The relatively recent bestseller by Pat Barker is an imaginative, and disturbing ‘retelling’ of a segment of the Classical myth.
Reading ‘The Women of Troy’ (sequel to ‘Silence of the Girls’) has given me a new lens with which to look upon the Classics. The book tells the account of the Greeks' frustration – after the Trojan war – at not being able to sail home, due to the wind blowing in the wrong direction. This is even after Agamemnon (leader of the Greeks) has sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods.
But the account is from the perspective of Briseis, Achilles’ former concubine.
The book is fascinating as it blends fiction with myth. Barker imagines encounters between the women and men of the Greek camp; ones which are not beyond belief. Indeed, she seems to have done avid research since her inventions are based around known customs and beliefs.
Not only is it fascinating but it is also – invariably – bleak. The account of the women – mostly slaves and concubines – is harrowing, as they are slave to every whim or lust that takes hold of any Greek. The descriptions of how women were expected to satisfy the every sexual lust of men is horrifying. This ‘retelling’ of the Classical myth is a wonderful insight into what it must have been like to have been subject to such humiliation, degradation, and cruelty. And, of course, constant imprisonment.
What Pat Barker certainly makes clear from the start of her book, is the graphic horror the women must have experienced, and the neglect and despair they must have felt.
Interestingly, for me at least, one does feel more antipathy rather than awe for the Greek fighters, as we see the neglect and brutality that is shown to the ‘Women of Troy’.
It is truly extraordinary, as it provides potential answers to questions that arise from texts such as Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. What did Hecuba or Helen think and feel? Was Helen raped by Paris or did she love him? How did Cassandra react to her rape in the temple by Little Ajax?
Of course, we don’t get Homer or Virgil’s views, but we learn more about the characters that have been side-lined by the focus on the ‘Homeric heroes’ – Odysseus, Menelaus, Achilles, Hector etcetera; they provide the modern world with suppositions about the ‘ruled’ rather than the ‘ruler’.
However, epics are different to that of Greek tragedy. Euripides, for example, gave whole plays to the voice of women; for example, Medea, Electra, or Hecuba. The substance of the two genres differs; that of epic usually concerns warfare and the winning of honour and prestige, whereas Greek tragedy usually centres around the ‘tragic hero’ or can be about a revenge story, as Medea is.
One thing is certain: do not shy away from these types of books if you think they will lack excitement and drama.
The Women of Troy is not short of either.
