. Helen now speaks with a mixture of sadness for Hector, and
fear for herself, at his burial. Helen says, “[a]nd so in the same breath I mourn for you and me, /
my doom-struck, harrowed heart! Now there is no one left / in the wide realm of Troy, no friend
to treat me kindly—/ all the countrymen cringe from me in loathing!” (XXIV. 909-912) Once
again, Helen is overcome with feelings of self-pity. She realizes that with Hector’s death no one
within Troy will be able to forgive her because of how important he was to them. This seems to
be the final factor that ultimately makes her decide which side of the pity-pride tug-of-war she
will end up on. Hector’s death was an external force that left Helen with no choice but to beg for
pity from the grieving Trojans. His death whipped out her pride.
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Generally speaking, when analyzing a text, one would write in an organized fashion.
However, in the case of Helen it is important for the reader understand Helen’s behavior. As one
is presented with her in small snapshots at critical points in the epic, Homer consistently casts
her as an enigma. On one page she is ashamed of her behavior, on the next her is acting as a
seductress, and yet the next time she is once again begging for pity (not empathy).
The question then that I ask my reader is, what makes Helen so different from other
women? All women begin their lives as virgins—most at some point play the role of seductress,
and another high portion end up being mothers. At any time a woman could argumentatively be
any one of these things—or for that matter be simultaneously more than one. This is the main
reason that Helen is the most realistic, or rounded female character, of the women presented in
The Iliad. She is the only character who fits into multiple categories. Another huge factor was
that women in general could identify better with her than any other woman in the in epic. Both
factors combined—lead to the conclusion that Homer, or the other male authors of the poem,
knew exactly what he, or they, were doing with this character, and also knew quite a lot about
women.
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