It would be wrong to say that Barker gives a fully sympathetic depiction of Helen, but the way in which her life is predicated on the decisions of men (and gods) is evident. Unlike works such as Euripides’s The Trojan Women and Hecuba, Helen is not portrayed as universally hated by all the women linked to Troy. To them, women count for so little that they have no national identity. The complexities of identity, and how they are viewed, is made most apparent by the Greek soldiers’ odd ignoring of all the enslaved Trojan women, particularly when considering how many Trojans were in the Greek camp. She is stuck in an odd position, seen as a Trojan by the Greeks, but not accepted by the enslaved Trojan women. Briseis might be aligned with the Trojans, but her time in the Greek camp has altered her point of view. This difference is primarily due to the use of Briseis as the main narrator. It does not limit itself to the women taken from Troy, and so presents a female focused view of a greater scope than is often seen in plays such as Euripides’s The Trojan Women. In some ways The Silence of the Girls can be read as a feminist retelling of the Trojan War, and heavily draws on the Iliad, whereas The Women of Troy focuses on the immediate repercussions of the war, and does not closely follow any Classical text. It continues the story of Briseis, and I can see more books in the pipeline, as further ramifications of the Trojan War unfurl. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy is a sequel to her previous book, The Silence of the Girls. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. It does not come, because the gods are offended. Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war-including the women of Troy themselves. A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it-an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and “one of contemporary literature’s most thoughtful and compelling writers' (The Washington Post).

Pat barker the women of troy