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Chapter 7
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
One morning, Briseis is walking on the beach when she sees an old man, exhausted and dirty but wearing the clothes of Apollo’s priest. He pauses when he spies Briseis walking alone without a veil. Under other circumstances, he would have been sure of her profession. Briseis, for her part, thinks the man would be right to make assumptions about her profession, even if she hasn’t chosen this path for herself. A soldier appears and asks the priest what he wants. The priest explains that he wants to ransom his daughter from Agamemnon.
In ancient Greek and Trojan cultures as represented in the novel, respectable women wear veils in public. Because Briseis lacks a veil, the priest wonders whether she is a sex worker; Briseis, irritated, judges that she is a sex worker—she exists to service Achilles’s sexual needs—though “not by choice.” The priest’s confusion about Briseis’s status illustrates the slipperiness between categories like “wife,” “sex worker,” and “slave” in a misogynistic society where even free women are considered their husbands’ sexual possessions and where enslaved women are routinely sexually abused.
Themes
Soon the news has spread throughout the camp. Everyone gathers in the arena. Briseis spots Chryseis, goes to her, and notices she has a recent facial injury. Chryseis grabs Briseis’s arm and makes distressed noises when she sees her father—the priest—in the arena. The priest addresses Agamemnon, ceremoniously wishing him victory—if he’ll give Chryseis back. He explains that he has brought an enormous ransom and begs for his daughter back. Briseis, who knows that Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter for a “fair wind” on the voyage for Troy, fears for the priest.
Chryseis’s facial injury hints that Agamemnon physically abuses her as well as regularly raping her—underlining that his purported obsession with her in no way protects her from casual violence as his slave. The revelation that Agamemnon killed his own daughter in exchange for a “fair wind”—that is, a wind good for sailing—again makes clear that men in ancient Greek society consider the women in their families their property to be disposed of as they will.
Themes
The Greeks, who “love a sentimental story almost as much as they love gold,” vocally encourage Agamemnon to return Chryseis and take the ransom. Agamemnon silences the crowd and tells the priest—whom he calls “old man”—to leave, threatening to kill him if he comes back. The old man, terrified, reluctantly leaves, while the watching Greeks murmur unhappily and a few seem to “make the sign against the evil eye.” Briseis advises Chryseis to sprint back to Agamemnon’s quarters in case he summons her, anticipating that he’ll want to have sex with her to mark his triumph over her father.
The Greeks’ love of “a sentimental story” motivates them to pressure their commander, showing the power of myths, narratives, and stories to influence behavior. That they “make the sign against the evil eye” when the priest leaves, meanwhile, indicates that they are afraid he will curse them (the “evil eye” is a curse caused by an angry or malicious look). That Agamemnon will want to rape Chryseis to celebrate humiliating her father, meanwhile, emphasizes that men in the novel frequently view women as mere pieces in games played between men.
Themes
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Briseis finds herself following the departing priest. She overhears him calling to Apollo, which annoys her—if the gods answered prayers, the Greeks could never have taken Lyrnessus—but also fascinates her. When the priest calls Apollo “Lord of mice,” Briseis recalls that Apollo is the god of sickness as well as the god of healing, with dominion over plague-bearing rodents. She finds herself joining the priest’s prayer, calling out: “Lord of plague, hear me!”
Though Briseis doesn’t believe that the gods answer prayers, she nevertheless joins in when the priest prays to Apollo to curse the Greeks with plague—another detail showing the power of myths and legends to influence behavior.
Themes
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