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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Silence of the Girls, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mythology and Oppressed Perspectives
The Effects of Misogyny
Honor and Violence
Slavery and Dehumanization
Grief and Revenge
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Patroclus lets the Myrmidons watch the battle from their ships because he knows they can’t concentrate on more training. Patroclus can’t stand how they yell for the Greek side as if watching a sporting event. Having slept little the night previous, he goes back to the compound to take a nap in Achilles’s bed. Then Achilles shouts for him; when Patroclus goes to see what’s wrong, Achilles says he thinks Machaon might be wounded and politely requests that Patroclus go check. Patroclus notes wryly that Achilles is once again using him as a “messenger boy” despite his high birth, but he agrees.
Patroclus’s thought that Achilles is using him as a “messenger boy,” though they are both Greek princes, suggests that his anger at Achilles is complex. While he is clearly angry at Achilles for not fighting and for treating Briseis with extreme cruelty, he also quietly resents Achilles for not treating him as an equal—which suggests that Patroclus’s masculine honor is also at stake in any argument between him and Achilles.
Themes
Patroclus finds Machaon in Nestor’s compound. Machaon is wounded, and though the wound is deep, it’s not serious. When Patroclus goes to greet Nestor, Nestor insists that Patroclus have a cup of wine with him and then suggests that Patroclus lead the Myrmidons into battle. Patroclus says Achilles would never agree to it and might stab him for asking. Nestor, smiling, says Achilles wouldn’t stab Patroclus. Patroclus says he might: Patroclus himself has murdered a friend and wished he hadn’t forever after.
When Patroclus mentions that he murdered his own friend, it reminds readers that honor-killings and vengeance constantly threaten male relationships in the Greeks’ patriarchal, honor-obsessed society. His speculation that Achilles might stab him also foreshadows that some harm may come to Patroclus due to actions of Achilles’s.
Themes
Nestor asks whether Patroclus knows the Trojans have already burned one of Agamemnon’s ships. When Patroclus says he didn’t know, Nestor asks when Achilles will fight—and Patroclus says he’ll fight when the Trojans burn his ships. Nestor says that when you betray your brothers-in-arms, “you end up fighting alone.” Patroclus retorts that Achilles would still bet on himself. Nestor asks whether Patroclus ever wants to earn his own reputation, separate from Achilles. Patroclus informs him heatedly that if he agrees to Nestor’s plan, it would be to help Achilles—but agrees to suggest it. As a parting request, Nestor asks Patroclus to borrow Achilles’s armor for the battlefield so “they” will think Achilles is fighting.
Nestor’s warning that “you end up fighting alone” when you desert your fellow soldiers shows the downsides of Achilles’s entirely individualistic concept of honor: it ignores the need for mutual aid and defense in wars. Yet Nestor tries to appeal to Patroclus’s desire for individual honor and glory when asking him if he wants to earn his own reputation separate from Achilles—which hints that Nestor is not arguing from principle but simply being manipulative. Meanwhile, Nestor’s desire that “they” (i.e. the Trojans) believe Achilles is fighting again indicates that he thinks the myth of Achilles’s prowess in battle will be more important than who is actually wearing Achilles’s armor.
Themes
