Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Song of Achilles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Honor, Pride, and Legacy
Fate, Belief, and Control
Gender, Power, and Agency
Love, Violence, and Redemption
Selfhood and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
Over the next few days, Patroclus and Achilles often sneak outside where Achilles can run and jump. Otherwise, living as a woman, he’s confined. At night, they eat awkward dinners with Lycomedes and Deidameia, an attempt to maintain the cover story of Patroclus and Achilles’s marriage. Achilles is indifferent to Deidameia, which hurts her. She assumes that Patroclus is mocking her, but really he feels sorry—he’s almost asked Achilles to be kinder to her many times, but Achilles lacks interest, not kindness.
The restrictions placed on women are made obvious by the ways that Achilles’s disguise as a woman is limits what he can do. Yet it is noteworthy that experiencing these limitations doesn’t make him any more sympathetic to Deidameia. Patroclus is once again portrayed as the more empathetic person, here, though he doesn’t actually every tell Achilles to be more kind. Patroclus is letting Achilles off the hook pretty easily, something he does often.
Themes
Achilles starts waking up early to practice with his spears before returning to “womanhood.” One morning, a guard summons Patroclus on Deidameia’s behalf. He passes through the women’s quarters, which have no windows—Patroclus can’t imagine living there for two whole months like Achilles did. Deidameia is waiting for Patroclus in her bedchamber, and he realizes that she planned this, knowing Achilles would be gone.
Achilles is able to slip in and out of “womanhood” relatively easily. Meanwhile, Patroclus is shocked by how confined Achilles was during his initial period in the women’s quarters, but Achilles was only ever there temporarily. The women who live there are permanently confined, something Patroclus doesn’t dwell on. Meanwhile, Deidameia might be able to summon Patroclus to her chambers, but she has to maneuver around Achilles’s schedule to do so, again proving that her power is limited.
Themes
Deidameia watches Patroclus carefully, ordering him not to speak. He’s not handsome, she says—he’s even hideous. She asks what he thinks of her assessment and he replies she told him to be silent, so she slaps him. The slap shocks him, as boys are never slapped, except occasionally by their fathers; Patroclus’s father often slapped him. She clearly wants him to hit back, and when she sees he won’t, she triumphantly calls him a coward. She can’t understand why Achilles would—but she can’t finish the thought, and she begins to cry, trying to hide it. She can’t fool Patroclus, who has done the same thing himself.
Deidameia clearly knows about Patroclus’s relationship with Achilles. She sees Patroclus as a rival, is confused and hurt by Achilles preference, and wants to get the upper hand on Patroclus. Note that her strategy to rattle Patroclus is exactly the same as Clysonymus’s: she calls him a coward and reminds him of his father’s disdain for him (unintentionally). Patroclus’s changed response is therefore significant. Back then, he fought back. This time he doesn’t. That Patroclus isn’t interested in defending his honor this time suggests that he no longer values honor the same way he did as a child, at least not honor in the traditional sense of ancient Greek society. Instead, he actually identifies with Deidameia, remembering how he used to hide his tears from others. Patroclus’s status as an exile and perhaps also as Achilles’s lover gives him some insight into the situation of women in this society, though even he is not so vulnerable as the women depicted in the novel.
Themes
Deidameia tells Patroclus that she hates him, but he pities her, remembering how awful indifference can be. Hands over her face, she tells him that she’s leaving tomorrow to begin her confinement; a visible pregnancy would be shameful. Patroclus imagines the confinement—small house, no dances—and tells her he’s sorry. She asks why Achilles doesn’t notice her. It’s a childish question, but Patroclus says he doesn’t know. She knows—Patroclus is the reason. He says he should leave, but she threatens to tell the guards he attacked her. Patroclus knows that even if she did, there’s nothing they could do. Wanting to make Patroclus jealous, Deidameia reveals that she and Achilles had sex twice. Patroclus says he already knew this; she can’t hurt him.
Unlike Achilles, Patroclus does seem to understand just how horrible Deidameia’s situation is. She’s going from ruling her island to being powerless. She is also completely at Achilles’s mercy: she’ll be confined until she can claim Achilles as her husband, so her future depends on him. Even if Patroclus assaulted Deidameia, he’d be untouchable—she’s a princess and he’s nobody, but his word would still matter more than hers because of his association with Achilles. None of this denies the fact that Deidameia has acted throughout haughtily and spitefully towards Patroclus. But it puts that behavior in the context of her broader situation.
Themes
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Deidameia begins crying again, but she asks Patroclus not to leave. He steps toward her, and she falls into his arms, sobbing. Achilles and his brightness feel far away in this sad room. Eventually, she starts stroking his back and he realizes what she wants. After some protests, he follows her into her room. Achilles had told him about sex with Deidameia, saying that it was quick and that he’d missed Patroclus. Deidameia asks if Patroclus thinks she’s beautiful, and Patroclus says yes, truthfully. As he pleasures her, her expression disturbs him: determination, not enjoyment. He wants to stop, but he knows that if he did, he’d hurt her more.
Both Patroclus and Deidameia’s lives revolve around Achilles in one way or another, and he’s hurt both of them recently. Deidameia’s desire to have sex with Patroclus seems to have complicated motivations: to feel desired after being ignored by Achilles, to hurt Achilles, or even to step into Achilles’s shoes, either to understand why he loves Patroclus or to pretend she has the kind of power he does. Meanwhile, Patroclus frames his sexual encounter with Deidameia as a way to comfort her, but one could argue that there is also more to it than that: if he has sex with Deidameia, he’s hurting Achilles in exactly the same way Achilles hurt him.
Themes
Patroclus feels resistance when he tries to enter Deidameia, and they’re both relieved when he finally does. He’s aroused, but drowsily; it’s different than it is with Achilles. His indifference hurts her, so he moves faster, which makes her triumphant. Afterward, when it’s over, he tries to hold her, wanting to offer her something, but she draws away warily. He doesn’t know what she wanted, only that he hasn’t given it to her. She asks him to tell Achilles goodbye. When he sees Achilles again, he’s relieved, and he can almost convince himself that it was a vivid dream. But that would be a lie.
Neither Patroclus nor Deidameia are enjoying what’s happening. Deidameia seems to want Patroclus to be into it, though, presumably because that would be an affirmation of his attraction to her and that he genuinely betrayed Achilles. But, if she feels a moment of power during sex, that feeling disappears as soon as it is over. In that moment afterward, she accepts that Achilles does not care about her in the way she wants him to. Meanwhile, this is the second time Patroclus has chosen to pretend that a traumatic event (each in some way related to women) was a dream. As with the oath, this seems to be a way for Patroclus to avoid responsibility.
Themes
