document_title: Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii

question_text: when was hawaii annexed into the united states

text: Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii

text: Background[edit]

text: The Kamehameha Dynasty was the reigning monarchy of the Kingdom of Hawaii, beginning with its founding by Kamehameha I in 1795, until the death of Kamehameha V in 1872 and Lunalilo in 1874.[5][6] On July 6, 1846, U.S. Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, on behalf of President Tyler, afforded formal recognition of Hawaiian independence under the reign of Kamehameha III.[7] As a result of the recognition of Hawaiian independence, the Hawaiian Kingdom entered into treaties with the major nations of the world[8] and established over ninety legations and consulates in multiple seaports and cities.[9] The kingdom would continue for another 21 years until its overthrow in 1893 with the fall of the House of Kalākaua.[10]

text: Sugar reciprocity[edit]

text: Sugar had been a major export from Hawaii since Captain James Cook's arrival in 1778.[11] The first permanent plantation in the islands was on Kauai in 1835. William Hooper leased 980 acres of land from Kamehameha III and began growing sugar cane. Within thirty years there would be plantations on four of the main islands. Sugar had completely altered Hawaii's economy.[12]

text: American influence in Hawaiian government began with American-born plantation owners demanding a say in Kingdom politics. This was driven by missionary religion and the economics of the sugar industry. Pressure from these foreign born politicians was being felt by the King and chiefs with demands of land tenure. After the 1843 takeover by the British, Kamehameha III relented to the foreign advisors to private land demands with the Great Māhele, distributing the lands as pushed on heavily by the missionaries, including Gerrit P. Judd.[13] During the 1850s, the U.S. import tariff on sugar from Hawaii was much higher than the import tariffs Hawaiians were charging the U.S., and Kamehameha III sought reciprocity.[14] The monarch wished to lower the tariffs being paid out to the U.S. while still maintaining the Kingdom's sovereignty and making Hawaiian sugar competitive with other foreign markets. In 1854 Kamehameha III proposed a policy of reciprocity between the countries but the proposal died in the U.S. Senate.[15]

text: As early as 1873, a United States military commission recommended attempting to obtain Ford Island in exchange for the tax-free importation of sugar to the U.S.[16] Major General John Schofield, U.S. commander of the military division of the Pacific, and Brevet Brigadier General Burton S. Alexander arrived in Hawaii to ascertain its defensive capabilities. American control of Hawaii was considered vital for the defense of the west coast of the United States, and they were especially interested in Pu'uloa, Pearl Harbor.[17] The sale of one of Hawaii's harbors was proposed by Charles Reed Bishop, a foreigner who had married into the Kamehameha family, had risen in the government to be Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and owned a country home near Pu'uloa. He showed the two U.S. officers around the lochs, although his wife, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, privately disapproved of selling Hawaiian lands. As monarch, William Charles Lunalilo, was content to let Bishop run almost all business affairs but the ceding of lands would become unpopular with the native Hawaiians. Many islanders thought that all the islands, rather than just Pearl Harbor, might be lost and opposed any cession of land. By November 1873, Lunalilo canceled negotiations and returned to drinking, against his doctor's advice; his health declined swiftly, and he died on February 3, 1874.[17]

text: Lunalilo left no heirs. The legislature was empowered by the constitution to elect the monarch in these instances[18] and chose David Kalākaua as the next monarch.[19] The new ruler was pressured by the U.S. government to surrender Pearl Harbor to the Navy.[19] Kalākaua was concerned that this would lead to annexation by the U.S. and to the contravention of the traditions of the Hawaiian people, who believed that the land ('Āina) was fertile, sacred, and not for sale to anyone.[19] In 1874 through 1875, Kalākaua traveled to the United States for a state visit to Washington DC to help gain support for a new treaty.[20][21] Congress agreed to the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 for seven years in exchange for Ford Island.[22][23] After the treaty, sugar production expanded from 12,000 acres of farm land to 125,000 acres in 1891.[24] At the end of the seven-year reciprocity agreement, the United States showed little interest in renewal.[22]

text: Rebellion of 1887 and the Bayonet Constitution[edit]

text: On January 20, 1887, the United States began leasing Pearl Harbor.[25] Shortly afterwards, a group of mostly non-Hawaiians calling themselves the Hawaiian Patriotic League began the Rebellion of 1887.[26] They drafted their own constitution on July 6, 1887.[27] The new constitution was written by Lorrin Thurston, the Hawaiian Minister of the Interior who used the Hawaiian militia as threat against Kalākaua.[25] Kalākaua was forced under threat of assassination[28] to dismiss his cabinet ministers and sign a new constitution which greatly lessened his power.[19] It would become known as the "Bayonet Constitution" due to the force used.[25]

text: The Bayonet Constitution allowed the monarch to appoint cabinet ministers, but had stripped him of the power to dismiss them without approval from the Legislature.[27]:152 Eligibility to vote for the House of Nobles was also altered, stipulating that both candidates and voters were now required to own property valuing at least three thousand dollars, or have an annual income of no less than six hundred dollars.[29] This resulted in disenfranchising two thirds of the native Hawaiians as well as other ethnic groups who had previously held the right to vote but were no longer able to meet the new voting requirements.[30] This new constitution benefited the white, foreign plantation owners.[31] With the legislature now responsible for naturalizing citizens, Americans and Europeans could retain their home country citizenship and vote as citizens of the kingdom.[32] Along with voting privileges, Americans could now run for office and still retain their American citizenship, something not afforded in any other nation of the world[33] and even allowed Americans to vote without becoming naturalized.[34] Asian immigrants were completely shut out and were no longer able to acquire citizenship or vote at all.[35]

text: Wilcox Rebellion of 1888[edit]

text: The Wilcox Rebellion of 1888 was a plot to overthrow King David Kalākaua, king of Hawaii, and replace him with his sister in a coup d'état in response to increased political tension between the legislature and the king after the 1887 constitution. Kalākaua's sister, Princess Liliʻuokalani and his wife, Queen Kapiolani, returned from Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee immediately after news reached them in Great Britain.[36]

text: Kalākaua's distant cousin, a native Hawaiian officer and veteran of the Italian military, Robert William Wilcox returned to Hawaii at about the same time as Liliʻuokalani[37] in October 1887 when the funding for his study program stopped when the new constitution was signed. Wilcox, Charles B. Wilson, Princess Liliʻuokalani, and Sam Nowlein plotted to overthrow King Kalākaua to replace him with his sister, Liliʻuokalani. They had 300 Hawaiian conspirators hidden in ʻIolani Barracks and an alliance with the Royal Guard, but the plot was accidentally discovered in January 1888, less than 48 hours before the revolt would have been initiated.[38] No one was prosecuted but Wilcox was exiled. So on February 11, 1888, Wilcox left Hawaii for San Francisco, intending to return to Italy with his wife.

text: Princess Liliʻuokalani was offered the throne several times by the Missionary Party who had forced the Bayonet Constitution on her brother, but she believed she would become a powerless figurehead like her brother and rejected the offers outright.[39]

text: Liliʻuokalani attempts to re-write Constitution[edit]

text: In November 1889, Kalākaua traveled to San Francisco for his health, staying at the Palace Hotel. He died there on January 20, 1890.[40] His sister Liliʻuokalani assumed the throne in the middle of an economic crisis. The McKinley Act had crippled the Hawaiian sugar industry by removing the duties on sugar imports from other countries into the US, eliminating the previous Hawaiian advantage gained via the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875.[41] Many Hawaii businesses and citizens felt pressure from the loss of revenue; in response Liliʻuokalani proposed a lottery system to raise money for her government. Also proposed was a controversial opium licensing bill.[42] Her ministers, and closest friends, were all opposed to this plan; they unsuccessfully tried to dissuade her from pursuing these initiatives, both of which came to be used against her in the brewing constitutional crisis.[43]

text: Liliʻuokalani's chief desire was to restore power to the monarch by abrogating the 1887 Bayonet Constitution and promulgating a new one, an idea that seems to have been broadly supported by the Hawaiian population.[44] The 1893 Constitution would have increased suffrage by reducing some property requirements, and eliminated the voting privileges extended to European and American residents. It would have disenfranchised many resident European and American businessmen who were not citizens of Hawaii. The Queen toured several of the islands on horseback, talking to the people about her ideas and receiving overwhelming support, including a lengthy petition in support of a new constitution. However, when the Queen informed her cabinet of her plans, they withheld their support due to an understanding of what her opponents' likely response to these plans would be.[45]

text: Though there were threats to Hawaii's sovereignty throughout the Kingdom's history, it was not until the signing of the Bayonet Constitution in 1887 that this threat began to be realized. The precipitating event[46] leading to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893, was the attempt by Queen Liliʻuokalani to promulgate a new constitution that would have strengthened the power of the monarch relative to the legislature, where Euro-American business elites held disproportionate power. The stated goals of the conspirators, who were non-native Hawaiian Kingdom subjects (five American nationals, one English national, and one German national)[47] were to depose the queen, overthrow the monarchy, and seek Hawaii's annexation to the United States.[48][49]

text: Overthrow[edit]

text: The overthrow itself was started by newspaper publisher Lorrin Thurston, a Hawaiian subject and former Minister of the Interior who was the grandson of American missionaries,[50] and formally led by the Chairman of the Committee of Safety, Henry E. Cooper, an American lawyer. They derived their support primarily from the American and European business class residing in Hawaii and other supporters of the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Most of the leaders of the Committee of Safety that deposed the queen were American and European citizens who were also Kingdom subjects.[51][52][53] They included legislators, government officers, and a Supreme Court Justice of the Hawaiian Kingdom.[54]

