The Silence of the Girls (2018)

Book Cover (2)

The Silence of the Girls

By Pat Barker

    “Her story pulls back the veil on thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, then women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar” (3)

Summary of the Novel

        Told from the point of view of Briseis, the wife of a King and the daughter of a powerful man until Achilles and the Greeks slaughtered them all, this novel tells a classic tale from a woman’s perspective. Briseis goes from queen to a slave and the prize of Achilles. After months of baring Achilles’s needs, Agamemnon, another powerful Greek, must return his slave woman, or his “prize” to her father to end the cursed plague. After giving her up, Agamemnon demands his loss is filled with Achilles’s prize, Briseis. Insulted by Agamemnon’s demand, Achilles refuses to continue fighting and leaves the men to fend for themselves. Eventually, so many have perished he feels guilty and allows his friend Patroclus to disguise himself as Achilles to inspire excitement in the Greeks and fear in their enemies, the Trojans. Patroclus is killed in battle as Achilles watches. Achilles vows to avenge his dear friend’s death and collect his body. Achilles receives divine armor from his mother and slaughters everyone in his path to kill Hector, Patroclus’s slayer.  In the end, Achilles is killed in an act of revenge, when Paris avenges Hector. This novel shows the emotional strength and strife faced by characters, who are not focused on in the original renditions. 

Summary of Iliad

Based on Sparknotes’s summary of the 24 books within the Iliad:

The Triumph of Achilles (2017)
by Frank von  (5)

Nine years into the Trojan War, the Greeks defeated the Trojans in a battle. The two most powerful leaders, Agamemnon and Achilles, take two beautiful Trojan maidans as their prizes, Chryseis and Briseis. Chryseis’s father begs Agamemnon with a great ransom to get his daughter back. Agamemnon refuses so Chryses prays to Apollo to bring a plague to the Achaean camp. Once Agamemnon admits the plague is because of Chryseis, he gives her up but demands Briseis, Achilles’s prize. Achilles is so insulted he decides to stop fighting and let Agamemnon fight off the Trojans on his own. Eventually, Achilles realizes a lot of people are dying, but he still refuses to fight. As a result, he allows his dear friend, Patroclus to wear Achilles’s armor and pretend to be him to inspire fear in the Trojans. Unfortunately, Apollo knocks off Patroclus's armor and he is killed by Hector, the Trojan leader. Infuriated, Achilles obtains new armor from Hephaestus and rides out to kill Hector. Achilles kills every man he sees and fights Xanthus, the river god, on the way to kill Hector. After a long chase, Athena tricks Hector into fighting Achilles who kills him. Achilles drags Hector’s body around Patroclus’s bier for nine days before the gods agree Hector deserves a proper burial. (6)

Characters

Briseis, from the House of the Tragic Poet,
1st century AD

Briseis

In the original renditions of the Iliad, Briseis is a pivotal character, but she is never given a voice. Briseis narrates the majority of this novel, giving the reader a woman’s perspective on a man’s war. Briseis is 19 years old and a sex slave in a Greek war camp. Achilles is her owner and she is his prize. In her old life, Briseis was the wife of a king and she loved her people. Briseis is strong and relisent. When she is first taken to camp, her captor tells her, “‘ Forget! This is your life now.’ Forget. So there was my duty laid out in front of me, as simple and clear as a bowl of water: Remember” (Barker 18).  Briseis knows it is her responsibility to carry on her familyes memories and the sacrifices they made. Throughout the novel, Briseis is treated as an object that is won and can be taken. She represents thousands of woman who lived during the war and many other wars who were taken from their homes and treated as an object rather than humans. Her tales of the war camp are honest, rational, and brutal. She does not sugarcoat the way the women were treated, but remains respectful in how she relays the events. 

Thetis and Achilles, 1789
By Thomas Banks (1)

                           Achilles                         

“Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles…We never called him any of those things: we called him ‘the butcher’” (Barker 3). Achilles may be the hero in many stories, but he is considered a villain in The Silence of the Girls. Achilles kills Briseis’s family and keeps her as his slave to do as he will with. Although Achilles is blessed with superhuman strength and he is a great warrior, he has no sense of nobility or integrity. He is willing to sacrifice everything to be remembered. The gods made him a deal, “everlasting glory in return for an early death under the walls of Troy” (Barker 101). Achilles has a thirst for glory and his pride causes thousands of men to perish in war. One aspect of his character explored in the novel that is not seen in original renditions of the Iliad is the need for a maternal figure in his life. Achilles’s mother, Thetis, abandons him early in his childhood sending him into a depression until he meets his friend Patroclus. The lasting effects of his mother’s abandonment are seen when Achilles is lying with Briseis and she smells of the sea. Achilles begins to aggressively ravish her—“this wasn’t a man making love to a woman—this was a starving baby” (Barker 38). 

