A woman blamed for a war men fought – and punished for her survival

It’s not much, but it’s enough to convey a woman, swarming around men—waiting for them to decide her fate.

Helen, at least, is given a glimpse of an inner life. The women of the Odyssey occupy different positions in relation to the men they leave behind. Penelope is sentenced to waiting. Helen has nothing left to wait for. And Circe refuses to wait for men before destroying those who come to plunder and kill.

But that was also the beauty of Greek deities and women: they were never meant to be flattened into one-dimensional figures whose only purpose was to exalt the men around them. They were cunning, deceitful, brilliant, as you would expect from queens of their stature who knew what they were up against. Penelope’s vision is perhaps one of the clearest examples of this. She discovers by night what she weaves by day, delaying the suitors who insist that she choose another man.

Judgment is often passed on Helen as a woman who gave in to her desires and eloped with a younger man, rather than the idea of ​​an unhappy, stifled, emotionally scarred woman. In literary retellings, Helena is presented with more nuances, especially in George’s version, which is mixed with sensitivity and ardent admiration. The Trojan Queen does not exist in an existing complaining suburb, even if she is forced to be observant. She advises, even guides and saves during the burning of Troy. A clever woman is a dangerous woman and never known for peace.

Helen has spent centuries being treated as an object of male desire, then punished for the consequences of that desire. Literature has tried to give it an inner life. Cinema, however, has often left it on the margins of its history.

But perhaps Helen’s greatest tragedy is not that men fought a war for her. It’s that even after the war ended, they continued to decide who she was.