Winnie Wu, Period 6, 10/24/2023

Literature Circle: A Thousand Ship by Natalie Haynes

We often hear stories of courageous heroes fighting in glorious battles, slaying enemies with their swords and strength. However, we never heard stories of the women who suffered from the war that those heroes started. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes retells the famous story of the Trojan War through a feminist lens, exploring the impact of war through multiple women’s perspectives. As I read A Thousand Ships, I was surprised by the similarities I found in the story to real life.

In chapter 2, as Creusa was fleeing the fire in her burning city, Troy, I was rooting for her to escape and reunite with her family. So when I read the last sentence, my heart dropped. I reread that sentence several times to confirm she died. I was shocked, mad, and disappointed. However, my grief turned to relief once I moved to the next chapter, where the surviving Trojan women were captured by the Greeks. Their only hope was to pray that the Greeks would take mercy on them. It seemed especially unfair that the men who started the war died and left their women to deal with the aftermath.

This reminds me of something I learned in my AP World History freshman year. In parts of India in the 12th and 14th centuries, women practiced Jauhar, a Hindu practice where women jumped into fire after a defeat to avoid being enslaved or raped. While I found the practice horrifying then, I now realize that sometimes death is a better fate than being captured. As unfair as it may be, this statement still holds true today. I recalled a news article I read a couple days ago where a father in Israel called the death of his 8-year-old daughter “a blessing” because it’s a better alternative than being captured and tortured. I am saddened that not much has changed in warfare since the beginning of civilization.

A pattern I found throughout the book is that the women noticed and pointed out important, lifesaving details but were often ignored. Hecabe, Queen of Troy, found inconsistencies in Sinon’s story when he was trying to convince the Trojans to accept the Trojan horse into their city, but she was dismissed. Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecabe, was given the gift of prophecy and foreseen the fall of Troy, but she, too, was ignored. If people had listened to the women's warning, Troy might not have fallen, and their fate would have been different.

Theano, another Trojan wife and mother, suspected that the Greeks hid in the Trojan horse and planned to attack and burn down Troy. But unlike the other women, she was not ignored; instead, she urged her husband to allow the Greek soldiers into Troy in return for sparing her family. Although she did betray her city, I cannot hate her for what she has done. After all, she lost all three of her sons fighting in the war that she didn’t start. Now that she has a chance to save herself and her only daughter, she would be a fool not to take it.

As we discussed in class, captured women, like Briseis, are considered spoils of war. Briseis watched Achilles kill her husband and brothers, and then she was taken as Achilles’ slave. Despite the horrors that Briseis goes through, she remains strong and composed. She refused to let her enemies cry. I admired her strength and pitied her. Unfortunately, Briseis’s story is similar to the stories of women in real life. For example, comfort women in WWII were captured by the Japanese and forced to serve their enemies. Although Briseis suffered a horrible tragedy, I feared that the rest of the Trojan women would suffer a much worse fate.