119 pages • 3 hours read
Madeline MillerThe Song of Achilles
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
What It Means to Be a Hero
Through the events that play out, The Song of Achilles tacitly asks the question, what does it mean to be a hero? As portrayed in ancient epic poetry, heroes strive to excel on the battlefield. They are proud and strong, can persuade through speech, and enjoy competing against each other to achieve dominance. Though they are mortal, they hope for their glorious acts to be immortalized in legend, as are those of the heroes whose stories are told around campfires.
The Song of Achilles shows how this quest for glory and immortality can be dehumanizing. The gods and goddesses of ancient Greek myth did not provide moral standards. Their only distinguishing feature from humans was their immortality. This authorizes them to see humans as insignificant and replaceable. Thetis does not bother killing Patroclus because he “will be dead soon enough” (51). When Achilles displeases her by losing interest in immortality, she replaces him with Pyrrhus, the heir whose birth she engineered through manipulation.
As the son of a goddess and the subject of a promising prophesy, Achilles seems destined for glory. His fighting skills are so exceptional that no one is permitted to watch him train. This is to protect others from becoming demoralized by his extraordinary skill. Patroclus does not exemplify the heroic ideal. He lacks warrior prowess and does not want to fight or kill.
At Troy, Patroclus eventually withdraws from battle completely and devotes himself to caring for wounded soldiers in the infirmary, developing a bond with them regardless of their kingdom of origin. He saves Briseis and other captured women from becoming sex slaves and helps them build a new life. He attempts to keep Achilles grounded in the human concerns of empathy and care. His efforts seem to bear fruit when Achilles allows one of Eetion’s sons to survive and carry on his family line, though Achilles would have achieved greater fame if he had ensured that line’s end.
Eventually the desire for glory dominates Achilles’s humanity. He becomes willing to sacrifice others in his quest, as gods sacrifice human lives for their games. Slighted by Agamemnon, Achilles withdraws from battle. He refuses to return until his sense of honor is satisfied, which can only be achieved through Agamemnon’s prostration. Agamemnon refuses to yield to Achilles, and a stalemate ensues. Meanwhile, Thetis marshals the gods’ support, and they help the Trojans break through the Greeks’ defenses. Though the Greeks face total destruction, Achilles still refuses to act to save them. This forces Patroclus to act instead, leading to his death.
Achilles exemplifies the heroic ideals effortlessly, yet these same ideals rob him of what he most values: Patroclus. In his grief, Achilles is reminded that he is human and wishes to remain so. His only desires are to kill Hector and be killed himself, so that he can reunite with the man he loves. Patroclus does not exemplify the heroic ideals, but he devotes himself to healing and ultimately sacrifices his life to save the Greeks from destruction. Achilles is described as Aristos Achaion, Patroclus as the best of the Myrmidons.
Through Achilles and Patroclus’s distinct actions and choices, Miller asks, who is the greater hero?
The Immutability of Fate
Fate and prophecy feature heavily in The Song of Achilles, as they did in ancient Greek epic poems such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. As in these epics, Miller explores the extent to which fate is predetermined or happens through human action.
Prophecies are infamously cryptic, as is the case with the prophecies surrounding Achilles and Patroclus. One prophecy stipulates that if Achilles chooses to go to Troy, he will achieve glory there. Because he subscribes to and exemplifies heroic standards, he cannot resist going, thereby fulfilling the prophecy.
Another prophecy about Achilles states that his death will follow Hector’s, so Achilles pledges not to kill Hector. However, Achilles is involved in raids at Troy, during which he kills the family of Hector’s wife, Andromache. While Achilles harbors no grudge against Hector, Hector now has a grudge against him and when given the opportunity to kill Patroclus, Hector does so. This results in Achilles seeking revenge and fulfilling the prophecy.
The prophecy about Patroclus is even more cryptic because it states only that the best of the Myrmidons will die before Achilles does. Achilles and Patroclus wonder who it could be. They apparently never consider that it could be Patroclus, despite Achilles himself calling Patroclus the better man.
In a more general sense, prophecies are shown to be self-fulfilling through the contrast between Achilles and Patroclus as children. Achilles grew up knowing that he was destined to be the greatest warrior of his generation, and he carries himself accordingly. Patroclus grew up feeling like a disappointment and also acted accordingly. It is only when Patroclus frees himself from his sense of failure that he is able to flourish.
The Condition of Women
Though the novel’s events revolve around Patroclus and Achilles, women feature in pivotal roles through which Miller explores the condition of women in warrior culture. Mortal women are powerful in the sense that they can manipulate others or influence their actions and choices, but they can also be manipulated and used to further others’ aims. Menoitius, for example, cares only that his wife is fertile and brings a large dowry with her.
Thetis both manipulates and is manipulated. She is a driving force in Achilles’s life, whether subverting his agency (as when she removes him to Scyros), providing unsolicited counsel (as when she urges him to leave Patroclus), or scheming to ensure him greater glory (as when she convinces Zeus to punish the Greeks with defeat). In Scyros, she forces Deidameia on Achilles to provide him with an heir and break up his relationship with Patroclus. After she gets what she wants from Deidameia, Thetis is content to abandon her with neither husband nor son, who Thetis took away to raise as his father’s replacement. At the same time, Thetis was herself manipulated by the gods to ensure their future reign. After a prophecy dictated that her son would become more powerful than his father, the gods forced her to marry a mortal.
Two women who are never seen in the novel but nevertheless maintain a potent presence within it are Menelaus’s wife Helen and Odysseus’s wife Penelope. They are both present in Tyndareus’s court when the suitors present themselves for Helen yet are hidden behind veils. Helen is repeatedly invoked and the Greek expedition to Troy is undertaken in her name. Trojan king Priam rejects Greek diplomatic efforts because he claims Helen does not want to return to the Greeks. Patroclus and Achilles discuss whether this is true and wonder whether Helen left Menelaus willingly to increase her legend, demonstrating that women too could be concerned about their immortality through myth. Meanwhile, Odysseus loves to tell stories about Penelope, showing that marrying for love, though unusual, existed.
Through Briseis, Miller explores the effect of war on women, who are enslaved and raped by the men who murdered their family members. Patroclus is unique in seeing these women as worthy of respect, dignity, and agency. Even Achilles, who is content to go along with Patroclus’s plan to protect as many of them as possible by claiming them as prizes, is willing to sacrifice Briseis when it becomes convenient for him.
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