text: On January 16, the Marshal of the Kingdom, Charles B. Wilson was tipped off by detectives to the imminent planned overthrow. Wilson requested warrants to arrest the 13-member council of the Committee of Safety, and put the Kingdom under martial law. Because the members had strong political ties with United States Government Minister John L. Stevens, the requests were repeatedly denied by Attorney General Arthur P. Peterson and the Queen’s cabinet, fearing if approved, the arrests would escalate the situation. After a failed negotiation with Thurston,[55] Wilson began to collect his men for the confrontation. Wilson and Captain of the Royal Household Guard, Samuel Nowlein, had rallied a force of 496 men who were kept at hand to protect the Queen.[2]

text: The events began on January 17, 1893, when John Good, a revolutionist, shot Leialoha, a native policeman who was trying to stop a wagon carrying weapons to the Honolulu Rifles, the paramilitary wing of the Committee of Safety led by Lorrin Thurston.[56] The Committee of Safety feared the shooting would bring government forces to rout out the conspirators and stop the overthrow before it could begin. The Committee of Safety initiated the overthrow by organizing the Honolulu Rifles, consisting of approximately 1,500 armed local (non-native) men, under their leadership, intending to depose Queen Liliʻuokalani. The Rifles garrisoned Ali'iolani Hale across the street from ʻIolani Palace and waited for the Queen's response.[49]

text: As these events were unfolding, the Committee of Safety expressed concern for the safety and property of American residents in Honolulu.[57]

text: On January 17, 1893, the Chairman of the Committee of Safety, Henry E. Cooper, addressed a crowd assembled in front of ʻIolani Palace (the official royal residence) and read aloud a proclamation that formally deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani, abolished the Hawaiian monarchy, and established a Provisional Government of Hawaii under President Sanford B. Dole.

text: United States involvement[edit]

text: The overthrow efforts were supported by United States Government Minister John L. Stevens with an invasion of U.S. Marines, who came ashore at the request of the conspirators.[58] Advised about supposed threats to non-combatant American lives and property[59] by the Committee of Safety, Stevens obliged their request and summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines from the USS Boston and 162 sailors to land on the Kingdom under orders of neutrality and take up positions at the U.S. Legation, Consulate, and Arion Hall on the afternoon of January 16, 1893.[60]

text: The overthrow left the queen imprisoned in ʻIolani Palace under house arrest. The American sailors and Marines did not enter the Palace grounds or take over any buildings, and never fired a shot, but their presence served effectively in intimidating royalist defenders. Historian William Russ states, "the injunction to prevent fighting of any kind made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself."[61] Due to the Queen's desire "to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life" for her subjects and after some deliberation, at the urging of advisers and friends, the Queen ordered her forces to surrender. The Honolulu Rifles took over government buildings, disarmed the Royal Guard, and declared a provisional government.[49]

text: According to the Queen's Book, her friend and minister J. S. Walker "came and told me that he had come on a painful duty, that the opposition party had requested that I should abdicate." After consulting with her ministers, including Walker, the Queen concluded that "since the troops of the United States had been landed to support the revolutionists, by the order of the American minister, it would be impossible for us to make any resistance".[62]:387 Despite repeated claims that the overthrow was "bloodless", the Queen's Book notes that Liliʻuokalani received "friends [who] expressed their sympathy in person; amongst these Mrs. J. S. Walker, who had lost her husband by the treatment he received from the hands of the insurgents. He was one of many who from persecution had succumbed to death."[62]:296

text: Immediate annexation was prevented by the speech given by President Grover Cleveland to Congress at this time, in which he stated that:

text: ... the military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war; unless made either with the consent of the government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the government of the queen ... the existing government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the vicinity of such property and so as to protect it, instead of at a distance and so as to command the Hawaiian Government Building and palace ... When these armed men were landed, the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition ...[63]

text: The Republic of Hawaii was nonetheless declared in 1894 by the same parties which had established the provisional government. Among them were Lorrin A. Thurston, a drafter of the Bayonet Constitution, and Sanford Dole who appointed himself President of the forcibly instated Republic on July 4, 1894.

text: Aftermath[edit]

text: A provisional government was set up with the strong support of the Honolulu Rifles, a militia group who had defended the system of government promulgated by the Bayonet Constitution against the Wilcox rebellion of 1889.[49]

text: The Queen's statement yielding authority, on January 17, 1893, protested the overthrow:

text: I Liliʻuokalani, by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the Constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for this Kingdom.

text: That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America whose Minister Plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government.

text: Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.[64]

text: On December 19, 1898 the queen would amend the declaration with the "Memorial of Queen Liliuokalani in relation to the Crown lands of Hawaii", further protesting the overthrow and loss of property.[65]

text: Response[edit]

text: United States[edit]

text: Newly inaugurated President Grover Cleveland called for an investigation into the overthrow. This investigation was conducted by former Congressman James Henderson Blount. Blount concluded in his report on July 17, 1893, "United States diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority and were responsible for the change in government."[66] Minister Stevens was recalled, and the military commander of forces in Hawaiʻi was forced to resign his commission.[citation needed] President Cleveland stated, "Substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair the monarchy." Cleveland further stated in his 1893 State of the Union Address that, "Upon the facts developed it seemed to me the only honorable course for our Government to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore as far as practicable the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention."[63] The matter was referred by Cleveland to Congress on December 18, 1893, after the Queen refused to accept amnesty for the traitors as a condition of reinstatement. Hawaii President Sanford Dole was presented a demand for reinstatement by Minister Willis, who had not realized Cleveland had already sent the matter to Congress—Dole flatly refused Cleveland's demands to reinstate the Queen.[citation needed]

text: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Tyler Morgan (D-Alabama) and composed mostly of senators in favor of annexation, initiated their own investigation to discredit Blount's earlier report, using pro-annexationist affidavits from Hawaii, and testimony provided to the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Not surprisingly, the Morgan Report contradicted the Blount Report, and exonerated Minister Stevens and the U.S. military troops finding them "not guilty" of involvement in the overthrow. Cleveland became stalled with his earlier efforts to restore the queen, and adopted a position of recognition of the so-called Provisional Government and the Republic of Hawaii which followed.[67][68]

text: The Native Hawaiian Study Commission of the United States Congress in its 1983 final report found no historical, legal, or moral obligation for the U.S. government to provide reparations, assistance, or group rights to Native Hawaiians.[69]

text: In 1993, the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Congress passed a resolution, which President Bill Clinton signed into law, offering an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for its involvement in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. This law is known as the Apology Resolution.

text: International[edit]

text: Every government with a diplomatic presence in Hawaii, except for the United Kingdom, recognized the Provisional Government within 48 hours of the overthrow via their consulates. Countries recognizing the new Provisional Government included Chile, Austria-Hungary, Mexico, Russia, the Netherlands, Imperial Germany, Sweden, Spain, Imperial Japan,[70] Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, China, Peru, and France.[71] When the Republic of Hawaii was declared on July 4, 1894, immediate de facto recognition was given by every nation with diplomatic relations with Hawaii, except for Britain, whose response came in November 1894.[72]

text: Hawaiian counter-revolution[edit]

text: A four-day uprising between January 6 and 9, 1895, began with an attempted coup d'état to restore the monarchy, and included battles between Royalists and the republican rebels. Later, after a weapons cache was found on the palace grounds after the attempted rebellion in 1895, Queen Liliʻuokalani was placed under arrest, tried by a military tribunal of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, convicted of misprision of treason and imprisoned in her own home. On January 24, Liliʻuokalani abdicated, formally ending the Hawaiian monarchy.[73]

text: Republic, American annexation, statehood[edit]

text: The Committee of Safety declared Sanford Dole to be President of the new Provisional Government of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi on January 17, 1893, removing only the Queen, her cabinet, and her marshal from office.[74]:581–587 On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaiʻi was proclaimed. Dole was president of both governments. As a republic, it was the intention of the government to campaign for annexation with the United States of America. The rationale behind annexation included a strong economic component—Hawaiian goods and services exported to the mainland would not be subject to American tariffs, and would benefit from domestic bounties, if Hawaii was part of the United States.[74]:649–650

text: In 1897, William McKinley succeeded Cleveland as president. A year later he signed the Newlands Resolution, which provided for the annexation of Hawaii on July 7, 1898. The formal ceremony marking the annexation was held at Iolani Palace on August 12, 1898. Almost no Native Hawaiians attended, and those few who were on the streets wore royalist ilima blossoms in their hats or hair, and, on their breasts Hawaiian flags with the motto: Kuu Hae Aloha ("my beloved flag").[75] Most of the 40,000 Native Hawaiians, including Liliʻuokalani and the royal family, shuttered themselves in their homes, protesting what they considered an illegal transaction. "When the news of Annexation came it was bitterer than death to me", Liliʻuokalani's niece, Princess Kaʻiulani, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It was bad enough to lose the throne, but infinitely worse to have the flag go down."[76] The Hawaiian flag was lowered for the last time while the Royal Hawaiian Band played the Hawaiian national anthem, Hawaiʻi Ponoʻī.

text: The Hawaiian Islands, together with the distant Palmyra Island and Stewart Islands, became the Territory of Hawaii, a United States territory, with a new government established on February 22, 1900. Sanford Dole was appointed as the first governor.[77] ʻIolani Palace served as the capitol of the Hawaiian government until 1969.


document_title: Helen of Troy

question_text: the face that launched a thousand ships greek mythology

root

text: Helen of Troy

text: Etymology[edit]

text: The etymology of Helen's name continues to be a problem for scholars. Georg Curtius related Helen (Ἑλένη) to the moon (Selene; Σελήνη). Émile Boisacq considered Ἑλένη to derive from the noun ἑλένη meaning "torch".[1] It has also been suggested that the λ of Ἑλένη arose from an original ν, and thus the etymology of the name is connected with the root of Venus. Linda Lee Clader, however, says that none of the above suggestions offers much satisfaction.[2][a]

tag: p

text: Inversely, others have connected this etymology to a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European sun goddess, noting her name's connection to the word for "sun" in various Indo-European cultures.[7][8][9][10][b] In particular, her marriage myth may be connected to a broader indo-European "marriage drama" of the sun goddess, and she is related to the divine twins, just as many of these goddesses are.[11]

text: None of the etymological sources appear to support the existence, save as a coincidence only, of a connection between the name of Helen and the name by which the classical Greeks commonly described themselves, namely Hellenic[12] or Hellenistic, after Hellen (/ˈhɛlɪn/; Greek: Ἕλλην) the mythological progenitor of the Greeks.

