Jessica Poplawski, Period 6, 12/15/22

Jessica Poplawski, Period 6, 12/15/22

Blog #2

Literature Circle - A Thousand Ships 

My sister Rebecca and I, being die-hard fans of Harry Potter, spent our childhoods discussing the various intricacies of the series. One of our “controversies'' was whether the character of Draco Malfoy was a villain. Always rooting for the anti-hero, Rebecca believes that Draco is heavily misunderstood. She thinks that he was a victim of his parent’s ideologies and that given the chance, he would not side with Lord Voldemort. She thinks that in the wizarding war, he was especially heroic. However, I have always seen him as a cruel bully, jumping at the chance to hurt others. He’s a magical purist, belittling those who were brought up a different way than him–the equivalent of wizarding world racism. Our different views on this character are a result of our different character traits. Rebecca has always been more empathetic, always wishing to see the best in every person. I, being more of a realist, do not carry the same level of empathy for characters and take on a more objective approach. These character traits cause our differences in perspective. 

    Perspective is defined as the way we view and interpret the world around us. We all have different traits, experiences, morals, and upbringing that affect our perspective, and it decides what we view as good or bad and what we hold important in life. In A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes challenges our preconceived notions about the Trojan War and forces us to look at it differently, by exploring the war through a largely forgotten perspective. The perspective of the Trojans themselves. 

    Much of the literature involving the Trojan War is very greek-centered, whether it is ancient or modern. For example, in freshman year, we read parts of the Odyssey in English class. The Odyssey follows the adventures of Odysseus, a Greek man who fought in the war and was the brain behind the infamous Trojan horse. Odysseus, cursed by Poseidon on his way home to Ithaca, is not able to get back to his wife and child. The Odyssey is of course subject to the ideals and biases of its time. It portrays Odysseus as a brave hero and pays little attention to the women that make up his tale. In a more modern work, Madeleine Miller explores the Trojan War through the eyes of Achilles’ lover Patroclus. Achilles and Patroclus are shown to be intelligent and caring. There is a layer of victimization when it comes to Achilles’ character when it is shown that his mother, Thetis, is constantly pushing him to be a hero with no regard for his feelings. It builds sympathy for the two characters and makes the moments when Patroclus and Achilles are slain especially tear-jerking. It’s not surprising that after being exposed to so many of these stories, I viewed the Greeks as the “good guys.” This was the extent of my experience–and it affected my perception of the war. 

    Natalie Haynes changes the narrative by retelling the Iliad, one of Homer’s other works,  in A Thousand Ships. By choosing to tell the story through the perspective of Trojan Women, she effectively turned around the pervasive narrative that the Greeks were good. They were not fierce warriors, saving a kidnapped princess from Troy. They were deceptive murderers and slave owners who always jumped at their chance for human sacrifice. The Trojan warriors were humanized–instead of being portrayed as power-hungry, blood-thirsty warriors, they were portrayed as brothers, husbands, and sons. The perspective of women from Troy shows us that despite Troy being the antagonist of the war, the people of Troy did not suffer any less than the Greeks. They arguably suffered more. Women like Creusa died in the war, while women such as Theano, Hecabe, and Polyxena lost their entire families. When Troy was taken by the Greeks, women like Andromache were captured and subject to sexual assault at the hands of the Greeks. Some women such as Briseis and Chryseis were taken as slaves at the hands of Achilles and Agamemnon. Not only did Agamemnon hold slaves, but he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to gain the favor of the goddess Artemis. All these stories put together show that the Greeks were not as pure as romanticized literature makes them out to be.  In the words of Chryseis in Chapter 10, “They’re [the Greeks] never happy unless they’re taking what doesn’t belong to them and burning everything they can’t carry with them.” 

    For me, A Thousand Ships was a reminder that there are two sides to every story and we should think critically about all perspectives before we make assumptions. A story can easily change when you view it through different lenses, and it is important to be well-rounded in opinions that are not your own. Adding this book to my palette of experiences, I can say that I have a new outlook on the famous Greek “heroes” that are consistently praised in our contemporary society.