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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
Patroclus runs to Achilles, sobbing. He says that no one will ever remember Achilles’s heroism—they’ll only remember this. He tells Achilles about Ajax and begs him not to let the Greeks die for Agamemnon’s madness. More ships burn and crumble outside. Patroclus insists that the Greeks are their people, but Achilles says he’s only responsible for the Myrmidons. Patroclus warns him that he’ll be hated forever, and Achilles tells him not to ask again.
Patroclus sincerely cares about Achilles’s legacy, and here tries to make Achilles see the cost of what he is doing to himself. But Patroclus once again has a false image of Achilles—if Agamemnon is acting “mad,” Achilles is, too. Both men are too stubborn to put the lives of others over their own personal quarrel. Meanwhile, Achilles clearly never internalized Chiron’s lesson that no one’s life matters more than anyone else’s, because he prioritizes the Myrmidons’ lives over the lives of other Greek soldiers.
Themes
Patroclus kneels, asking Achilles to save the Greeks for him alone. He knows exactly how much he’s asking, but he asks anyway—if Achilles loves him, he’ll fight. Visibly torn, Achilles says that he can’t. If he does, Agamemnon will dishonor him and no one will respect him. Patroclus, suddenly inspired, says that he should at least send the Myrmidons. Patroclus will wear Achilles’s armor and they’ll think it’s him; Achilles will keep his vow, and the war won’t be lost. Patroclus notes that the words seemed to be “spoken straight from a god’s mouth,” shocking even him.
Patroclus is the only person Achilles really loves. Achilles’s refusal to fight makes clear that even genuine love isn’t enough anymore to overcome his need for “honor.” Patroclus’s plan brings together so many thematic threads of the novel: he seeks to save Achilles honor, take responsibility for himself, and control the situation by threading the needle on helping the Greeks and Thetis deal with Zeus, since he’ll inspire the Greeks by seeming to be Achilles without actually having Achilles fight. Yet the fact that it seems is if his plan is spoken straight from a god’s mouth implies, also, that this plan might be playing into fate rather than averting it.
Themes
Achilles refuses at first, but Patroclus says he won’t really fight—his appearance alone will be enough. Agamemnon may know it’s not Achilles, but the soldiers will adore him. Even Achilles’s “phantom” will be more powerful than anything Agamemnon could ever do, and everyone will think that Agamemnon is weak. Imagining their gratitude, Achilles makes Patroclus promise that if he goes, he won’t fight. Giddy, Patroclus agrees; he’s found a way to save the men and Achilles.
The plan grows more and more appealing. Not only will Patroclus’s performance as Achilles rejuvenate the Greeks, but it will secretly humiliate Agamemnon, who will eventually find out that Achilles never really fought. If the plan works, Achilles will get everything he wants without facing any consequences and without compromising his false ideas about honor. Achilles is clearly swayed by the idea of everyone feeling grateful to him, while Patroclus continues to think that he can outsmart fate.
Themes
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Achilles buckles Patroclus into his armor, again instructing him not to fight and to remain with Automedon. He should force the Trojans to retreat, but he shouldn’t fight them, and he should avoid the Trojan wall and its archers. Achilles hands Patroclus two spears and a helmet: with the helmet on, he looks just like Achilles, only different in the eyes. Achilles kisses him. Patroclus plans to take the chariot with Automedon; he knows that the way he walks is like the way Achilles does, and wouldn’t fool anyone. Achilles tells Patroclus to be careful, but he says nothing else; there will be time for talking later.
The scene of Achilles putting on Patroclus’s armor mimics the earlier scene when Patroclus did the same for Achilles. That Patroclus in the armor looks just like Achilles, except for the eyes suggests the ways that war and violence reduce the individuality of men, but also makes clear that the things a warrior does on the battlefield changes him on the inside. Patroclus and Achilles seem to think this plan is foolproof, because they don’t even say goodbye.
Themes
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When the men see Patroclus (in Achilles armor) and Automedon in the chariot, they scream and Patroclus screams back. The Trojans begin to flee in terror, and Patroclus raises his spear at those who stay. Maybe it’s all those years watching Achilles, but Patroclus no longer feels awkward; he throws his spear, and it hits a Trojan, killing him. Automedon warns Patroclus that Achilles didn’t want him to fight, but Patroclus keeps throwing while the men around him yell Achilles’s name. The Greeks start to gain confidence, while Hector begins leading the Trojans in a full retreat. Patroclus insists that they follow the Trojans, and Automedon reluctantly obeys.
