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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Song of Achilles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Honor, Pride, and Legacy
Fate, Belief, and Control
Gender, Power, and Agency
Love, Violence, and Redemption
Selfhood and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
The army sets sail for Troy the next day. Patroclus tells Achilles about Diomedes being deliberately placed so that Achilles couldn’t intervene, but it doesn’t help. Achilles is listless. When they’re two days away from Troy, he asks Patroclus what it was like when he killed Clysonymus. Patroclus finds it hard to describe, but says he remembers the blood. Peleus told Achilles to think of his enemies as animals, but Achilles doesn’t think he can kill at all. Patroclus wants to say Good, but he doesn’t, thinking of Achilles’s future immortality.
This scene is a reminder that Patroclus has an experience that the destined battle hero Achilles does not. It also shows that Achilles himself, in his heart, is still struggling with his destiny. That Patroclus finds himself unable to support Achilles in his doubt about killing shows the way that love in the novel intersects with violence. Patroclus wants Achilles—for Achilles own sake— to achieve his destiny because he knows that what makes Achilles actually be Achilles is his sense of greatness. But that greatness in Greek culture is bound to battle prowess, which means Patroclus can’t stop Achilles from becoming a killer, even though he desperately wishes Achilles would not become a killer. Like Achilles, Patroclus believes that he understands the prophecy and assumes that Achilles will be happy once he has fame and glory and maybe even godhood.
Themes
Achilles can’t stop picturing Iphigenia’s death, but Patroclus says that not all his victims will be innocent. Achilles points out that Patroclus himself won’t fight, since he hates it. He asks if Patroclus will forgive him for his future deeds, and Patroclus, rashly, says that forgiveness isn’t necessary. Suddenly, Achilles’s hand strikes down to kill a deadly water-snake, which Patroclus hadn’t even seen. He didn’t have to; Achilles did. Achilles’s sadness lifts after that, but he starts carrying his spear everywhere, practicing.
Patroclus here is spouting platitudes that his own behavior makes clear are platitudes to help Achilles get back being a willing soldier—a thing Patroclus wishes Achilles wouldn’t be. Love, honor, fate, and responsibility are all tied up here in a complicated knot. Meanwhile, Achilles doesn’t start to feel better until he kills the snake and in doing so protects Patroclus. It’s also worth noting that anyone familiar with the story of the Trojan war that the comment about Patroclus not fighting is in fact a bit of foreshadowing, and that foreshadowing is tied to fate and its inherent tricks and tragedies.
Themes
When the Greeks reach Troy, they see soldiers waiting for them, an unexpected development. One is large and princely; he must be Hector. As the Greek ships sail into range of Trojan arrows, and the Greek men begin to panic. One Trojan draws his bow, but Achilles throws his spear and hits him; no one else could possibly have made such a throw. The war’s “first blood” belongs to the Greeks. Achilles is calm; when one of the Myrmidons, Automedon, brings Achilles more spears on Phoinix’s orders, he throws unceasingly. Eventually, he has Patroclus stand behind him. The soldiers grow wild; one Greek king, drunk on glory, begins to swim to shore, but Hector strikes him down—he’s the first Greek to die. The Trojans retreat, but they’ve made their point: they won’t die easily.
Agamemnon and his lieutenants had sold the idea that this would be an easy war, leading to easy riches. Now it’s clear that wasn’t true, but the soldiers who joined the fight can’t go back. The soldiers are just “spears” to be used by the kings. The war “statistics” being kept—first blood, first Greek to die—meanwhile, reduces the dealing of death to a game, and this juxtaposition allows the novel to critique the idea that there is honor to be won in war. Achilles does stand apart as something special; yet his death-dealing is inhuman, cold, relentless—and it’s clear that despite his worries he has no problem killing.
Themes
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