Silence becomes a Woman

Briseis’ Voice and Agency in Homer’s Iliad and Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls

Abstract

Recently, more women writers have started addressing the classical tradition, rewriting female characters in feminist narratives that receive, interpret, and influence the ancient tradition from women’s perspectives. Starting from a receptive, feminist, and narratological framework, this article analyses how Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls (2018) transforms Caroline Alexander’s translation (2015) of Homer’s Iliad. The central question concerns the ways in which Barker receives and interprets the Iliad’s gendered gaps and silences, and how she manages to give a voice to the Homeric women – particularly Briseis – in The Silence of the Girls, considering the highly restrictive situation in which they live. Adding a female perspective to a tale of male triumphs and suffering, Barker gives a voice to the silenced so they may emerge from the heroes’ shadows and tell their own stories to posterity.