Briseis
Briseis is the protagonist of the novel which precedes this, The Silence of the Girls, which reinvents the Trojan War through a feminist perspective. By the close of that story, she is married to a man named Alcimus even though she is pregnant with a child fathered by the legendary Greek warrior Achilles. Not that baby was produced as a result of a great love affair: Achilles killed her parents, enslaved Briseis and subsequently raped her with legal authority. Marriage to a much lesser Greek soldier brings with it expectations of allegiance, but the emotional center of the novel is located in how becoming forced to see things through a Greek perspective has affected her status as a natural born Trojan.
Amina
Following their marriage, Alcimus insists on having a woman accompanying Briseis wherever she goes out of fears for her safety. The patent absurdity of a teenage girl being able to protect her against roving gangs is clear enough to Briseis, but what’s she going to do, right? When the two women discover the dead body of Priam on a beach, Amina decides to violate Greek law against burial which is punishable by death. In this instance, Amina becomes situated as a figure new to this story and one that is clearly intended to recall the story of Antigone.
Helen
What would a story title about Trojan women be without Helen? As if “of Troy” Helen. Helen is arguably the most often-portrayed female character in literature and at this point there is not a whole lot one can do to make her diverge from what she has already been. Briseis introduces Helen as a slightly older friend of her sister that she first met when she, Briseis, was just twelve. Thereafter, she became mostly known to others as “Helen’s little friend.” Due to this relationship, Helen comes off a bit more positive has usually been the case, though she still has yet to attain the heroic status granted her in Greece.
Pyrrhus and Odysseus
Pyrrhus is the son of Achilles while Odysseus is, of course, the heroic King of Ithaca around which Homer’s epic The Odyssey revolves. The opening section of the novel is one not narrated by Briseis but rather is told through an omniscient third-person perspective and it really stands apart from the rest of the novel by virtue of it taking place inside the famous Trojan Horse. Pyrrhus and Odysseus are both major figures in this fascinating little story-within-a-story which not only provides illuminating insight into what it might actually been like to be inside the giant wooden horse, but also offers psychological illumination into what separates male thinking from female thinking. This chasm will play a major role thematically as the story of the women of Troy starts to play out.
