Women as Spoils of War in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls

Abstract

Wars have persisted as disastrous events in human history, with women, as a vulnerable group, often enduring deprivation and subjugation despite their non-combatant status. Pat Barker, a postmodern author, in The Silence of the Girls, revisits Homer’s The Iliad through feminist revisionism to debunk classical myths of masculinity and amplify silenced female voices in the hypotext. This study explores the dehumanizing treatment of women as spoils of war, a practice recurrent in contemporary warfare despite United Nations conventions on non-combatants. Employing feminist theories, including revisionism, commodification, and objectification, the analysis supports the hypothesis that modern societies, despite claims of civility and progress, continue to subject women to trauma in conflicts where they function as war trophies. The paper demonstrates through textual examination how Barker’s narrative exposes the timeless chauvinism in commodifying women’s bodies, urging reevaluation of gender dynamics in ancient and present-day wars. Through revisionism, it becomes evident that the commodification of women’s bodies is a chauvinist tradition that has transcended time.