text: Prehistoric and mythological context[edit]

text: The origins of Helen's myth date back to the Mycenaean age.[13] The first record of her name appears in the poems of Homer, but scholars assume that such myths invented or received by the Mycenaean Greeks made their way to Homer. Her mythological birthplace was Sparta of the Age of Heroes, which features prominently in the canon of Greek myth: in later ancient Greek memory, the Mycenaean Bronze Age became the age of the Greek heroes. The kings, queens, and heroes of the Trojan Cycle are often related to the gods, since divine origins gave stature to the Greeks' heroic ancestors. The fall of Troy came to represent a fall from an illustrious heroic age, remembered for centuries in oral tradition before being written down.[14] Recent archaeological excavations in Greece suggest that modern-day Laconia was a distinct territory in the Late Bronze Age, while the poets narrate that it was a rich kingdom. Archaeologists have unsuccessfully looked for a Mycenaean palatial complex buried beneath present-day Sparta.[15] Recent archeological excavations at the Menelaion uncovered several findings including two Mycenaean mansions. These mansions that were destroyed, by an earthquake and by fire, are considered by archaeologists to be the possible palace of Menelaus and Helen.[16] Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that the area around Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.[17]

text: Life[edit]

text: Birth[edit]

text: In most sources, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, Helen is the daughter of Zeus, and Leda, the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus.[18] Euripides' play Helen, written in the late 5th century BC, is the earliest source to report the most familiar account of Helen's birth: that, although her putative father was Tyndareus, she was actually Zeus' daughter. In the form of a swan, the king of gods was chased by an eagle, and sought refuge with Leda. The swan gained her affection, and the two mated. Leda then produced an egg, from which Helen emerged.[19] The First Vatican Mythographer introduces the notion that two eggs came from the union: one containing Castor and Pollux; one with Helen and Clytemnestra. Nevertheless, the same author earlier states that Helen, Castor and Pollux were produced from a single egg.[20] Pseudo-Apollodorus states that Leda had intercourse with both Zeus and Tyndareus the night she conceived Helen.[21]

text: On the other hand, in the Cypria, part of the Epic Cycle, Helen was the daughter of Zeus and the goddess Nemesis.[22] The date of the Cypria is uncertain, but it is generally thought to preserve traditions that date back to at least the 7th century BC. In the Cypria, Nemesis did not wish to mate with Zeus. She therefore changed shape into various animals as she attempted to flee Zeus, finally becoming a goose. Zeus also transformed himself into a goose and mated with Nemesis, who produced an egg from which Helen was born.[23] Presumably, in the Cypria, this egg was somehow transferred to Leda.[24] Later sources state either that it was brought to Leda by a shepherd who discovered it in a grove in Attica, or that it was dropped into her lap by Hermes.[25]

text: Asclepiades of Tragilos and Pseudo-Eratosthenes related a similar story, except that Zeus and Nemesis became swans instead of geese.[26] Timothy Gantz has suggested that the tradition that Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan derives from the version in which Zeus and Nemesis transformed into birds.[27]

text: Pausanias states that in the middle of the 2nd century AD, the remains of an egg-shell, tied up in ribbons, were still suspended from the roof of a temple on the Spartan acropolis. People believed that this was "the famous egg that legend says Leda brought forth". Pausanias traveled to Sparta to visit the sanctuary, dedicated to Hilaeira and Phoebe, in order to see the relic for himself.[28]

text: Abduction by Theseus and youth[edit]

text: Two Athenians, Theseus and Pirithous, thought that since they were both sons of gods, both of them should have divine wives; they thus pledged to help each other abduct two daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen, and Pirithous vowed to marry Persephone, the wife of Hades. Theseus took Helen and left her with his mother Aethra or his associate Aphidnus at Aphidnae or Athens. Theseus and Pirithous then traveled to the underworld, the domain of Hades, to kidnap Persephone. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast, but, as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Helen's abduction caused an invasion of Athens by Castor and Pollux, who captured Aethra in revenge, and returned their sister to Sparta.[29]

text: In most accounts of this event, Helen was quite young; Hellanicus of Lesbos said she was seven years old and Diodorus makes her ten years old.[30] On the other hand, Stesichorus said that Iphigeneia was the daughter of Theseus and Helen, which obviously implies that Helen was of childbearing age.[31] In most sources, Iphigeneia is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, but Duris of Samos and other writers followed Stesichorus' account.[32]

text: Ovid's Heroides give us an idea of how ancient and, in particular, Roman authors imagined Helen in her youth: she is presented as a young princess wrestling naked in the palaestra; an image alluding to a part of girls' physical education in classical (and not in Mycenaean) Sparta. Sextus Propertius imagines Helen as a girl who practices arms and hunts with her brothers:[33]

text: [...] or like Helen, on the sands of Eurotas, between Castor and Pollux, one to be victor in boxing, the other with horses: with naked breasts she carried weapons, they say, and did not blush with her divine brothers there.

text: Suitors of Helen[edit]

text: When it was time for Helen to marry, many kings and princes from around the world came to seek her hand, bringing rich gifts with them, or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. During the contest, Castor and Pollux had a prominent role in dealing with the suitors, although the final decision was in the hands of Tyndareus.[35] Menelaus, her future husband, did not attend but sent his brother, Agamemnon, to represent him.

text: The Oath of Tyndareus[edit]

text: Tyndareus was afraid to select a husband for his daughter, or send any of the suitors away, for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus was one of the suitors, but had brought no gifts because he believed he had little chance to win the contest. He thus promised to solve the problem, if Tyndareus in turn would support him in his courting of Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband against whoever should quarrel with him. After the suitors had sworn not to retaliate, Menelaus was chosen to be Helen's husband. As a sign of the importance of the pact, Tyndareus sacrificed a horse.[36] Helen and Menelaus became rulers of Sparta, after Tyndareus and Leda abdicated. Menelaus and Helen rule in Sparta for at least ten years; they have a daughter, Hermione, and (according to some myths) three sons: Aethiolas, Maraphius, and Pleisthenes.

text: The marriage of Helen and Menelaus marks the beginning of the end of the age of heroes. Concluding the catalog of Helen's suitors, Hesiod reports Zeus' plan to obliterate the race of men and the heroes in particular. The Trojan War, caused by Helen's elopement with Paris, is going to be his means to this end.[37]

text: Seduction by Paris[edit]

text: Paris, a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to claim Helen, in the guise of a supposed diplomatic mission. Before this journey, Paris had been appointed by Zeus to judge the most beautiful goddess; Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite. In order to earn his favour, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. Swayed by Aphrodite's offer, Paris chose her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, earning the wrath of Athena and Hera.

text: Although Helen is sometimes depicted as being raped by Paris, Ancient Greek sources are often elliptical and contradictory. Herodotus states that Helen was abducted, but the Cypria simply mentions that, after giving Helen gifts, "Aphrodite brings the Spartan queen together with the Prince of Troy."[38] Sappho argues that Helen willingly left behind Menelaus and their nine-year-old daughter, Hermione, to be with Paris:

text:
Some say a host of horsemen, others of infantry and others
   of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the dark earth
   but I say, it is what you love
Full easy it is to make this understood of one and all: for
   she that far surpassed all mortals in beauty, Helen her
   most noble husband
Deserted, and went sailing to Troy, with never a thought for
   her daughter and dear parents.

text: Dio Chrysostom gives a completely different account of the story, questioning Homer's credibility: after Agamemnon had married Helen's sister, Klytaemnestra, Tyndareus sought Helen's hand for Menelaus on account of political reasons. However, Helen was sought by many suitors, who came from far and near, among them Paris who surpassed all the others and won the favor of Tyndareus and his sons. Thus he won her fairly and took her away to Troia, with the full consent of her natural protectors.[40] Cypria narrate that in just three days Paris and Helen reached Troy. Homer narrates that during a brief stop-over in the small island of Kranai, according to Iliad, the two lovers consummated their passion. On the other hand, Cypria note that this happened the night before they left Sparta.[41]

text:
In western painting, Helen's journey to Troy is usually depicted as a forced abduction. The Rape of Helen by Francesco Primaticcio (c. 1530–1539, Bowes Museum) is representative of this tradition.

In Guido Reni's homonymous painting (1631, Louvre, Paris), however, Paris holds Helen by her wrist, and leave together for Troia.

The Rape of Helen by Tintoretto (1578–1579, Museo del Prado, Madrid); Helen languishes in the corner of a land-sea battle scene.[42]

El Juicio de Paris by Enrique Simonet, c. 1904. This painting depicts Paris' judgement. He is inspecting Aphrodite, who is standing naked before him. Hera and Athena watch nearby.

tag: ul

text: Helen in Egypt[edit]

text: At least three Ancient Greek authors denied that Helen ever went to Troy; instead, they suggested, Helen stayed in Egypt during the duration of the Trojan War. Those three authors are Euripides, Stesichorus, and Herodotus.[43] In the version put forth by Euripides in his play Helen, Hera fashioned a likeness of Helen (eidolon, εἴδωλον) out of clouds at Zeus' request, Hermes took her to Egypt, and Helen never went to Troy, spending the entire war in Egypt. Eidolon is also present in Stesichorus' account, but not in Herodotus' rationalizing version of the myth.

text: Herodotus adds weight to the "Egyptian" version of events by putting forward his own evidence—he traveled to Egypt and interviewed the priests of the temple (Foreign Aphrodite, ξείνη Ἀφροδίτη) at Memphis. According to these priests, Helen had arrived in Egypt shortly after leaving Sparta, because strong winds had blown Paris's ship off course. King Proteus of Egypt, appalled that Paris had seduced his host's wife and plundered his host's home in Sparta, disallowed Paris from taking Helen to Troy. Paris returned to Troy without a new bride, but the Greeks refused to believe that Helen was in Egypt and not within Troy's walls. Thus, Helen waited in Memphis for ten years, while the Greeks and the Trojans fought. Following the conclusion of the Trojan War, Menelaus sailed to Memphis, where Proteus reunited him with Helen.[44]

text: Helen in Troy[edit]

text:
Helen on the Ramparts of Troy was a popular theme in the late 19th-century art – seen here a depiction by Frederick Leighton.

