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.
Symbols & Motifs
The Urge to Step on Ants
In the midst of her assessment of those who watch her performance, Helen notes, “I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge / to step on ants” (Lines 36-37). To step on an ant is to destroy it, given the dynamics of pressure and size. Helen uses this notation to show understanding of her emasculated clientele who suffer under destruction that is both man-made and natural. This is why she “dances for them because / they can’t” (Lines 38-39). The clientele lacks true power as mortal “men” (Line 25) and are subject to the whims of fate. Yet, Helen also uses this notation as a metaphor to show that she longs to tamp them down herself. As a demi-goddess, Helen can imagine hurting these clubgoers, who objectify her and are “ready to snap at [her] ankles” (Line 35). She would like to play a towering Olympian, obliterating them like insects. This moment foreshadows her embrace of her ability to incinerate people at the end of the poem.
The Looted City/Troy
Helen describes the music she dances to as “humid as August, hazy and languorous / as a looted city the day after” (Line 43) battle in which “survivors wander around / looking for garbage / to eat, and there’s only bleak exhaustion” (Lines 46-48). This is a reference to the city of Troy after the siege by the Greek army. Its riches have been taken; the city lies in ruins. Helen’s husband Menelaus seeks her return not just for herself, but because he sees her as part of his property that Paris stole. He takes Helen back, letting his army lay waste to Troy. Its desolation after all the “rape’s been done already / and the killing” (Line 44-45) is conveyed here in the contemporary song to which Helen performs. Similarly, when contemporary Helen dances, the male gaze “wander[s]” (Line 46) over her body, “naked as a meat sandwich” (Line 11), seeing it as sustenance to “eat” (Line 47). This image symbolically shows the idea that both Helens are merely objects to be won or consumed.
The Province of the Gods
For Helen, a pivotal shift in her thinking appears when she differentiates herself from her clientele. She realizes she is a “foreigner” (Line 54). This is a reference to the fact that the mythic Helen was in a different country and culture when she was in Troy. Helen, who was from Sparta, was not accepted in Troy and was resented for bringing war to the land. Both Helens must remind themselves of their connection to “the province of the gods” (Line 57). Atwood’s Helen possesses a sense of foreignness that is enhanced by the language barrier she feels as she listens to the men’s “warty gutturals” (Line 55), which are different than the civilized conversation she is used to, where the “meanings are lilting and oblique” (Line 58). It is after this moment, that Helen begins to place herself above those around her, using her divine connections to Zeus to show she is in the wrong place. At heart and by lineage, she is a “goddess” (Line 80) who belongs in Greece.
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By Margaret Atwood
