I recently reviewed Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles for CBR12 bingo, and I referred to it as a gateway into a genre I call “reimagined classics” or “classics fanfic”. The Silence of the Girls is yet another outstanding addition to this genre and it happens to overlap with The Song of Achilles, presenting several main characters and incidents from The Iliad from a very different perspective. Pat Barker imagines for us the life of Briseis, a Trojan princess who becomes Achilles’ slave. Through the eyes of a young woman who has seen Achilles murder her family, the Trojan War is not the heroic saga of gods and men. This is a grim, realistic, godless depiction of war from the point of view of those who suffered most — the women left behind as sex slaves and prizes to the Greeks who destroyed their lives.
While most of the classics fanfic books that I mentioned in my previous review did rely to a certain extent on fantasy and magic, with gods and goddesses taking an active part in human endeavors, Barker’s imagining of The Iliad from Briseis’ point of view is firmly grounded in reality. Briseis admits that she is not a particularly devout person, and she sees that the chaos and misery that surrounds her and the other women is the product of men’s aggression, pride and desire. The novel begins with Briseis’ succinct assessment of Achilles, who is the centerpiece of the novel:
Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles… How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things. We called him “the butcher.”
This is the story of the Trojan War from inside a prison camp. It is the flip side to the story of The Iliad that we learned in school, the story told by the victors. Through Briseis’ eyes, we see how the Greeks stormed her city, slaughtering every male, raping women, and plunging swords into the bellies of those who were pregnant. We feel the terror of young women who have seen their families murdered and are now rounded up by enemy soldiers to be given away as slaves and concubines, as prizes to those who were most effective at killing their countrymen. Briseis describes the filthy, cramped conditions of the camp, and how women who might not have had much to do with one another before the war are now thrown in together as equals in slavery. Nineteen-year-old Briseis witnessed Achilles kill her husband and four brothers, and when she is offered to Achilles as a prize, he checks her over as if she were a prize cow and declares “She’ll do.” All of the women and girls know what is in store for them: rape from their captors, who might then pass them along to other men to use as they please. Women who belonged to “heroes” like Achilles and Agamemnon might be treated better, at least for a while, but they were still slaves and as such were expected to quietly serve their masters, bear their children, and do the menial labor of the camp. Briseis tells us what The Iliad does not: that these women lived in fear and hatred of the Greeks, and in hope that the Trojan armies would be victorious and reclaim them.
In The Iliad, the women are not given much backstory, but women seem to be the reasons men fight. The Trojan War began when Paris stole Helen from Menelaus; Agamemnon’s abduction of the Trojan Priest Chryses’ daughter led to divine retribution in the form of plague and dissension within the Greek army. This led to the argument between Agamemnon and Achilles, with Agamemnon taking Briseis away from him, precipitating Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting. Women are things, trophies to these men, and the loss of a trophy is an insult to honor. The one person who seems to see the women as human beings is Patroclus, Achilles’ first officer and closest friend. Briseis, though she hates the Greeks, feels a sort of friendship for Patroclus, and it is his death that leads to a change in both Briseis and Achilles.
Barker does a great job of showing Achilles as the selfish, arrogant killing machine that led the Greeks to victory. His anger and pride define him, and it is clear why Briseis fears and hates him. Yet, by the end of the story, both characters have come to terms with their fates. Achilles must die and will die a hero. Briseis must accept that Troy is no more and that her life moving forward must be with these Greeks whom she abhors. But now it is her story to tell and not Achilles’. The Trojan women will maintain memory through their songs, passed on to their Greek children.
The end of The Silence of the Girls is very well done and focuses on the various ways that the women face their fates. This is a brutal novel to read at times. The violence committed against women and girls can be graphic, but that is what war is like. I think it will be impossible to read The Iliad or any “heroic” war story without thinking of The Silence of the Girls. Pat Barker seems particularly adept at looking with new eyes at historical events. In addition to this novel, I recommend her WWI trilogy, which provides the points of view of men inside a mental hospital. See reviews here, here and here.
