Authorial Choices 1
One reason for Pat Barker to include so much imagery in the book
Ties directly into Briseis's goal to "remember"; by having the narrator (Briseis) describe as much of the setting w/ as much vivid imagery as possible, she's recording as much as possible for her own memory's sake
Use of stream of consciousness in Achilles's point of view
- It's a way to gain insights into his perspective without shifting all the emphasis onto him by shifting the point of view to 1st-person
Quote analysis:
"A slave is a thing, as much in her own estimation as in anybody else's."
- it's most often women who are objectified + dehumanized in such a manner, which Barker calls attention to when she uses "her" in the narration
Quote Analysis:
"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.'"
- directly addressing the idea of literary epithets + whether they're accurate to how their subjects actually behaved
- already, Barker is attempting to dismantle commonly-held perception of the Iliad and its characters ("the butcher" harshly contradicts prior epithets) <--- "we called him 'the butcher'" also shows lesser-known perspectives
The name of Briseis's home city, which "fell" in the beginning of the story
What is Lyrnessus?
Possible reasons to interject with scenes from Achilles's POV (although in third-person limited instead of first-person)
- can set up dramatic irony in some instances? and this *is* an adaptation of a Greek epic poem (one example I can think of is at the very end, where in Achilles's POV the audience finds out about his plans to have Alcimius marry Briseis if Achilles dies--in Briseis's POV, she notices that they're speaking w/ one another, but decides it doesn't concern her)
Choice of predator-vs-prey metaphors to describe Briseis's situation
- spider vs flies: flies are pretty helpless, since they've already been captured (they're basically just waiting for death)
Quote analysis:
"And I brought up the rear, along with the seven girls from Lesbos, and all the other things."
- again implicitly referring to herself as an object (she's been dehumanized for so long that she believes it to a certain extent)
- is the position Briseis takes meaningful? look into it
Quote Analysis:
"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.'"
(2)
- audience is probably asking "who's 'we'?", which provokes them into thinking about potential people (or groups of people) who could have any reason to think this way
The implied fate of Briseis's mother-in-law
What is death?
Possible explanations behind use of modern vernacular (especially expletives)
- makes sense for the characters who do use it (most of the ones who swear are young men and boys in a war setting, talking amongst themselves), also could serve as point of relatability + induced shock in Barker's contemporary audience
Purposes of dialogue without quote marks and entirely in italics
- conveys sense of "otherworldliness"
- the characters who are "speaking" are gods, ghosts, or representations of the audience
Quote Analysis:
"...perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality..."
- at first, this quote only seems to apply to the relationship of Briseis and Ismene (as Briseis reflects on their relationship), but its premise expands to all the men Briseis meets after Achilles captures her
- "kindness" implies empathy, which is difficult to have for a person you own
Quote Analysis:
"There was a legend—it tells you everything, really—that whenever Helen cut a thread in her weaving, a man died on the battlefield. She was responsible for every death."
- by "tells you everything", the author is trying to imply that the stories we tell (historical and mythological) say a lot about us and our values--in this case, one of the values held at the time was that women were to blame for men's actions
The name of the war during which the plot is taking place
What is the Trojan War?
Intent when Barker calls attention to how contemporary audiences choose to interact with the Iliad
- most contemporary audiences tend to "soften" the tone of the Iliad and focus on only a few (male) characters at the expense of everyone else and many character's underrepresented stories (cough, cough, "The Song of Achilles")
- maybe she wants to provoke audience into reflecting into why we (both regular readers and academics alike) do this so often? why we ignore the harsh brutalities of war and continue to silence all of these women?
Possible explanations behind use of modern vernacular (especially expletives) (2)
- such language is harsh, connotations used to show harsh brutality of the situation
- they (ppl in ancient Greece) most definitely used expletives, too! (one of Barker's purposes seems to be critiquing how modern audiences interact w/ the Iliad--could this also apply to the language we believed they should've used?)
Quote Analysis:
"Priam grips his knees harder, his fingers digging in: 'I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.' … Those words echoed round me, as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles had plundered from burning cities. I thought: And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers."
- Many people (esp. men, both in the setting and in audiences of the Iliad) would've perceived Priam as being especially degraded in his position (especially given his political standing), but narration calls attention to the fact that Priam (or any man in "his situation") does not, nor will he ever know true degradation like "countless" women have and still do (and this degradation goes unnoticed)
Quote Analysis:
"I thought: We’re going to survive—our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams—and in their worst nightmares too."
- more explicit way of showing role of women in passing down culture (Briseis says this stuff kinda outright)
- another way in which women's stories are brought up in the novel
The female character who was deemed "responsible" for the setting's war occurring
Who is Helen of Troy?
Title
- I don't know why, but the title reminds me of "The Silence of the Lambs"
- Also ties into the phrase "silence becomes a woman" somehow?
Choice of epigraph at the beginning
- we tend to glorify ancient societies, thinking everything to do with them to be deep and profound when it probably isn't
- we also tend to place similar emphasis on the conflicts and lives of ancient men (real or mythological), due in part to misogyny; men are just given more consideration and humanity in these stories, even when they're involved in a glorified bar fight.
Quote Analysis:
"I was the girl who’d caused the quarrel. Oh, yes, I’d caused it—in much the same way, I suppose, as a bone is responsible for a dogfight."
- Comparison to bone's involvement in dogfight serves multiple purposes:
(1) comparison to bone (inanimate consumable object) emphasizes Briseis's lack of agency in the situation + degree to which she's being objectified (2) calls attention to societal belief that women are responsible for what men do
Quote Analysis:
"Because, make no mistake, this was his story—his anger, his grief, his story. I was angry, I was grieving, but somehow that didn’t matter."
- challenging perception of men's stories vs women's in history and mythology, and whose side of the story we tend to focus on and believe (men like Achilles and Patroclus get novel after novel, drama after drama dedicated to their stories, but Briseis, Helen, Hecuba, Chryseis, etc. have been reduced to side-pieces for millennia)
The Greek epic poem of which "The Silence of the Girls" is an adaptation
What is the Iliad? (could possibly directly compare the Iliad and TSotG? use Iliad to get more context when you need it)