Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths(23)

Christie’s version of the Helen story is obviously a sympathetic portrayal of a beautiful woman whose other qualities don’t rival her beauty. We have no sense of Gillian as a person, really: when she reveals to Satterthwaite that she has become engaged to Charlie, we get no idea why she might prefer Charlie to Philip, or what she might be looking for in a fiancé. We don’t even get a sense of why she is happy to trust Satterthwaite – a man she has just met – with these relatively intimate details of her life. After making her acquaintance at the opera, Satterthwaite then simply bumps into her and Charlie at Kew Gardens. As is often the way with coincidence, it is narratively unsatisfying: not only do we not know enough about Gillian to say why she picked Charlie over Philip, we don’t even know whether she prefers cacti or shrubs.

The passion of Helen is entirely missing from Gillian, a woman who inspires passion with her beauty but doesn’t particularly seem to experience it herself. We can’t imagine this woman abandoning her husband and child for a handsome stranger, or beguiling the king of the city she elopes to, or articulating her innocence, or doing anything very much, except being extremely pretty and being rescued by a man from the murderous scheme of another man.

The original series of Star Trek, always keen to borrow from the Greeks and Romans, reworks Helen into the infinitely more exotic-sounding Elaan of Troyius. In this episode from 1968, the crew of the USS Enterprise are on a diplomatic mission. Two planets, Elas and Troyius, are at war. The ruling councils of these planets have decided that a marriage between Elaan and the Troyian ruler might secure a long-awaited peace. Captain Kirk and his men have the job of escorting the reluctant and scornful Elaan to Troyius while the Troyian ambassador tries to teach her the customs of her new planet. The exoticization of Elaan (played by France Nuyen) sits uncomfortably with us now, fifty years later: we are invited to view this woman as a beautiful but uncivilized barbarian, quick to resort to violence and then tears.

It’s still a fascinating twist on the Helen story: Elaan’s imminent marriage is expected to stop a war, rather than start one, so a complete reversal of the story of Helen and Paris that we find in the Iliad. Here, the diplomatic weight behind a marriage between two warring cultures has turned it into something potentially positive, and everyone is trying to make sure the wedding goes ahead. Everyone except the bride herself.

Her reluctance to marry – her conviction that a Troyian husband is beneath her – is also an interesting variation on the story. We get this same sense in Ovid’s letter from Helen to Paris in his Heroides. This collection of poems written from mythical figures (mostly women) to their absent lovers is a wonderful, surprising take on Greek myth. The Helen letter is a response to a letter she has received from Paris. He has tried to impress her with his wealth and prospects. But she is far more pragmatic, unable to ignore the loss in status and reputation that will accompany her if she leaves her home for her Trojan lover. For Ovid’s audience, Paris – the Trojan – is a barbarian, a man from the exotic east. Helen is a Greek, which is less respectable in first-century BCE Rome than being a Roman, but definitely better than being a barbarian.

For Star Trek’s audience, Elaan is not only the barbarian (the Enterprise and her crew are the civilizing force in this and almost all Star Trek episodes). She is also the warrior. We don’t meet her Troyian husband-to-be, but his ambassador is somewhat snooty and effete. He is certainly no match for Elaan when she loses patience and stabs him: only the swift attention of the medical team of the Enterprise saves his life. It is – no huge surprise – Captain Kirk who ends up having to be a civilizing influence on Elaan. Well, civilizing in some ways: again, fifty years after its initial broadcast, we flinch to see him hit her after she has hit him.

The elements of the story which more closely retell the Helen myth are equally interesting. Elaan’s beauty and charisma are so remarkable that, when she is beamed on board the Enterprise, the crew spontaneously go down on bended knee to her. Even Mr Spock, who is famously, half-Vulcanly unemotional, is compelled to kneel before her, albeit with one eyebrow raised. In the time-honoured tradition of a romantic comedy, Elaan and Kirk argue, hate each other and then fall in love. We might wonder if this is to be another twist on the story we think we know: perhaps this is the forbidden relationship that Helen/Elaan should not be having, while her absent Troyian groom is not Paris, the adulterer, but rather a virtual Menelaus – the man who has claim to her, but foolishly leaves her alone in the company of one of history’s (or, rather, the future’s) great womanizers.

Sabotage, Klingon attacks and a last-minute fix of the warp drive by the tireless Scotty accompany the Enterprise as she makes her way to Troyius. By the time they reach their destination, we are genuinely worried for Captain Kirk: he has witnessed Elaan’s tears, which, we are told, means he will be enslaved for life. Dr McCoy heroically works to create an antidote to this biochemical reaction, but the episode ends with Kirk not needing it after all: he is sitting on the bridge of his ship, perfectly content. How? Well, as Spock points out, Kirk’s great love is the Enterprise, which infected him long before Elaan did. It is another nice twist on the Helen myth: after her relationship with Paris ends, she goes back to her first husband, Menelaus. In Star Trek, Elaan has no first husband. Rather, it is Kirk who returns to his first love. And so the story of Helen, Paris and Menelaus is cleverly broken up and reformed to lose a war and gain a spaceship.