Grief and Revenge Theme Analysis

In The Silence of the Girls, revenge is an understandable yet ultimately destructive response to a loved one’s violent death. Revenge never actually solves the problem of grief because it cannot bring a dead loved one back to life. This dynamic is clearest in Greek warrior Achilles’s berserk killing spree and his desecration of Trojan prince Hector’s corpse after Hector kills Patroclus in battle. It is clear to several observers, and even to Achilles himself, that Achilles is hoping to bring Patroclus back to life or at least erase his own grief by taking revenge on Hector. When killing Hector fails to resurrect Patroclus, Achilles obsessively desecrates Hector’s corpse, tying it to his chariot and driving it around and around Patroclus’s grave. Yet each time Achilles reduces the corpse to a bloody, mutilated lump, it supernaturally restores itself—and the wounds that Achilles inflicted on it show on his own skin. The transference of damage from Hector’s corpse to Achilles’s body makes clear that Achilles cannot solve his grief or bring back Patroclus by taking obsessive revenge. Instead, he psychologically damages himself as he tries to physically damage Hector. It is only when Achilles ceases to take revenge on Hector’s corpse and returns the body to Hector’s father Priam that he begins to accept Patroclus’s death and look forward to joining him in the grave.