Patroclus steps onto the battlefield intending to simply be a figurehead, experiences the adulation of the other troops, and suddenly starts fighting and recklessly pursuing the enemy. Patroclus has watched the fighting from the outside and not engaged in it, but now the implication is that he feels the “thrill” of battle and loses himself to it. In a sense he has become Achilles not just in the armor he wears, but also “in the eyes.”
Themes
The Trojans have retreated far enough that Patroclus could stop following, but he doesn’t. The men scream Achilles’s name. Because he spent so long in the medical tent, Patroclus knows exactly where to aim the spears to kill. Zeus’s son, Sarpedon, appears; he’s the one who broke down the gate in the Greek wall guarding the ships. Sarpedon throws his spear, which knocks Patroclus backward from the chariot. Now Patroclus faces Sarpedon, alone. Patroclus throws his own spear. It knocks Sarpedon down, who falls to the ground, dead. Patroclus repositions the spear so that it’ll look like he hit him square in the chest, as Achilles would have.
Patroclus is using his medical knowledge, which was supposed to help people, to hurt them, in a perversion of Chiron’s teachings. Chiron always viewed surgery as a necessary violence, but the violence Patroclus inflicts is far from necessary. Meanwhile, though, the fact that Patroclus is able to kill Sarpedon, a half-god, is surprising—in fact it is so surprising it signals that something else may be going on in this moment beyond just Patroclus getting a case of battle fury.
Themes
Automedon and Patroclus escape and end up at the Trojan gates. Everything happened so quickly that there are no archers there to shoot at them. The Trojans “deserve to lose” Troy, Patroclus thinks—the whole war is their fault, and Achilles is fated to die because of their actions. Angry, he runs to the wall and begins to climb; he’ll capture Helen, and no one else will die for her “vanity.” Suddenly, he sees a beautiful man with black eyes leaning on Troy’s wall: it’s Apollo. Apollo smiles and grabs Patroclus, dropping him off the wall. Still determined, Patroclus begins to climb again—he forgets why he fell, forgets about the gods. Maybe climbing walls is all he’s ever done, he thinks. Apollo isn’t smiling anymore. He grabs Patroclus again and lets him fall.
Patroclus has spent much of the war justifying or excusing Achilles’s actions. Now, in the midst of battle fury, he justifies his own: he blames the Trojans; he blames Helen, who never had much agency at all. Violence in this scene seeks to justify itself, to make itself “honorable.” Meanwhile, in this scene, Patroclus comes face-to-face with proof that the gods are interfering in the war and chooses to ignore it. His reference to perpetually climbing walls feels like a metaphor for fate: he’s constantly trying to outrun Achilles’s fate no matter the obstacles. In this case, his belief that he can outrun fate leads to Apollo taking action against him—to fate pushing back against him.
Themes
Patroclus’s head hits the ground hard, and men gather. Are they here to help? His helmet is gone and Apollo has undone the straps of his armor. The Trojans scream in anger, realizing they’ve been tricked. Patroclus runs away, dodging spears. Then a spear hits him in the back. Someone pulls it out. A familiar man walks toward him: it’s Hector. Patroclus suddenly remembers that he can’t let Hector kill him, because Achilles will kill Hector if he does, which will ensure Achilles’s own death. Patroclus begs the men around him to stop Hector, but they don’t. Hector lifts his spear, and brings it down. The final thing Patroclus sees is Hector, and the final thing he thinks is: Achilles.
Patroclus tried to outmaneuver fate—to protect the honor and life and the person he loved—but in doing so he himself turned to violence and only ended up becoming the instrument of the very fate he sought to deny. Achilles has said that he would only fight Hector if Agamemnon begged or died, or if Hector harmed something of Achilles. Now Patroclus’s plan to protect Achilles’s honor has led to Hector killing Patroclus, whom Achilles loved above all else. Patroclus begging that the gathered men stop Hector might be taken as cowardice, but in fact Patroclus begs not for his own life but because he understands that he has set Achilles final fate in motion. Even in his own moment of death, Patroclus puts Achilles first. And this entire cycle of fate captures how violence leads always to more violence.
Themes