In a similar fashion to Leighton, Gustave Moreau depicts an expressionless Helen; a blank or anguished face.

Lithographic illustration by Walter Crane

text: When he discovered that his wife was missing, Menelaus called upon all the other suitors to fulfill their oaths, thus beginning the Trojan War. The Greek fleet gathered in Aulis, but the ships could not sail, because there was no wind. Artemis was enraged by a sacrilegious act of the Greeks, and only the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenia, could appease her. In Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia's mother and Helen's sister, begs her husband to reconsider his decision, calling Helen a "wicked woman". Clytemnestra (unsuccessfully) warns Agamemnon that sacrificing Iphigenia for Helen's sake is, "buying what we most detest with what we hold most dear".[45]

text: Before the opening of hostilities, the Greeks dispatched a delegation to the Trojans under Odysseus and Menelaus; they endeavored to persuade Priam to hand Helen back without success. A popular theme, The Request of Helen (Helenes Apaitesis, Ἑλένης Ἀπαίτησις), was the subject of a drama by Sophocles, now lost.[46]

text: Homer paints a poignant, lonely picture of Helen in Troy. She is filled with self-distaste and regret for what she has caused; by the end of the war, the Trojans have come to hate her. When Hector dies, she is the third mourner at his funeral, and she says that, of all the Trojans, Hector and Priam alone were always kind to her:[47]

text:
Wherefore I wail alike for thee and for my hapless self with grief at heart;
for no longer have I anyone beside in broad Troy that is gentle to me or kind;
but all men shudder at me.

text: These bitter words reveal that Helen gradually realized Paris' weaknesses, and she decided to ally herself with Hector. There is an affectionate relationship between the two of them, and Helen has harsh words to say for Paris, when she compares the two brothers:[48]

text:
Howbeit, seeing the gods thus ordained these ills, would that I had been wife to a better man,
that could feel the indignation of his fellows and their many revilings. [...]
But come now, enter in, and sit thee upon this chair, my brother,
since above all others has trouble encompassed thy heart because of shameless me, and the folly of Alexander.

text: After Paris was killed in action, there was some dispute among the Trojans about which of Priam's surviving sons she should remarry: Helenus or Deiphobus, but she was given to the latter.

text: Helen during the Fall of Troy[edit]

text: During the fall of Troy, Helen's role is ambiguous. In Virgil's Aeneid, Deiphobus gives an account of Helen's treacherous stance: when the Trojan Horse was admitted into the city, she feigned Bacchic rites, leading a chorus of Trojan women, and, holding a torch among them, she signaled to the Greeks from the city's central tower. In Odyssey, however, Homer narrates a different story: Helen circled the Horse three times, and she imitated the voices of the Greek women left behind at home—she thus tortured the men inside (including Odysseus and Menelaus) with the memory of their loved ones, and brought them to the brink of destruction.[49]

text: After the death of Hector and Paris, Helen became the paramour of their younger brother, Deiphobus; but when the sack of Troy began, she hid her new husband's sword, and left him to the mercy of Menelaus and Odysseus. In Aeneid, Aeneas meets the mutilated Deiphobus in Hades; his wounds serve as a testimony to his ignominious end, abetted by Helen's final act of treachery.[50]

text: However, Helen's portraits in Troy seem to contradict each other. From one side, we read about the treacherous Helen who simulated Bacchic rites and rejoiced over the carnage of Trojans. On the other hand, there is another Helen, lonely and helpless; desperate to find sanctuary, while Troy is on fire. Stesichorus narrates that both Greeks and Trojans gathered to stone her to death.[51] When Menelaus finally found her, he raised his sword to kill her. He had demanded that only he should slay his unfaithful wife; but, when he was ready to do so, she dropped her robe from her shoulders, and the sight of her beauty caused him to let the sword drop from his hand.[52] Electra wails:[53]

text: Alas for my troubles! Can it be that her beauty has blunted their swords?

text: Fate[edit]

text: Helen returned to Sparta and lived for a time with Menelaus, where she was encountered by Telemachus in Book 4 of The Odyssey. As depicted in that account, she and Menelaus were completely reconciled and had a harmonious married life—he holding no grudge at her having run away with a lover and she feeling no restraint in telling anecdotes of her life inside besieged Troy.

text: According to another version, used by Euripides in his play Orestes, Helen had long ago left the mortal world by then, having been taken up to Mount Olympus almost immediately after Menelaus' return. A curious fate is recounted by Pausanias the geographer (3.19.11–13), which has Helen share the afterlife with Achilles.[54]

text: Pausanias the geographer has another story (3.19.9–10): "The account of the Rhodians is different. They say that when Menelaus was dead, and Orestes still a wanderer, Helen was driven out by Nicostratus and Megapenthes and came to Rhodes, where she had a friend in Polyxo, the wife of Tlepolemus. For Polyxo, they say, was an Argive by descent, and when she was already married to Tlepolemus, shared his flight to Rhodes. At the time she was queen of the island, having been left with an orphan boy. They say that this Polyxo desired to avenge the death of Tlepolemus on Helen, now that she had her in her power. So she sent against her when she was bathing handmaidens dressed up as Furies, who seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, and for this reason the Rhodians have a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree."[55]

text: Tlepolemus was a son of Heracles and Astyoche. Astyoche was a daughter of Phylas, King of Ephyra who was killed by Heracles. Tlepolemus was killed by Sarpedon on the first day of fighting in the Iliad. Nicostratus was a son of Menelaus by his concubine Pieris, an Aetolian slave. Megapenthes was a son of Menelaus by his concubine Tereis, no further origin.

text: In Euripides's tragedy Trojan Women, Helen is shunned by the women who survived the war, and is to be taken back to Greece to face a death sentence.

text: In Simonianism, it was taught that Helen of Troy was one of the incarnations of the Ennoia in human form.

text: Artistic representations[edit]

text: From Antiquity, depicting Helen would be a remarkable challenge. The story of Zeuxis deals with this exact question: how would an artist immortalize ideal beauty?[57] He eventually selected the best features from five virgins. The ancient world starts to paint Helen's picture or inscribe her form on stone, clay and bronze by the 7th century BC.[58] Dares Phrygius describes Helen in his History of the Fall of Troy: "She was beautiful, ingenuous, and charming. Her legs were the best; her mouth the cutest. There was a beauty-mark between her eyebrows."[59]

text: Helen is frequently depicted on Athenian vases as being threatened by Menelaus and fleeing from him. This is not the case, however, in Laconic art: on an Archaic stele depicting Helen's recovery after the fall of Troy, Menelaus is armed with a sword but Helen faces him boldly, looking directly into his eyes; and in other works of Peloponnesian art, Helen is shown carrying a wreath, while Menelaus holds his sword aloft vertically. In contrast, on Athenian vases of c. 550–470, Menelaus threateningly points his sword at her.[60]

text: The abduction by Paris was another popular motif in ancient Greek vase-painting; definitely more popular than the kidnapping by Theseus. In a famous representation by the Athenian vase painter Makron, Helen follows Paris like a bride following a bridegroom, her wrist grasped by Paris' hand.[61] The Etruscans, who had a sophisticated knowledge of Greek mythology, demonstrated a particular interest in the theme of the delivery of Helen's egg, which is depicted in relief mirrors.[62]

text: In Renaissance painting, Helen's departure from Sparta is usually depicted as a scene of forcible removal (rape) by Paris. This is not, however, the case with certain secular medieval illustrations. Artists of the 1460s and 1470s were influenced by Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, where Helen's abduction was portrayed as a scene of seduction. In the Florentine Picture Chronicle Paris and Helen are shown departing arm in arm, while their marriage was depicted into Franco-Flemish tapestry.[63]

text: In Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (1604), Faust conjures the shade of Helen. Upon seeing Helen, Faustus speaks the famous line: "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium." (Act V, Scene I.) Helen is also conjured by Faust in Goethe's Faust.

text: In Pre-Raphaelite art, Helen is often shown with shining curly hair and ringlets. Other painters of the same period depict Helen on the ramparts of Troy, and focus on her expression: her face is expressionless, blank, inscrutable.[64] In Gustave Moreau's painting, Helen will finally become faceless; a blank eidolon in the middle of Troy's ruins.

text: Cult[edit]

text: The major centers of Helen's cult were in Laconia. At Sparta, the urban sanctuary of Helen was located near the Platanistas, so called for the plane trees planted there. Ancient sources associate Helen with gymnastic exercises or/and choral dances of maidens near the Evrotas River. Theocritus conjures the song epithalamium Spartan women sung at Platanistas commemorating the marriage of Helen and Menelaus:[65]

text:
We first a crown of low-growing lotus
having woven will place it on a shady plane-tree.
First from a silver oil-flask soft oil
drawing we will let it drip beneath the shady plane-tree.
Letters will be carved in the bark, so that someone passing by
may read in Doric: "Reverence me. I am Helen's tree."

