The Use of Mythological Allusions in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry

Julie Mewhinney ENG4U1 October 16th, 2012 J. Edwards Mythology Be bowel move workforcet Im Too Jaded to Write or so honor An allusion is a casual or passing reference to a famous historical or fictitious character. In poetry, allusions are often employ to help reinforce a point or remember the speaker or the addressee. In the case of Margaret Atwoods poems, Helen of troy weight Does Countertop terpsichore and Sekhmet Lion-Headed Goddess of War, allusions are used to empower and change the way we view the female speaker. This is especially obvious in Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing.The poem is about a striptease, which is considered to be quite a degrading job in directlys society. Normally much(prenominal) a protagonist would be looked down upon and pitied by the readers, and yet through and through allusions to Helen of Troy (a woman widely considered to be the to the highest degree beautiful of the ancient world, and also the sole cause of the Trojan War according to myth) the speaker comes off as superior to women with respectable jobs, and also to the men who watch her, when you would think it would be the other way around.In using lines such as I begettert let on to everyone, / but lean close and Ill whisper / My mother was raped by a holy swan (Countertop, 59-61) Atwood references Helen of Troys links to the Gods of Greek mythology (her father was genus Zeus he had appeared to Helens mother in the form of a golden swan and raped or had consensual sex with, depending on the version of the story that you read her), and makes her speaker seem otherworldly and goddess- like in doing so. kinda of feeling shamed of herself for her employment, the speaker feels superior in that she can make so many men swoon, much like Helen of Troy, and also in the knowledge that they cannot lay a finger on her I hover sextette inches in the air/ in my blazing swan-egg of light. / You think Im not a goddess? / travail me. / This is a touch song. / Touch m e and youll burn. (Countertop, 78-83). Atwood uses these allusions to aid in the acceptance of the feminist view on such a controversial subject as stripping or prostitution.In Sekhmet, Lion-Headed Goddess of War, Atwood references the Egyptian goddess of war and destruction, Sekhmet, girlfriend of the god Ra, and various other Ancient Egyptian deities, most notably Osiris. The speaker in this poem seems to be Sekhmet herself, or at least a statue of her, much like in Sirens Song, where the sirens are the speakers. In mythology, Sekhmet is the daughter of the sun god Ra, who unleashes her upon the world to bring vengeance upon those who turn in rebelled against him.She goes crazy with blood-lust and begins to kill everyone resulting in her being tricked into drinking red dyed beer by the men of the twenty-four hours in order to stop her killing rampage. With a bit of cleaver emphasis, and a feminist viewpoint, Atwood turns Sekhmet into a proud and fearsome warrior queen, who is not content to sit in a museum with the god who wouldnt diminished a fly (Sekhmet, 2), Osiris, and who would like to go back to the days when she was worshipped, not just shown to children learning about cultural diversity.Both of these poems utilize strong female characters in their allusions, most probably because Atwood tends to write from a feminist viewpoint and likes her woman to have ower over the men, as opposed to in the majority of society, where the view is quite patriarchal, and the men tend to hold power over the women. Helen of Troy, the femme fatale who caused one of the greatest conflicts of the ancient world, and Sekhmet one of the most revered, and certainly the most feared warrior of the Egyptian empire are strong, untouchable and confident in themselves, just the behavior of woman that Atwood believes all women should strive to be like.Because of these references, we do not see a degraded stripper who is taunted and looked down upon, or a lonely and forgotten goddess sitting in a museum gathering dust. Instead we see an unattainable woman of unsurpassable beauty, above the people who sneer at her, confident in her own skin, and a proud, fierce warrior goddess who remembers her glory days but still knows that she will never be forgotten.Margaret Atwood uses allusions to mythological figures to the highest degree, giving protagonists that would normally be seen as weak or pitiful characteristics of such potent women she empowers her speakers with these allusions, using them to show us a different, stronger side to cliche characters that we thought we already knew. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing. Morning in the Burned House. New York Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print. . Sekhmet, Lion-Headed Goddess of War. Morning in the Burned House. New York Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print.