Welcome to Vox Populi, where Columba College ākonga cast a critical eye over pop culture happenings. This week, Eleanor Wong (Year 10) commends Pat Barker’s stunning feminist retelling of Homer’s Iliad, The Silence of the Girls.

Briseis. Once a Queen and now a war-prize to Achilles, the greatest of all Greek warriors, and the man who killed her brothers and husband. Do you know her name? Do you know how her story begins? In The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker gifts us Briseis’ voice to narrate a beautiful and moving retelling of The Iliad.

Barker’s words are, in every way, precise and glorious. They allow us to finally read the stories of the ever-present, yet never-heard women in The Iliad. “Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles…how the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things; we called him ‘the butcher.” Although Barker tells us plainly of the abuse faced by the women, she does, nevertheless, struggle to separate Briseis from the overarching story of Achilles. She introduces Achilles and Patroclus’ points of view in the second half, and in doing so, takes away from the idea of a feminist retelling. Despite this, Briseis’ voice is still strong throughout, telling us how each woman was a heroine in her own right.

Briseis. The woman who divided an army. The woman whose task was, as described on page twenty: “Forget. So there was my duty laid out in front of me, as simple and clear as a bowl of water: Remember.”