18 pages 36 minutes read

Margaret Atwood

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

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Themes

Choice

In her life as an exotic dancer, Helen insists that all workers are “exploited” (Line 17) and she has “a choice of how” (Lines 18-19) that will happen. If she must make money, she will do it this way rather than be stuck “one place for eight hours [. . .] bundled to the neck” (Lines 8-10). While others insist she should be “ashamed of [her]self” (Line 2), Helen disagrees. Although men use her for their wide-ranging fantasies of reduction or slaughter, objectifying her into the “components” (Line 68) of an “abattoir” (Line 69), or lose themselves instead in a blind worship, Helen herself remains distanced from her immediate surroundings. She locates herself instead as a “foreigner” from “the province of the gods” (Line 57). Whether Helen is really a misplaced Greek figure, imagining the strip club as a contemporary Troy, or a stripper who imagines herself as Helen, this character chooses to envision herself as someone above those who surround her. She floats above them “in the air” (Line 78), haloed in a “blazing” (Line 79) spotlight. The clientele thinks they can define Helen and/or the meaning of her job but she realizes they really do not know her at all.