text: Helen's worship was also present on the opposite bank of Eurotas at Therapne, where she shared a shrine with Menelaus and the Dioscuri. The shrine has been known as "Menelaion" (the shrine of Menelaus), and it was believed to be the spot where Helen was buried alongside Menelaus. Despite its name, both the shrine and the cult originally belonged to Helen; Menelaus was added later as her husband.[66] Isocrates writes that at Therapne Helen and Menelaus were worshiped as gods, and not as heroes. Clader argues that, if indeed Helen was worshiped as a goddess at Therapne, then her powers should be largely concerned with fertility,[67] or as a solar deity.[68] There is also evidence for Helen's cult in Hellenistic Sparta: rules for those sacrificing and holding feasts in their honor are extant.[69]

text: Helen was also worshiped in Attica along with her brothers, and on Rhodes as Helen Dendritis (Helen of the Trees, Έλένα Δενδρῖτις); she was a vegetation or a fertility goddess.[70] Martin F. Nilsson has argued that the cult in Rhodes has its roots to the Minoan, pre-Greek era, when Helen was allegedly worshiped as a vegetation goddess.[71] Claude Calame and other scholars try to analyze the affinity between the cults of Helen and Artemis Orthia, pointing out the resemblance of the terracotta female figurines offered to both deities.[72]

text: In culture[edit]

text: Pre-modern[edit]

text: Helen frequently appeared in Athenian comedies of the fifth century BC as a caricature of Pericles's mistress Aspasia.[75] In Hellenistic times, she was associated with the moon[75] due to the similarity of her name to the Greek word Σελήνη (Selēnē), meaning "moon".[75] One Pythagorean source claimed that Helen had originally come from a colony on the moon,[75] where people were larger, stronger, and "fifteen times" more beautiful than ordinary mortals.[75] Dio Chrysostom absolved Helen of guilt for the Trojan War by making Paris her first, original husband and claiming that the Greeks started the war out of jealousy.[75] Virgil, in his Aeneid, makes Aeneas the one to spare Helen's life, rather than Menelaus,[75] and instead portrays the act as a lofty example of self-control.[75] Meanwhile, Virgil also makes Helen more vicious by having her betray her own husband Deiphobos and give him over to Menelaus as a peace offering.[75] The satirist Lucian of Samosata features Helen in his famous Dialogues of the Dead, in which he portrays her deceased spirit as aged and withered.[75]

text: In the early Middle Ages, after the rise of Christianity, Helen was seen as a pagan equivalent to Eve from the Book of Genesis.[75] Helen was so beloved by early medieval Christians that she even took on some of the roles of the Virgin Mary.[75] During the Renaissance, the French poet Pierre de Ronsard wrote 142 sonnets addressed to a woman named Hélène de Surgères,[75] in which he declared her to be the "true", French Helen, rather than the "lie" of the Greeks.[75]

text: Helen appears in various versions of the Faust myth, including Christopher Marlowe's 1604 play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, in which Faustus famously marvels, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" upon seeing a demon impersonating Helen.[73] The line, which is frequently quoted out of context,[73][75] is a paraphrase of a statement from Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead.[74][73] It is debated whether the phrase conveys astonishment at Helen's beauty,[73] or disappointment that she is not more beautiful.[73] The German poet and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe re-envisioned the meeting of Faust and Helen. In Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy, the union of Helen and Faust becomes a complex allegory of the meeting of the classical-ideal and modern worlds.

text: Modern[edit]

text: In 1881, Oscar Wilde published a poem entitled "The New Helen",[75] in which he declared his friend Lillie Langtry to be the reincarnation of Helen of Troy.[75] Wilde portrays this new Helen as the antithesis of the Virgin Mary,[75] but endows her with the characteristics of Jesus Christ himself.[75] The Irish poet William Butler Yeats compared Helen to his muse, Maude Gonne, in his 1916 poem "No Second Troy".[76] The anthology The Dark Tower by C. S. Lewis includes a fragment entitled "After Ten Years". In Egypt after the Trojan War, Menelaus is allowed to choose between the real, disappointing Helen and an ideal Helen conjured by Egyptian magicians.

text: The English Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn de Morgan portrayed a sexually assertive Helen in her 1898 painting Helen of Troy.[75] Salvador Dalí was obsessed with Helen of Troy from childhood[75] and saw his wife Gala Dalí and the surrealist character Gradiva as the embodiments of Helen.[75] He dedicates his autobiography Diary of a Genius to "my genius Gala Gradiva, Helen of Troy, Saint Helen, Gala Galatea Placida."[75]

text: John Erskine's 1925 bestselling novel The Private Life of Helen of Troy portrayed Helen as a "sensible, bourgeois heroine",[75] but the 1927 silent film of the same name, directed by Alexander Korda, transformed Helen into "a shopaholic fashion maven".[75] In 1928, Richard Strauss wrote the German opera Die ägyptische Helena (The Egyptian Helena), which is the story of Helen and Menelaus's troubles when they are marooned on a mythical island.[77]

text: The 1951 Swedish film Sköna Helena is an adapted version of Offenbach's operetta, starring Max Hansen and Eva Dahlbeck In 1956, a Franco-British epic titled Helen of Troy was released, directed by Oscar-winning director Robert Wise and starring Italian actress Rossana Podestà in the title role. It was filmed in Italy, and featured well-known British character actors such as Harry Andrews, Cedric Hardwicke, and Torin Thatcher in supporting roles.

text: In the 1998 TV Series Hercules, Helen appears as a supporting character at Prometheus Academy as a student. Helen is caring and enthusiastic. She was the most popular girl in the academy and Adonis' girlfriend. Helen tries her best to keep Adonis from being a jerk but mostly fails. She likes Hercules but as a friend. She is a princess as in the myth but is not a half-sister of Hercules in the series. She was voiced by Jodi Benson.

text: A 2003 television version of Helen's life up to the fall of Troy, Helen of Troy, in which she was played by Sienna Guillory. In this version, Helen is depicted as unhappy in her marriage and willingly runs away with Paris, with whom she has fallen in love, but still returns to Menelaus after Paris dies and Troy falls. Helen was portrayed by Diane Kruger in the 2004 film Troy. In this adaptation, as in the 2003 television version, she is unhappy with Menelaus and willingly leaves with Paris, whom she loves. She also does not return to Sparta with Menelaus (who is killed by Hector) but escapes Troy with Paris and other survivors when the city falls. Jacob M. Appel's 2008 play, Helen of Sparta, retells Homer's Iliad from Helen's point of view.[78]

text: Inspired by the line, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...?" from Marlowe's Faustus, Isaac Asimov jocularly coined the unit "millihelen" to mean the amount of beauty that can launch one ship.[79] Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood re-envisioned the myth of Helen in modern, feminist guise in her poem "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing".[80]

text: In the Legends of Tomorrow episode Helen Hunt, Helen is portrayed by Israeli-American model and actress Bar Paly. In the episode, Helen is an anachronism and appears in 1930's Hollywood. She lands a job as an actress and unintentionally starts a war between two film studios. The Legends travel to the 1930s and tries to get Helen back to the Bronze Age. She regretfully goes along telling the team she wishes to stay away. After analyzing historical records of her impact on history, the team finds the best time to take her away from the fighting of her time and takes her to Themyscira.[81]

text: In the 2018 TV miniseries Troy: Fall of a City, Helen will be portrayed by Bella Dayne.[82]


document_title: Foyle's War

question_text: who does sam marry in foyle's war

question_tokens: who does sam marry in foyle 's war

text: Foyle's War

text: Description[edit]

text: Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), a widower, is quiet, methodical, sagacious, scrupulously honest and frequently underestimated by his foes. Many of his cases concern profiteering, the black market and murder, and he is often called on to catch criminals who are taking advantage of the confusion created by the war. Although Foyle often comes up against high-ranking officials in the British military or intelligence services who would prefer that he mind his own business, he tenaciously seeks justice. Throughout the series, he is assisted by his driver, Samantha "Sam" Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), and Detective Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell).

text: The first six series are set during the Second World War in Hastings, Sussex, England, and in series seven, Foyle works after retirement for MI5 on Cold War espionage.The stories are largely self-contained. There are some running plot strands, primarily involving the career of Foyle's son Andrew Foyle (Julian Ovenden) – a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force – or Foyle's relationships with minor characters. Each episode runs for 90 to 100 minutes, filling a two-hour time slot on ITV when commercials are included.

text: Production[edit]

text: In a newspaper article and an interview accompanying the series-one DVD set, Horowitz explained that he was seeking a name which evoked the early 1940s. He thought of Foyles bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road, once known for its archaic business practices and its owner, Christina Foyle; Christopher was the nearest male name to Christina. After Christina Foyle's death, control of Foyles passed in 1999 to her nephew Christopher. Christopher Foyle made a cameo appearance in the episode "Bad Blood", although his scene was cut from PBS airings in the US.[4][5][6]

text: The series is also notable for its attention to historical detail, and the drama is frequently moved along by historical events of the Second World War. Horowitz considered that to honour the veterans of the war it was important to get the details correct.[notes 1] As the series progressed, he became more interested in the "murder mystery" format than the portrayal of history and exploration of the Home Front.[notes 2] However, the Imperial War Museum is credited in an advisory capacity in some episodes.

text: Cancellation and revival[edit]

text: After five series, Foyle's War was abruptly cancelled by ITV director of programmes Simon Shaps.[7] This forced Horowitz to discard scripts set during most of 1943 and 1944, resulting in time jumps of nine months to a year between episodes; previous series had gaps of a month at most. In April 2008, the presumed final episode, "All Clear" (during which the end of the war is announced) was broadcast.

text: On 9 April 2008, however, ITV announced that it was negotiating with Horowitz and Greenlit Productions to revive the series and continue Foyle's adventures beyond VE Day;[1] some media observers saw high viewing figures for the penultimate episode (a 28-percent audience share) on 13 April as strengthening the case for continuing.[8] When the audience figures for the final episode were released (28 percent and an average of 7.3 million viewers), ITV confirmed that it had entered "early discussions" with Horowitz and Greenlit.[2] The negotiations led to Foyle's War's recommissioning for an additional three series.[9] Series six began filming in February 2009 and premiered on UK television on 11 April 2010.[9][10] Series seven was filmed in Ireland and London from late August to December 2012, and was broadcast in the UK in March and April 2013.[11] Series eight, three two-hour episodes, aired in the UK in January 2015.[12]

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
Series
Time
Title
Writer(s)

Series 1
2002
May–August 1940

1 (1) "The German Woman"
2 (2) "The White Feather"
3 (3) "A Lesson in Murder"
4 (4) "Eagle Day"

Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz

Series 2
2003
September–October 1940

1 (5) "Fifty Ships"
2 (6) "Among the Few"
3 (7) "War Games"
4 (8) "The Funk Hole"

Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz & Matthew Hall
Anthony Horowitz & Michael Russell
Anthony Horowitz

Series 3
2004
February–June 1941

1  (9) "The French Drop"
2 (10) "Enemy Fire"
3 (11) "They Fought in the Fields"
4 (12) "A War of Nerves"

Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Rob Heyland
Anthony Horowitz

Series 4 Part 1
2006
March–August 1942
1 (13) "Invasion"
2 (14) "Bad Blood"

Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz

Series 4 Part 2
2007
December 1942 – March 1943
1 (15) "Bleak Midwinter"
2 (16) "Casualties of War"
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz

Series 5
2008
April 1944 – May 1945

1 (17) "Plan of Attack"
2 (18) "Broken Souls"
3 (19) "All Clear"

Anthony Horowitz
Michael Chaplin
Anthony Horowitz

Series 6
2010
June–August 1945

1 (20) "The Russian House"
2 (21) "Killing Time"
3 (22) "The Hide"

Anthony Horowitz
David Kane
Anthony Horowitz

Series 7
2013
August–September 1946

1 (23) "The Eternity Ring"
2 (24) "The Cage"
3 (25) "Sunflower"

Anthony Horowitz
David Kane
Anthony Horowitz

Series 8
2015
October 1946 - January 1947

1 (26) "High Castle"
2 (27) "Trespass"
3 (28) "Elise"

Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz

tag: table

text: Episode numbers in parentheses are a running count used in the following table, "Main Characters".

text: Main characters[edit]

text:
Name
Rank or role
Episodes†
Actor

Christopher Foyle
Detective Chief Superintendent, MI5 in series 7-8
all
Michael Kitchen

Samantha Stewart
Police driver, MTC, MI5 in series 7-8
all
Honeysuckle Weeks

Paul Milner
Detective Sergeant (series 1-5), Detective Inspector (series 6)
1-20, 22
Anthony Howell

Andrew Foyle
DCS Foyle's son, RAF Plt Off/Fg Off/Flt Lt/Sqn Ldr, stockbroker in the City in series 8
1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 19
Julian Ovenden

Adam Wainwright
Stewart's friend (later fiancé and husband); Member of Parliament in series 7-8
20-28
Max Brown (series 6), Daniel Weyman (series 7-8)

Hilda Pierce
Special Operations Executive, MI5 in series 7-8
7, 9, 19, 23-28
Ellie Haddington

Arthur Valentine
MI5 senior member
23-28
Tim McMullan

Sir Alec Myerson
MI5
24-28
Rupert Vansittart

Hugh Reid
Uniformed Superintendent
2, 3, 4
Michael Simkins

Jane Milner
DS Milner's first wife
2, 3, 5, 15
Mali Harries

Fisher
Police Constable
2, 4
Fergus Webster

Eric Rivers
Police Sergeant
5, 7, 9, 10, 12
Geoffrey Freshwater

Turner
Wing Commander (Andrew's superior)
6, 10
Martin Turner

Alistair Rose
Assistant Commissioner
8, 12
Corin Redgrave

Perkins
ARP Warden
12, 15, 16
Tony Turner

Ian Brooke
Police Sergeant
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
Jay Simpson

Joe Farnetti
Private First Class, US Army; Stewart's boyfriend
13, 14
Jonah Lotan

Edith Ashford
Milner's girlfriend, later his second wife
14, 15, 19, 20
Caroline Martin (series 4), Polly Maberly (series 5-6)

Aubrey Stewart
Stewart's uncle, a vicar
9, 17
Brian Poyser

John Kiefer
Captain (later major), U. S. Army: Farnetti's CO and Foyle's friend
13, 19
Jay Benedict

text: †) Episode numbers per the preceding table, "Episodes"

text: Christopher Foyle[edit]

text: Detective Chief Superintendent (DCS) Foyle introduces himself with the phrase (or some variation thereof), "My name's Foyle; I'm a police officer", typical of the modesty, courtesy and precision of speech he exhibits throughout the series. Foyle is a widower of long standing; he has one son, Andrew, with whom he is close (although their relationship is undemonstrative). Foyle's concern for Andrew's safety as a fighter pilot in the RAF is a recurring theme. His wife, Rosalind. died in 1932; according to her tombstone, she was 30 years old.

text: Foyle is the son of a policeman. A World War I veteran who fought at Passchendaele, he once told Andrew that his three years of military service were the worst of his life and reluctantly admitted killing enemy soldiers. Foyle requests a transfer to the War Office several times in the first two series, but by the end of the third series he seems to have accepted his lot; his detective work is just as important, in its own way, to the war effort. He argues that innocent victims of murder should not be forgotten during wartime.

text: With high moral standards, Foyle is scrupulously honest and incisive. His speech is straightforward, and peppered with dry wit. Foyle is open-minded for a man of his time. He is compassionate when he learns that one of Andrew's friends is homosexual ("Among the Few") and reluctant to prosecute an attempted suicide ("Casualties of War"); homosexual activity and suicide were criminal offences at the time. Foyle is also reluctant to harass a left-wing activist for his political views ("War of Nerves"). He alone opposes the imposition of a temporary colour bar in Hastings when tensions erupt between black and white US troops ("Killing Time"). Consistent with the value he places on human life, Foyle notes that the accidental killing of a pregnant woman took two lives ("Among the Few").

text: Loyal to his colleagues, he expects the same from them; he reproaches Sgt. Milner for disloyalty in "The White Feather" and criticises the sergeant's disrespectful attitude towards him and Stewart in "The Russian House", despite the fact that they no longer work together. In turn, Foyle trusts his colleagues. Quick to forgive Milner, he believes in the sergeant's innocence when he is suspected of his estranged wife's murder in "Bleak Midwinter". Foyle has a fatherly concern (mixed with exasperation) for Stewart.

text: He relaxes by trout fishing (at which he is very skilled and which supplements his wartime rations), and plays golf with less proficiency. Foyle is often accompanied in both by his son or Hugh Reid, his uniformed counterpart. Cameo and guest characters also occasionally appear with him on these outings, enabling exchanges of information important to the plot.

text: Foyle retires (or resigns) more than once, resigning at the end of the fourth series when his arrest of two murder suspects is thwarted by a bureaucrat with the claim that their work is too important to the war effort. He returns in the fifth series when his successor is murdered, and remains a DCS for the duration of the war. Foyle retires from the force after the war, returning when he becomes involved in a complex case investigated by Milner. At the end of the sixth series he retires again, boarding a ship bound for the US (possibly in pursuit of unfinished business left for political reasons during the war). Foyle returns to England at the beginning of the seventh series and is pressured into joining MI5, where Stewart (now married to a Labour politician) joins him as a junior clerk.

text: Paul Milner[edit]

text: Sergeant Milner, a policeman before the war, left the force to enlist in the army. Involved in the Norwegian Campaign, he lost a leg at Trondheim. In episode one, he is recovering in hospital and despondent. Foyle encourages him to rejoin the police, and Milner remains with the Hastings department for the duration of the war. Milner is the only ranked detective in the station other than Foyle. In "The White Feather," he is impressed by a charismatic fascist politician and his judgment is clouded when the politician is the subject of a murder investigation. When Foyle reproaches him for disloyalty, Milner says that the politician was the only person who did not treat him like a war casualty. The politician used Milner to smuggle important documents; the sergeant offers his resignation (which Foyle does not accept) upon the discovery. After Foyle's resignation at the end of series five, Milner (dissatisfied with his new superior) considers requesting a transfer but changes his mind when Foyle comes out of retirement to investigate the new DCS's murder.

text: Milner's relationship with his wife Jane is increasingly strained, and she never fully comes to terms with his injury. After a long separation (during which Milner begins a relationship with Edith Ashford), Jane returns from her family home in Wales ("Bleak Midwinter") to reconcile and is murdered. In a conversation just before Jane's death, Milner lies to Edith that he is divorced from Jane. In the intended final episode, "All Clear", Edith gives birth to their daughter Clementine (named for Clementine Churchill, the prime minister's wife).

text: At the beginning of Series six, Milner has been promoted to Detective Inspector in the Brighton area. While investigating his first case (which involves Foyle and Stewart), he is insecure in his new position and abrupt and dismissive towards his old colleagues (earning him an unusually-sharp reproach from Foyle by the end of the case).

text: Samantha Stewart[edit]

text: Sam Stewart joins the Mechanised Transport Corps at the outbreak of the war. She is seconded to the police force as a driver in the first episode to relieve staff shortages in the police force, and becomes Foyle's driver.[notes 3] She is enthusiastic about police work, offering unsolicited advice and help to Foyle and Milner despite Foyle's instructions not to discuss police work. They rely on her assistance more and more, primarily when she overhears bits of important conversations. In "Plan of Attack", Stewart had left the police service soon after Foyle's resignation but returns as his driver when he rejoins the force. She has a healthy appetite; her struggles with rationing are a recurring, humorous theme. She invites herself to eat with Foyle several times, and covets a turkey (kept for evidence) in "Bleak Midwinter".

text: Stewart's father and several uncles are Church of England vicars. Her father, the Rev. Iain Stewart, visits her in Hastings ("Eagle Day"). Although he wants her to return home to Lyminster, he realises that her work for the police is important after discussions with Foyle and using his university training in art to help Milner solve a crime. Stewart stays with her uncle, the Rev. Aubrey Stewart, at his vicarage in Levenham in "The French Drop" and Foyle houses him for an ecumenical conference near Hastings in "Plan of Attack". In that episode, she says that all her uncles are vicars.

