The first thought I come up with when reading Doolittle's Helen is the extreme difference between her poem, and Poe's poem, Helen. Doolittle and Poe both describe Helen using her face, eyes, legs, hands, and knees; however, Doolittle expresses the speaker's growing hatred of Helen while Poe adores her deeply. Doolittle makes an interesting choice when she says "all Greece" instead of "all Greeks." She appears to be referring to more than just the people …
showed first 75 words of 378 total

showed last 75 words of 378 total
…being hated by Greece for causing the Trojan War. The poem encompasses the fact that Greece has no mercy for Helen, even when she smiles. The only way for her to attain compassion, love, and mercy is through her death. The final stanza shows a cycle of sorts - the whiteness of her skin symbolizes her death and birth as a statue, she becomes, again, a symbol of beauty in the eyes of "all Greece."