A History of Oppression and Silence

In the ambit of mythology, particularly Greek mythology, one of the most storied and legendary events is the Trojan War. It all started when Paris, a Trojan prince, did the most unthinkable. He kidnapped Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, and took her to Troy. This set into motion a series of events that redefined the landscape of mythology. The bravest warriors – among them storied names such as Odysseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon, Menelaus’ brother – of each kingdom from across the realm converged and set sail for Troy; for this, Helen would be called the “face that launched a thousand ships.” As kings and princes went against fellow kings and princes, the gods also took sides and even lent a hand to the warriors. The war would last for years and only concluded with one of the most ingenious war devices invented: the Trojan horse.

Because of its place in the ambit of Greek mythology and history in general, the Trojan War has become a familiar subject in contemporary popular culture. Several films exploring different facets of the war were created over the years. Its influences can also be seen in music and opera. There were also television and radio adaptations. In the arts, sculptures, potteries, mosaics, and paintings inspired by the events at Troy are ubiquitous. The Trojan War is also a familiar subject in the ambit of literature. Across millennia, poems, novels, novellas, and graphic novels about the war were published. Perhaps the most popular of these literary works is Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Plays, most of which are tragedies, about the war were written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Contemporary literature is also riddled with books about the Trojan War. However, one glaring aspect of these works stands out. Most of these works focus on the male characters or are told from a male character’s point of view. It is always their exploits and heroics that are highlighted. Female characters are often muted, forced to play second fiddle to the Greek and Trojan heroes. Women and by extension, children, are treated as collateral damages and their voices are drowned by the pandemonium. It is this veil of silence that award-winning writer Pat Barker aimed to pierce when she published her 2018 novel, The Silence of the Girls. At the heart of the novel is Briseis, a former Trojan royalty and one of the enslaved women of Troy. Through the fate she suffered under the Greeks, Barker captured the fate of enslaved and raped women.

“These were men who’d been living on their nerves for years and now, when things should have been easy, they were frustrated because the longed-for journey home was continually postponed. Every day began in hope, every day ended in disappointment. They’d just won a war. How could it be that victory, the greatest in the history of the world… had started to taste like defeat?”

~ Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

In 2022, the Booker Prize-winning writer published the sequel to The Silence of the Girls. The novel opens with a familiar scene. Warriors were crouched silent and waiting in the belly of the Trojan Horse. They were “packed tight as olives in a jar.” Among these warriors was Pyrrhus, the son of the fallen Greek hero Achilles. The unsuspecting Trojans, believing that the horse was a victory trophy, reeled the wooden horse into the highly fortified city. Under the cover of the darkness, the Greek warriors crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army. This marked the end of the war as the city, unprepared, was under relentless siege. Pyrrhus managed to find Priam, the King of Troy.

For the young Pyrrhus who was desperate to live up to his father’s name, it was supposed to be a victorious and glorious moment. He was finally about to earn his stripes. However, right at that moment, Pyrrhus fumbled. He managed to slay the fallen king albeit clumsily; his inexperience showed. Before being killed, the old king taunted and shamed the confused and angry young man. Bearing witness to this scene was a group of women hidden behind an altar. It was an opening sequence that echoed the same opening sequence as its predecessor: women witnessing firsthand the ineptitude and brutality of men. Pyrrhus would, ironically convey a different story to his comrades. He highlighted his heroics and bravery in front of the fallen King. The Trojan women, however, knew better.

As Troy was slowly going down into ruins following the Greeks’ resounding victory, another character was feeling the devastating impact of Achilles’ death. Briseis, once the queen of Lyrnessus and the backbone of The Silence of the Girls, was pregnant with the fallen Greek hero’s child; she was essentially Achilles’ sex slave. Shortly before Achilles’ death, she was married to another Greek, Alcimus, at her former master’s command. While Briseis was unhappy with the Greeks’ victory, Briseis was afforded several privileges that most of her fellow Trojan women didn’t. By being married to a Greek warrior, she was a free woman. Meanwhile, the other Trojan women had to suffer the fate of being slaves or trophies for their captors, an experience that Briseis had a personal account of.

Briseis’ status allowed her to freely move between the Greek camp and the encampment of enslaved Trojan women. However, as per her husband’s instructions, she must be accompanied by Amina at all times. This also allowed her to provide an account of what was happening in both camps. The story follows how Briseis and Amina as they were wandering around the encampments. They even got to encounter the lifeless body of Priam on the beach; Amina wanted to bury him, thus, dignifying him. The pair also paid a visit to Helen, the catalyst of the war; Briseis’ sister Ianthe is a friend of Helen. In what would evolve as a tour of renowned Trojan women, the pair visited Andromache, Hector’s widow; Hecuba, Priam’s domineering widow and Cassandra, the last surviving daughter of Priam and Hecuba.

“It was one of those moments that I think everybody experiences – and they don’t have to be dramatic – when things begin to change; and you know there’s no point ruminating about it, because thinking isn’t going to help you understand. You’re not ready to understand it yet; you have to live your way into the meaning.”

~ Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

In her wanderings with Amina, Briseis was able to paint the landscape of the aftermath of a war. Troy was in ruins. The Trojans were all captives of the victors. As the Trojans rue the destruction of their city and the fate that awaits them, the victors are simply waiting for a good wind that will take them back to their motherland. With the war over, the Greeks were eagerly boarding their ships, and along with them were their loot, their loot being the enslaved Trojan women. As is common in warfare, the jubilant voices of the victors drown out the voices of the defeated. With Trojan men virtually decimated or incapacitated, the Trojan women were left to suffer the consequences of the war. In a way, the Trojan War was a microcosm of the legacies of war. Barker’s latest novel allows voices muted by history to be heard.

The Women of Troy lives up to its title; it is, indeed, a book about the women of Troy. The most important voices were the women, steered by Briseis who was as indomitable and tenacious as ever. Through her interactions with her fellow Trojan women, she captured the horrors that women experience in captivity. Some, like Cassandra, were even raped. War, after all, does not recognize social standings. The women had to suffer the most consequences. The Greek men, meanwhile, were dismissive of their conditions. The men were caroused and, often, inebriated. They compete against each other in athletic contests while also having rough sex with the women. The women do not only serve the men’s desires. They doubled as domestic servants who had to deal with the aftermath, from burying the dead to looking after the sick and the wounded.

Unfortunately, the women had no recourse but to either compromise or resign themselves to their fate. They had no time to grieve or gather their bearings. As if things couldn’t get any worse, they were forced to bear the children of the men who killed their own men. A further irony was captured by how the Greek men worry about going home while the women had to cope with the death of their relatives and the ruin of the place they once called home. Nevertheless, in the face of submission, there exists a select few like Amina who refuse to deviate from their principles. They refuse to conform to their captors. Meanwhile, among the men were some good apples. Among them were Alcimus and Automedon, two of Achilles’ most trusted companions.

“Looking around, I realized that everything here – every herb, flower and vegetable – had been planted by men who expected to see the next season, the next spring. Everywhere, there were signs of a normal day disrupted. A spade, its blade crusted with dry soil, lay at the end of a freshly dug row. On the bench, there was a square of red-and-white cloth wrapped round somebody’s half-eaten lunch: a hunk of bread and a slab of mouldy pale-yellow cheese with a bite taken out of it. Whoever it was, he must have been just starting his meal when the gates opened and the wooden horse was dragged inside – and he’d left, just like that, carelessly, without a second thought, expecting to return. He’d vanished into the shouting, celebrating crowds…”

~ Pat Barker, The Women of Troy

The women of Troy, despite the oppression surrounding them, exhibited resilience. They were able to adjust to their situation and, in the process, they managed to build relationships. They managed to thrive. On the other side of the spectrum, Barker captures how violence can adversely impact men. This was captured primarily through Pyrrhus whose voice intertwines with Briseis’. His psychological profile was vividly built by Barker. The story captured his doubts, fears, and the pressures of living up to his father’s name. All throughout, he was overshadowed by his father’s greatness. Pyrrhus was an entirely different character compared to his father. Perhaps to partake of his father’s greatness or to commemorate him, Pyrrhus polished his father’s shield.

Through Pyrrhus, the book explores the fragility of masculine pride. His growth and development as a character throughout the story was one of the novel’s more interesting and compelling facets. Because of his youth – he was sixteen years old – he was naïve and laden by anxiety. He may have his father’s fighting acumen but he lacked his father’s wisdom. With it was the growing cognizance that he would never live up to his father’s lofty reputation. In a way, Pyrrhus was the antithesis of the captured women. The captured women were trapped in a situation where they had no recourse but to be submissive. Pyrrhus, on the other hand, was receiving accolades for heroics. He was elevated to the pedestal of being a leader despite his youth.

The rich tapestry of The Women of Troy was capably woven together by Barker’s descriptive prose. However, there was a monochromatic view of human nature that undoes some of the novel’s accomplishments. In capturing the fate of women during times of war, the story vilifies the men; very few men had redeeming qualities as the Greeks were painted as the antithesis of heroes they projected themselves to be. Captivity, death, and abuse were ubiquitous in the story. Nevertheless, Barker vividly captured the camaraderie and resilience of women in times of oppression, when they are forcefully muted. Barker was unflinching in painting a portrait of the violence inflicted on women.

“Crows are ferociously intelligent birds. I used to watch them gather as the men set off for another day of war. Drums, pipes, trumpets, the rhythmical pounding of swords on shields—to the fighters, this music meant honour, glory, courage, comradeship…To the crows, it only ever meant food.”

~ Pat Barker, The Women of Troy
Book Specs

Author: Pat Barker
Publisher: Doubleday
Publishing Date: 2021
Number of Pages: 284
Genre: Mythology, Historical

Synopsis

Troy has fallen, and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war – including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean.

It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface, and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.

Largely unnoticed by her captors, the onetime Trojan queen Briseis, who was formerly Achilles’s slave but now belongs to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances where she can – with Priam’s aged with, the defiant Hecuba, and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas – all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

About the Author

To learn more about Booker Prize-winning writer Pat Barker, click here.