text: She becomes friendly with Andrew Foyle and, eventually, involved romantically. They try to keep their relationship from his father, fearing his disapproval. Stewart supports Andrew when he experiences shell shock in "Enemy Fire", but their relationship ends when he sends her a "Dear Jane letter" in "Invasion". She becomes fond of American private Joe Farnetti, but refuses his marriage proposal. The relationship continued after D-Day, since she complains in "Broken Souls" that he "ran off with some French girl". Andrew returns in "All Clear", asks Stewart to forgive him and they celebrate VE day. Series six begins in June 1945, with Stewart a housekeeper for a wealthy artist; her sense of purpose is apparently gone. Later in the sixth series, Stewart has a new love interest: Adam Wainwright, a former Bletchley Park codebreaker who proposes to her in that series' final episode. By series seven they are married, and in series eight are expecting their first child.

text: Andrew Foyle[edit]

text: Squadron Leader Andrew Foyle DFC, RAF is Christopher Foyle's only child. At the outbreak of the war he was a student, and joined the RAF in "The German Woman". Undergoing training as a fighter pilot in Scotland, He is posted to the south coast and is involved in radar trials ("Eagle Day"). He sees action in the Battle of Britain. In "Enemy Fire", experiencing combat fatigue stemming from near-constant flying and grief at the loss of many friends, he briefly goes AWOL. His superior, Wing Commander Turner (Martin Turner), is understanding and transfers him to a training unit.

text: Andrew has a girlfriend in "Among the Few", but the relationship does not last. He becomes involved with Stewart until he is posted to Debden as a training officer in "Enemy Fire" (his penultimate on-screen appearance). Soon after his posting, He ends his relationship with Stewart by letter (read in voice-over in "Invasion") after beginning a short-lived relationship with another woman. Promoted to squadron leader and posted to Malta on active service, he is demobilised and sent home after a serious bout of sinusitis ruins his eyesight. He is then an unseen character, referred to only in dialogue and props, until his return to Hastings during the intended last episode ("All Clear"). Apologising to Stewart for his poor treatment of her, he tries to resume their relationship as "friends"; although she seems to be thawing towards him by the end of the episode, in the following series he is replaced as her love interest by Adam Wainwright. Andrew is mentioned as living in London during the seventh series, but is not mentioned when his father visits London and leaves for America. In the eighth series, he is working in the City.

text: International broadcast[edit]

text:
Africa - The series began broadcasting in 2009 on the pay service DStv (broadcast from South Africa) on the Universal Channel.[13]
Australia - Aired on the ABC, with repeats on Seven Network
Canada - Broadcast in Ontario on TV Ontario
Finland - Broadcast on YLE1; series seven and eight broadcast in 2015-2016
Sweden - Broadcast on TV8.se
US - Aired on PBS.[14] Series 1-8 are available for streaming on Netflix and Acorn TV via paid subscription. Acorn Media contracted Cre-a-TV to repackage Foyle's War in two-part episodes to run in PBS' time slots. The episodes were fed by satellite to the public-television system by former PBS affiliate KCET in Los Angeles (now an independent station), and public TV stations began rebroadcasting the series in the fall of 2011. Each episode was aired in two parts, each in a one-hour time slot (usually separated by a week), and each part ran about 50 minutes.

text: Awards[edit]

text: Foyle's War was nominated in the Best Production Design category for the 2003 BAFTA Television Awards, and won a Lew Grade Award for Best Entertainment Programme that year.[15] The series was nominated for the 2004 BAFTA Best Drama Series award.[16] That year, Honeysuckle Weeks was nominated for the 10th National Television Awards' Most Popular Newcomer award.[citation needed]

text: Media[edit]

text: DVD releases[edit]

text: In the UK, the first four series of Foyle's War were released as two two-disc DVDs per series, with two episodes each and episode titles instead of series numbers. In March 2007, UK and US distributor Acorn Media began re-releasing series 1–3 as four-disc DVDs for the UK (as they had in the US) and labelling them with series numbers. A complete box set of the series is available.

text:
DVD series/sets
TV series
Episodes
Originally aired
DVD release

UK (Region 2)
US (Region 1)
Discs

1
1
4
Oct–Nov 2002
2+2 disc release: 10 February 2003[17][18]
Re-released 7 March 2007[19]
11 March 2003[20]
4

2
2
4
Nov–Dec 2003
2+2 disc release: 9 February 2004[21][22]
Re-released: 12 March 2007 [23]
20 July 2004[24]
4

3
3
4
Oct–Nov 2004
2+2 disc release: 7 March 2005[25][26]
Re-released: 11 June 2007[27]
1 November 2005[28]
4

4
4
4
Jan 2006 - Apr 2007
2-disc release: 9 Oct 2006 [29], 16 April 2007[30]
Re-released: 11 June 2007[31]
17 July 2007[32]
4

5
5
3
Jan - Apr 2008
28 April 2008[33]
5 August 2008[34]
3

6
6
3
Apr 2010
26 April 2010[35]
1 June 2010[36]
3

7
7
3
Mar & Apr 2013
15 May 2013[37]
24 September 2013[38]
3

8
8
3
Jan 2015
19 January 2015[39]
14 April 2015[40]
3

text: Blu-ray releases[edit]

text: All but the last series have been released on Blu-ray in Australia (region B), but all discs are region-free.[41] A "complete" series box set has been released,[42] without the final series.

text:
Blu-ray series/sets
TV series
Episodes
Originally aired
Blu-ray release

Aus (Region B)
US (Region A)
Discs

1
1
4
Oct–Nov 2002
07 Jul 2010[43]
n/a
2

2
2
4
Nov–Dec 2003
07 Jul 2010[44]
n/a
2

3
3
4
Oct–Nov 2004
4 Aug 2010[45]
n/a
2

4 & 5
4 & 5
7
Jan 2006 - Apr 2008
4 Aug 2010[46]
n/a
2

6
6
3
Apr 2010
1 Sep 2010[47]
n/a
2

7
7
3
Mar & Apr 2013
1 Sep 2010[48]
24 Sep 2013[49]
2

8
8
3
Jan 2015
n/a
14 April 2015[50]
2

text: Notes[edit]

text:
Jump up ^ "Production Notes", Series Four DVD extras.
Jump up ^ "Production Notes", Series Five DVD extras.
Jump up ^ DCS Summers remarks to Foyle, "I understand that you don't drive? I've never heard of a Chief Superintendent who can't drive, but still...." in the early episode "The German Woman". It is assumed he cannot drive until "All Clear", when he drives Mrs. Milner to hospital to give birth – he explains that he had been able to drive all the time, but prefers not to.

tag: ol


document_title: The Descent

question_text: what are the creatures from the movie the descent

text: The Descent

text: Plot[edit]

text: On her way back from whitewater rafting with her friends, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), along with Beth (Alex Reid), Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), Sarah's husband Paul (Oliver Milburn), and their daughter Jessica (Molly Kayll) get involved in a car accident when Paul is distracted. Paul and Jessica are killed, but Sarah survives.

text: One year later, Sarah and her friends Juno, Beth, Sam (MyAnna Buring), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), and newcomer Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) are reunited at a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina for a spelunking (caving) adventure. The next day, they hike up to a cave entrance and descend. While in the cave, Juno apologises to Sarah for not being there for her after the accident, but Sarah is distant.

text: After the group moves through a narrow passage, it collapses behind them, trapping them. After a heated discussion, Juno admits that she has led the group into an unknown cave system instead of the fully explored cave system that they had originally planned to visit, and that rescue is, therefore, impossible. She then tells Sarah that she led them into the unknown cave in the hopes of restoring their relationship, but Sarah rebuffs her.

text: As the group presses forward with hopes of finding an exit, they discover climbing equipment from a previous caver and a cave painting that suggests an exit exists. Holly, thinking she sees sunlight, runs ahead, but falls down a hole and breaks her leg. As the others help Holly, Sarah wanders off and observes a pale, humanoid creature drinking at a pool before it scampers away. Later, the group comes across a den of animal bones and are suddenly attacked by the creature (called a "crawler" in the credits). Holly is killed: her neck ripped out before her body is dragged away. Sarah runs, falls down a hole, and is knocked unconscious. Juno, trying to prevent Holly's body from being dragged away, kills a crawler with her pickaxe and then, startled, accidentally stabs Beth through the neck. Beth collapses with Juno's pendant in her hand, and a traumatized Juno flees while Beth begs her not to leave her.

text: Sarah awakens to find herself in a den of human and animal carcasses, and witnesses Holly's body being eaten by a group of crawlers. Juno discovers markings pointing to a specific path through the caves. After regrouping with Sam and Rebecca, and realizing the crawlers' use of sound to hunt, Juno tells them the markings she discovered may point to the way out, but she will not leave without Sarah.

text: Meanwhile, Sarah encounters Beth, who tells Sarah that Juno wounded and abandoned her. Beth also gives her Juno's pendant, which Sarah recognizes as a gift from Paul, realizing that Juno had an affair with Paul before his death.

text: In pain and not wanting to be eaten by the crawlers, Beth begs Sarah to euthanize her. Sarah reluctantly does so by bashing her head in with a rock.

text: Sarah then encounters a family of crawlers but manages to kill them all, becoming covered in blood in the process. Afterward, she has a psychotic breakdown.

text: Elsewhere, Juno, Sam, and Rebecca are pursued by a large group of crawlers. When they reach a chasm, Sam tries to climb across but encounters a crawler scaling the ceiling. It rips her throat out, but Sam stabs it before she bleeds to death in front of Juno and Rebecca. Rebecca is then dragged back and eaten alive as Juno escapes.