Patroclus

Achilles Lamenting the death of Patroclus (1763)
By Gavin Hamilton (4)

Patroclus is Achilles’s closest friend and perhaps the only person he truly loves. Patroclus’s and Achilles’s relationship is described as familial in some moments and romantic in others. A clear notion in the novel is that two men who love each other are weak and laughable. Even so, Patroclus’s role is to support Achilles and live in Achilles’s shadow. In the latter half of the novel, Patroclus’s role dons Achilles’s armor and leads the Greeks against the Trojans. His death at the hand of Hector forces Achilles to join the fight and win the war. This novel shows the love and the heartbreak of Achilles and proves the strength in their connection.

Objects/Symbols

Green Stone

While walking away from the sea, Briseis’s foot gets stuck with a green stone. “So many pebbles on that beach—millions—all of them worn smooth by the sea’s relentless grinding, but not this one. This one had stayed sharp” (Barker 30). Briseis felt a connection with the sharp, lonely stone so she kept it. The stone that stayed sharp despite the powerful sea, represents her vitality and her resilience. Briseis refused to break and she refused to forget who she was before her enslavement.

The Sea

The sea serves as a form of comfort and escape for both Briseis and Achilles. Achilles associates the sea with his mother, resulting in strong and aggressive emotions. On the other hand, Briseis goes to the sea to temporarily escape her life and to quietly mourn her losses. While standing at the sea’s edge, Briseis describes her mourning, “[B]ehind my closed lids, I watched my youngest brother die. I grieved for all of them, but particularly for him…with no idea in my head except to reach him, I began wading into the sea” (Barker 27). The sea is not only an escape for emotional expression but also a possible method of suicide. Briseis begins to go deeper with only thoughts of joining her deceased family. Every day, Briseis wades into the sea, but she never “takes the plunge.” She takes her moment to remember and to grieve, then returns with resilience to face her new life.

Theme

Misogyny/Sexism

A lack of agency afforded to women is a major theme in the novel. Patroclus and Briseis talk about how awful life is for both of them. Patroclus, a man, tells Briseis, “Things do change. And if they don’t you bloody well make them” (Barker 161), to which she responds, “Spoken like a man” (Barker 162). Women are not allowed the same opportunities and they are not given the same freedoms as men. The language and actions throughout the novel dehumanize women. Women are taken like objects and awarded like prizes. After the Trojans are defeated in the first battle of the novel, Briseis and all the other women are taken to be evaluated based on beauty and youth and then awarded accordingly. When Briseis is first brought to Achilles’s tent as his prize she thinks, “I didn’t feel like anything that might have a name” (Barker 21). By taking away her name, they are taking away her individuality and her humanity. In the context of the novel, women are seen as sex objects and vessels for the next male generation. If a woman is unable to produce children or a son, she is a failure as a woman. At the beginning of the novel, when the women and children are about to be discovered, Briseis comments “For once, women with sons envied those with daughters, because girls would be allowed to live” (Barker 4). Sexism is introduced to babies the moment they are born.

Briseis is incredibly aware of the sexism embedded in her own culture. Women are pitted against each other to compete for men’s attention. Before the battle, Briseis and her mother-in-law were in such a competition, “Even on that first day, I looked at Queen Marie and knew I had a fight on my hands….a whole bloody war” (Barker 7). A woman’s job is to care for her men, if another woman is caring for someone’s son or husband, they no longer have a secure place. Women also compete with one another to receive attention for their youth and beauty. Helen is an example of someone women hate because she is so beautiful, and yet they imitate her in hopes of being just a fraction as beautiful. Women have brains and they have teeth, but they are taught to hide their true selves because being beautiful and docile will get them a good husband and therefore a good life. Briseis challenges tradition by wondering, “Perhaps if they realize we’re not the gentle creatures they take us for their own peace of mind would be disturbed?” (Barker 7).

Conclusion

        The Silence of the Girls challenges the sexist language and actions that were typical in Ancient Greek and Roman times. Briseis proves women have the strength to be independent and the resilience to continue after physical and emotional abuse. In the original Iliad, Briseis is seen as the caretaker of other women and Achilles’s plaything. The same story told from her perspective makes Briseis a real woman with real struggles. She must mourn her family and her home, bear Achilles’s abuse, and put on a brave face to help others. This novel brings to light the struggles of everyday women, both internal and external. 

Works Cited

1. Banks, Thomas. “Thetis and Achilles,” The British Museum, 1789, www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-

        was-achilles. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

2. Barker, Pat. Picture of the Cover: The Silence of the Girls, 2018, www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-

        silence-of-the-girls-pat-barker/1127785061. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

3. ---. The Silence of the Girls. London Penguin Books, 2018.

4. Hamilton, Gavin. “Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus,” Scottish National Gallery, 1763, 

        www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5009. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

5. Matsch, Franz von. “The Triumph of Achilles,” National Archaeological Museum, 26 May 2017, 

        theshieldofachilles.net/2017/05/26/guest-post-a-mycenaean-chariot-in-the-knossos-

        armory/triumph_of_achilles_in_corfu_achilleion_cropped_color-enhanced_white-balanced/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

6. “SparkNotes: The Iliad: Achilles.” Www.sparknotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 

            2025,www.sparknotes.com/lit/iliad/character/achilles/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

7. Unknown. “Briseis,” Naples National Archaeological Museum in Naples, ItalY, 100AD, 

        en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briseis. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

        Originally found in the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii.