I Can Only Do So Much and Of Course It's Never Enough

                Recently questions of sexuality and how women should or should not be treated has been a constant buzz in the background of everyday life. Third wave feminism is here in America, as we speak, and although they get a lot of hate and criticism they are dealing with a problem that we, as a society, have been dealing with since Biblical times. How should we treat women? What does it mean for them to dress modestly and who gets to tell them what they can or cannot wear? What about jobs? What is an appropriate job for a woman and what isn't? How should men treat women? Should chivalry die and stay dead or should it come back with a vengeance? Are all women vain and stupid? All these questions have been and are being addressed continually throughout history in many different forms and forums. This includes poetry as Margaret Atwood and Hilda Doolittle show us.

                Both Atwood and H.D. address this issue in different ways using Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy, the wife of King Menelaus, daughter of Zeus and Queen Leda, the face that launched a thousand ships and sparked a war that lasted over 10 years, is a woman who can be used to answer the questions mentioned above.[1][2] For Atwood she represents the potential power women have over men through their sexuality. However, H.D. presents her as an unfeeling statue-like person whose beauty is worthless in light of her unfeeling heart. When H.D. addresses Helen in her poem "Helen" she uses words like still, smiles, and stand; words that indicate little to no movement. Helen is described as having a wan and white face, hands, and smile, cold feet, and slender knees. Her beauty is clearly described but instead of being praised for these attributes she is hated for them. These adverbs paired, with the description of Helen given, makes Helen sound like a statue. A feeling of resentment is left after reading this poem, a lingering feeling of bitterness for having lost so many lives over a pretty face.

                Atwood approaches Helen differently. For her Helen of Troy is a symbol of power. Her poem "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing" is a struggle with the idea of sexuality. Should a woman show off and use her body as a weapon or hide it away? What jobs are fitting for a woman? The poem is split into three parts. The first part addresses the physical differences between the narrator's job and a respectable one. While the narrator seems secure in her chosen work the women around her chastise her choice. Atwood uses enjambment to show the narrators distaste for the type of jobs the other women tell her she should do. At the end of the first section the narrator admits that she is being exploited yet she seems fine with this as she claims to have a choice in how. This awareness of being used is clearer in the second part of the poem yet there is a certain power that comes with it. The narrator knows that she has power over these animals that come to watch her dance and she feeds off of that power. This is another incentive for her choice. However about halfway through the second part there is a sense of silent resentment just as in H.D.'s poem. Just as Greece hates Helen for her beauty the narrator seems to resent her own beauty. As Arundhati Roy says "some things come with their own punishments." With her power comes the realization that all the men she comes in contact with are pigs and wolves, the women snob her choice, and it is only in the third part that the narrator seems to have a confidant in the reader. She ends the poem full of confidence daring anyone to say she isn't a goddess. Both of these poems deal with beauty in different parts; H.D. treats it as an empty thing to be despised, beauty without heart, while Atwood presents it as a raw and real power that can fill a woman with confidence.

(Title is a quote from this song.)