text: Juno encounters Sarah and lies to her about seeing Beth die. After defeating a group of crawlers, Sarah confronts Juno, revealing that she knows Juno had wounded Beth and left her for dead, and about the affair. She then strikes Juno in the leg with a pickaxe and leaves her to die as a swarm of crawlers approaches. Juno is last heard screaming as Sarah escapes.

text: Sarah falls down a hole and is knocked unconscious. She awakens, manages to escape from the cave, runs to her vehicle, and speeds off. She pulls over to the side of the road and breaks down in tears. After a truck passes her, she opens the window, leans out and vomits. Upon re-entering the car, she sees Juno sitting next to her and screams. She wakes up back in the cave, realising it was just a dream. Camera zooms out as 'crawlers' scream in the distance.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Shauna Macdonald as Sarah Carter
Natalie Mendoza as Juno Kaplan
Alex Reid as Elizabeth "Beth" O'Brien
MyAnna Buring as Samantha "Sam" Vernet
Saskia Mulder as Rebecca Vernet
Nora-Jane Noone as Holly
Oliver Milburn as Paul Carter
Molly Kayll as Jessica Carter

text: Production[edit]

text: When Neil Marshall's film Dog Soldiers (2002) was a moderate success, the director received numerous requests to direct other horror films. The director was initially wary of being typecast as a horror film director, although he eventually agreed to make The Descent, emphasising, "They are very different films."[3] Marshall decided to cast only women in the main roles, going against the original plan for a mixed cast.

text: Casting[edit]

text: Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realised that horror films rarely have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women, and to avoid making them clichéd, he solicited basic advice from his female friends. He explained the difference, "The women discuss how they feel about the situation, which the soldiers in Dog Soldiers would never have done." He also gave the characters different accents to enable the audience to tell them apart and to establish a more "cosmopolitan feel" than the British marketing of Dog Soldiers.[4]

text: The cast included Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, Natalie Mendoza as Juno, Alex Reid as Beth, Saskia Mulder as Rebecca, MyAnna Buring as Sam, Nora-Jane Noone as Holly, Oliver Milburn as Paul, and Molly Kayll as Jessica. Craig Conway portrayed one of the film's crawlers, Scar.[5]

text: Filming[edit]

text: While The Descent is set in North America, the film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios, near London. The cave was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. Set pieces were reused with care, and filmmakers sought to limit lighting to the sources the characters bring with them into the cave, such as helmet lights.[4]

text: Marshall cited the films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent. The director elaborated, "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse."[4] Marshall also said at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival that he was inspired by Italian horror films of the past, in particular those by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.

text: Simon Bowles designed the maze of caves for The Descent. Reviews credited Bowles: e.g., "Bowles' beautifully designed cave sets conjure a world of subterranean darkness."[6] The film had twenty-one cave sets, built by Rod Vass and his company Armordillo Ltd. using a unique system of polyurethane sprayed rock that was developed for this production.

text: Production of The Descent competed with a big budget American film that had a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. The filmmakers of The Descent decided to release their film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.[4]

text: Editing[edit]

text: The Descent was released in North America with approximately one minute cut from the end. In the American cut, Sarah escapes from the cave and sees Juno, but the film does not cut back to the cave. The 4 August 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly reported that the ending was trimmed because American viewers did not like its "uber-hopeless finale". Lionsgate marketing chief Tim Palen said, "It's a visceral ride, and by the time you get to the ending you're drained. [Director Neil] Marshall had a number of endings in mind when he shot the film, so he was open [to making a switch]." Marshall compared the change to the ending of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, saying, "Just because she gets away, does that make it a happy ending?" The ending is featured on DVD as an "unrated cut" in the United States.

text: Creature design[edit]

text: In the film, the women encounter underground creatures referred to as crawlers by the production crew. Marshall described the crawlers as cavemen who have stayed underground. The director explained, "They've evolved in this environment over thousands of years. They've adapted perfectly to thrive in the cave. They've lost their eyesight, they have acute hearing and smell and function perfectly in the pitch black. They're expert climbers, so they can go up any rock face and that is their world." Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures, to allow for natural tension.[7]

text: Conception[edit]

text: Director Neil Marshall first chose to have a dark cave as the setting for his horror film The Descent then decided to add the element of the crawlers, describing them as "something that could get the women, something human, but not quite".[8] The crawlers were depicted as cavemen who never left the caves and evolved in the dark. The director included mothers and children in the colony of creatures, defining his vision, "It is a colony and I thought that was far more believable than making them the classic monsters. If they had been all male, it would have made no sense, so I wanted to create a more realistic context for them. I wanted to have this very feral, very primal species living underground, but I wanted to make them human. I didn't want to make them aliens because humans are the scariest things."[9]

text: The crawlers were designed by Paul Hyett, a makeup and prosthetics creator.[10] Production designer Simon Bowles said that the crawler design had started out as "wide-eyed and more creature-like", but the design shifted toward a more human appearance. Crawlers originally had pure white skin, but the look was adjusted to seem grubbier. The skin was originally phosphorescent in appearance, but the effect was too bright and reflective in the darkened set, so the adjustment was made for them to blend in shadows.[11] The director barred the film's cast from seeing the actors in full crawler make-up until their first appearance on screen. Actress Natalie Mendoza said of the effect, "When the moment came, I nearly wet my pants! I was running around afterwards, laughing in this hysterical way and trying to hide the fact that I was pretty freaked out. Even after that scene, we never really felt comfortable with them."[12]

text: The crawlers reappear in The Descent Part 2, a sequel by Jon Harris with the first film's director Neil Marshall as executive producer. For the sequel, Hyett improved the camouflaging ability of the crawlers' skin tones to deliver better scares. According to Hyett, "Jon wanted them more viciously feral, inbred, scarred and deformed, with rows of sharklike teeth for ripping flesh." A charnel house was designed for the crawlers as well as a set that the crew called the "Crawler Crapper".[10]

text: Description[edit]

text: Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald described the crawlers as "blind, snarling cave-dwellers, looking much like Gollum's bigger kin".[13] Douglas Tseng of The Straits Times also noted that the crawlers looked similar to Gollum, being a cross between the creature and the vampiric Reapers from Blade II.[14] David Germain of the Associated Press noted of the crawlers, "[They] have evolved to suit their environment—eyes blind because of the darkness in which they dwell, skin slimy and gray, ears batlike to channel their super-hearing."[15] The crawlers are sexually dimorphic, with males being completely bald, whilst females sport thick dark hair on their heads. They are nocturnal hunters which surface from their caves to hunt for prey and bring the spoils of their hunts to their caverns.[16]

text: Marketing[edit]

text: The skull of women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors photograph.[17]

text: The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus that had exploded) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant", and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of The Descent. Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs."[18] Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground...".[19] Many commentators, including writers for Variety and The Times, remarked on the rather unfortunate coincidence.

text: Due to these events there was some initial concern that the film's release might have been delayed out of sensitivity for the tragedy but Pathé ultimately chose to release the film on schedule, with a slightly retooled advertising campaign; however, the US promotional campaign managed by Lionsgate Films was significantly different from the original European version.

text: Release[edit]

text: Reception[edit]

text:
“
...When it was released in July [2005], this claustrophobic story of six women who stumble across something nasty on a caving trip got arguably the best reviews of any Brit pic this year.
”

— Variety columnist Adam Dawtrey[20]

text: The Descent premiered at the Edinburgh horror film festival Dead by Dawn on 6 July 2005.[21] The film opened commercially to the public in the UK on 10 July 2005, showing on 329 screens and earned £2.6 million. The film received limited releases in other European countries.[22] The London bombings in the same month was reported to have affected the box office performance of The Descent.[20]

text: The film has received critical acclaim. Based on 172 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, The Descent received an 85% "Certified Fresh" overall approval rating, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Deft direction and strong performances from its all-female cast guide The Descent, a riveting, claustrophobic horror film. In this low-budget import from Scotland, director Neil Marshall has masterfully created a caving nightmare, which doubles as a compelling meditation on morality, vengeance, and the depths to which we might go for survival."[23] By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 71 out of 100 from 30 reviews.[24] On its debut weekend in the US, The Descent opened with a three-day gross of $8.8 million, and finished with $26,005,908. Total worldwide box office receipts are $57,051,053.[2]

text: Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars. He wrote, "This is the fresh, exciting summer movie I've been wanting for months. Or for years, it seems."[25]

text: Manohla Dargis of The New York Times described The Descent as "one of the better horror entertainments of the last few years", calling it "indisputably and pleasurably nerve-jangling". Dargis applauded the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film, though she perceived sexual overtones in the all-female cast with their laboured breathing and sweaty clothing.[26] Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald thought that the film devolved into a guessing game of who would survive, though he praised Marshall's "nightmare imagery" for generating scares that work better than other horror films. Rodriguez also noted the attempt to add dimension to the female characters but felt that the actresses were unable to perform.[27]

text: Top-ten lists, 2006:[28]

text:
1st – Bravo's 13 Even Scarier Movie Moments
7th — Sight & Sound
10th – Nathan Lee, Village Voice
10th – Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post

text: Bloody Disgusting ranked the film third in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "One of the scariest films of this or any decade... Ultimately, The Descent is the purest kind of horror film – ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy."[29] In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films.[30] The Descent placed at number 39 on their top 100 list.[31]

text: Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer thought a weakness of The Descent was the failure of the writer to explain the evolution of the creature, though he said, "Their clicking and howling, used for echolocation and communication, makes them more alien; this otherness gives humans permission to mutilate them without seeming too disgusting to be sympathetic."[32] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune thought that the crawlers should have been left out of the film, believing, "Watching those gray, slithering beings chasing and biting the women makes it hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief."[33]

text: Home media[edit]

text: The Descent was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 December 2006.[34][35]

text: Sequel[edit]

text: A sequel to The Descent was filmed at Ealing Studios in London during 2008 and was released on 2 December 2009 in the UK.