When Miss Helen's husband died fifteen years prior to the start of the play, instead of adopting the role of the "meek, churchgoing little widow" that everyone in town expected, she chose to stop going to church—a ritual that was not spiritually fulfilling for her—and began to create her "Mecca." Helen says that "All those years when [she] sat there so obediently next to Stefanus, it was all a terrible lie," and, for Helen, the "sermons, the prayers, the hymns, they had all become just words. And there came a time when even they lost their meaning." However, she found something to live for when Marius, the minister, lit a candle in her home after her husband's funeral. She saw that it grew brighter and brighter, and it seemed to chase away the darkness that she feared would consume her in the absence of faith. It inspired her to begin...
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to create, and she made for herself a place that felt the way church was meant to. In the end, she tells Marius, "This is my world and I have banished darkness from it." Helen has found spiritual fulfillment in creating this world for herself; she no longer cares very deeply about public opinion and she is unwilling to waste her time on things that leave her feeling cold and empty.
For Helen, the Christian church and community that is a major part of her community isn't filling her emotionally or spiritually the way that it used to or the way that people like Marius believe it should be. Helen finds spiritual wholeness through artistic expression. Her elaborate sculpture garden is her own Mecca. Making the sculptures helps her cope and relax, but the sculptures are also her way of expressing her own freedom. The freedom to think freely and express herself freely is her spiritual worship. On a deeper level, the sculpture garden itself is facing east. It's facing the real Mecca. This is symbolic of Helen making a break from the Christian church. She's not worshiping Allah, she's worshiping her artistic freedom, and that is her spiritual fulfillment. At one point, Elsa explains this very thing to Marius:
Those statues out there are monsters. And they are that for the simple reason that they express Helen's freedom. Yes, I never thought it was a word you would like. I'm sure it ranks as a cardinal sin in these parts. A free woman! God forgive us!