What does Helen of Troy symbolize?

Question

Like for example, Aphrodite symbolizes love, etc.

Answer 1

Unlike Aphrodite, who is a goddess and who was believed to be the source of sensuality and sexuality; Helen of Troy was a real person.  She has sometimes been used as an example of what can happen when lust becomes the overruling force in your life.  She was a victim of circumstance.  It is said in Greek myth that she was very vain and considered herself as beautiful as Aphrodite, so Aphrodite arranged for her to fall in love with the enemy and used her to punish her people.

Answer 2

Nothing specific.

She's sort of a femme fatale of the ancient world. Poor girl, born so darn beautiful that men are constantly fighting over her, and she ends up causing a war that lasts ten years and ends in the city of Troy being burned to the ground and all it's women and children enslaved, and her being dragged off back to Sparta to her old husband.



So I guess she represents the helpless person who is caught up in larger events that she can't control.

Beauty and Fatalism?