Gates of Fire (Pressfield)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Gates of Fire: 

1. In a Q&A, Pressfield says that historical fiction at its best should "work to illuminate not only a theme that's true to [its] time, but to our contemporary era as well." Can you identify particular themes (central ideas) in Gates of Fire . . . and how they might illuminate our own time?

2. How would you characterize those who fought against such impossible odds at Thermopylae? Are those traits in evidence in our culture today? Are they necessary given that we no longer fight in hand-to-hand combat? Are the traits primarily of the military, or might they apply to the citizenry?

3. Many readers comment on Pressfield's skill at bringing the ancient Greek culture to life and presenting it as a rich backdrop for the battle of Thermoplylae. Do you agree? Talk a bit about his portrait of classical Greek life. What did you find most interesting?

4. For over 2,000 years, the events of Thermopylae have been told from the outside (no Greeks survived). Pressfield, however, uses a single survivor of the battle to tell the story from the inside out. Do you find Xeones convincing? Also, history traditionally is told from the perspective of those who led and shaped the events. Pressfield gives us a different vangtage point, one from the lower ranks. Why might he have chosen Xeones as the narrator?

5. Discuss the way in which Pressfield explores the different temperaments of fighting units: Thespians, who were more emtional; the Spartans, more stoic. Also consider the psychology behind the social bonding that develops in smalll, competitive groups—whether it's military, sports, college fraternities.

6. Do you think that Pressfield gets at one of the central mysteries of war: how warriors stand their ground to fight, against all rational instincts that urge retreat and safety? Why do warriors fight and what do they fight for?

7. What other times in history have a selfless few have sacrified for a great many? Think, of course, of Winston Churchill's famous "never was so much owed by so many to so few," at the start of World War II. Is such sacrifice possible today?

(Questions from LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)