The Most Realistic Character in The Iliad

Though Homer’s The Iliad is filled with characters thriving with life and personalities of their own, Helen of Troy is the most realistic and memorable of them all. Helen is a driven woman, who takes risks to pursue her own desires, and whose actions are complicated and sometimes contradictory. Helen is a flawed character, but those flaws and aspirations in the face of her inconsiderate husbands, and her two lands waging war against each other reveal the truly relatable aspects to her character. The evolution of this ideal literary character is the most realistic of all.

Though Paris is a coward, fleeing his one-on-one battle with Menelaus over Helen’s fate and the potential of ending the war between Troy and Sparta, Helen embraces him. When Aphrodite comes to Helen to send Helen to Paris’ bedroom, Helen replies: “Or is it because Menelaus, having just beaten Paris, / Wants to take his hateful wife back to his house / That you stand here now with treachery in your heart? / Go sit by Paris yourself! … Maybe someday he’ll make you his wife—or even his slave” (3.431-7). In this passage, Helen proves that her hatred of her first husband overrides even her dislike at her kidnapper, Paris; Helen relies on Paris to protect her from being returned to Menelaus, and thus is complicit in Paris abandoning the effort to end the war and kill her husband, to assure herself a place in his life and kingdom, agreeing to share his bed after saying he should have been killed, possibly as an attempt to push Paris back into the fray (3.457-8).

Helen’s actions in this scene show her humanity by emphasizing her ability to manipulate the oppressive forces in her life in the pursuit of survival. Farron says that Paris keeps Helen as a valuable possession: “…Paris does not refuse to return Helen out of consideration for her as a human being. He does not argue that she does not want to go or that she may be killed by the Greeks” (21). Pairing Paris’ possession of Helen with the follow insults Helen uses to shame Paris back into battle, it is clear to see that Helen likely wished death on both of her husbands: “Why couldn’t I be the wife of a better man, / … Paris has never had an ounce of good sense / And never will. … / Dear brother-in-law. You bear such a burden / For my wanton ways and Paris’ witlessness” (6.368-74). Considering the bitterness Helen showed Aphrodite toward both men, and this purposeful goading, Helen’s manipulation shows her dedication to preservation by trying to force the men she hates into violent war to save herself from a life of misery.

It is not unfair to say that Helen was as much to blame for the continuation of the war between countries as Paris, who stole her away; Helen is characterized as leaving Menelaus for lust for Paris (Roisman, 132; 135). Roisman continues, saying:

There is not a scene in which Helen appears that does not show the heavy price in mental suffering that she pays for her elopement. We have already noted that she is shown to be unhappy with Paris and, in the scene with Aphrodite (read as an externalization of Helen's inner reality), as subjugated and humiliated by her passion and at odds with herself. (136)

Though Helen feels remorse for leaving her husband, whom she is obligated to serve, she does not make an effort to return to Menelaus. She only pushes for Paris to face him in battle and win the war, securing her a place in Troy, away from the life she hates. It is this selfishness that Helen clings to, allowing her to live with her guilt and suffering, and allowing this bloody, violent war involving gods and mortals alike, to continue in her name. These conflicted feelings, particularly her simultaneous hatred and erotic love for Paris, that make her well rounded and complex; if she had fallen in love with Paris and eloped to Troy out of passion, her romanticism would be celebrated, but she would exist only to serve Paris’ character to give him a stronger motive; it is natural that Paris would fight for a woman who loves him unconditionally, but Helen’s dislike of him creates layers of depth in each of their motivations. She is not a flat, attractive accessory, but reads like a living woman, caught in a series of terrible situations.

When Hector died, Helen was the last woman to deliver a speech for his eulogy. “And so I weep for you and for myself, / And my heart is heavy because there is no one left / In all wide Troy who will pity me” (24. 827-29). Even as Helen reveals her feelings of affection for her brother-in-law, she reaffirms that her regrets have lasted all twenty years of the war and have become deep self-pity. Helen’s love for Hector seems genuine in her speech; she recalls the times that Hector treated her with kindness, despite the whole country being torn apart to fight on her behalf; the war is so old that babies born at the start could be seasoned soldiers already, but Helen still never attempted to appeal to the politicians to stop the fighting. Her affection for Hector paints her in a more sympathetic light; her lasting mistakes do not go unpunished by the people who suffer for her sake, and she can turn to her brother-in-law for help and comfort, despite her feelings (or lack thereof) for Paris. With Hector dead, having been killed to protect her, Helen is left with no real allies in the city she escaped to with Paris.

Helen has twenty years in the course of The Iliad to try and fix the mistakes she made as a passionate twenty-year-old; she manages only to forge connections with a few people in her new family, with whom she took refuge only because her lust for Paris overtook her hatred for him, and also her loyalty and obligation to her first husband Menelaus. Helen’s motives and emotions twist and turn and contradict each other, but her complicated emotions give her life. Her lack of a singular, simple goal like Paris or Menelaus creates more depth to her character because she does not exist only to teach a lesson. She does not embody a typical archetype of passionate lover or shrew, because she is manipulated and manipulative equally.

Works Cited

Farron, Steven. "The Portrayal of Women in The Iliad." Acta Classica 22 (1979): 15-31.

Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. Print.

Roisman, Hanna M. “Helen and the Power of Erotic Love: From Homeric Contemplation to Hollywood Fantasy.” College Literature, Vol. 35, No. 4, Homer: Analysis & Influence (Fall, 2008), pp. 127-15