Poem Analysis: Hate Towards Helen

The poem consists out of three short stanzas written in free verse. It is an image poem held together with repetition of sounds. The speaker is standing outside, trying to depict the antagonism between “all Greece” and Helen by describing their interaction. As there is no reference to time or space it seems that the speaker is depicting an image of this antagonism rather than event. The image is the rising hate towards Helen and how it affects her. The first line in the first stanza „All Greece hates” sets the tone of the poem, hateful, bitter tone. The word Greece seems to imply that not only people hate and judge Helen for her part in the war, for Greece is a country, but the whole culture. It shows the intense hatred and condemnation towards Helen especially when being reinforced with words such as “hate” and “reviles”.
We can see the overwhelming effect the look of hatred by “all Greece” has on her by her response. The speaker depicts the change from a living beautiful woman into a marble statue, the progression from life to death. Although already in the first stanza there is an implication that she is an immobilized statue because of lines “still eyes in the white face”, “where she stands” and “white hands”, she is still alive because she still has the glow of life which is shown in line “lustre as of olives”. White face and hands can be perceived as feature of beauty and not of death or statue. In second stanza there is no longer any glow. The speaker no longer uses expressions that feature beauty “white hand„ and “white face” but introduces “wan face” which can be nothing but paleness and lifelessness. The expression “when it grows wan and white” suggest that she is getting close to lifelessness while being faced with hatred. She tries to smile to diminish the hatred by