Helen of Troy and Social Change

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Challenging gender roles has been an arduous task. As Virginia Woolf notes, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” The structure of history, particularly that of war, has placed women as useless in comparison to men and as having no purpose beyond pleasing their partner. Euripides, for example, places women in the aftermath of the Trojan War as helpless in the face of the victors. Moreover, Macawen’s adaptation of the tragedy Trojan Women and Evans’ Trojan Barbie both discuss the docile attitude of women after a period of war. Aristotle signals diction and plot, two of the six parts of tragedy, which interprets events through the language and the actions that take place. Through the use of diction and plot, both Macewen and Trojan Women and Trojan Barbie, both Macawen and Evans challenge gender roles through the character of Helen, shows she will do whatever it takes to survive an atmosphere of male dictated war.
Diction plays a crucial role in portraying the author’s push for social change. Mecewen’s Trojan Women shows this in the scene between Helen and Menelaus’ dialogue when he has the intentions to kill her. Macewen’s choice of words for Helen when she says “What was I do to? There I was- (a child of heaven, half-divine)- abused, dishonoured, and all because of my impossible beauty,” (Macewen 86) shows her as docile and innocent in front of Menelaus when she is really outsmarting him to avoid her death. Here, social change is urged by allowing Helen to use her brains to avoid the fate that her husband wants for her. In this case, the story has been used to pressure social change in the aspect that Helen’s fate no longer rests in the hands of her husband but in her own since she is able to avoid death through the us...

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...on of gender roles in history, Evans agrees with Macewen by affirming that the story of the Trojan women is used to challenge gender roles and push for social change. The general story has shown women to be left at the mercy of men and both adaptations challenge that perception. Trojan women has been used to push for social change because it presents the story of a group of women who appear worthless now that the men in their life have died in battle, and the characters within the story react to this in different ways. Both Evans and Meacewen showcase Helen as a character that has the qualities it takes to choose her own fate, rather than having her husband do it for her. Although the difference in plot may give Helen a more empowering role in Trojan Barbie than in Trojan Women, both writers can agree that this character use her cleverness to decide her own future.

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