8
RANSOM BY David Malouf
Characters
Make brief notes in your workbook to describe who each character is
Agamemnon Peleus Patroclus
Achilles Priam Briseis
Hermes Hector Hecuba
Thetis Iris Somax/Idaeus
Myrmidons Neoptelemus Polydamus
Automedon Helenus Cassandra
Background
Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, first started as an oral storytelling tradition dating from about 1100 BC, after the Trojan war.
It is part of the great oral tradition of storytelling in the English language, of which Shakespeare (the word “bard” is part of the tradition) and other famous writers are a part. The stories are of heroes and heroines, wars and epic battles, great deeds and gods. They explore human nature and behaviour through major events that can often span generations and involve whole societies.
The ancient city of Troy was roughly where the city of Truva is now located in Turkey. The first ruins were found in the 1800’s and excavations are still taking place. There is evidence that the ancient city was destroyed by war and rebuilt seven times.
The Iliad was first written down about 800 BC. There have been many translations since. Malouf takes a very small, very personal part of Book 24 of the Iliad and retells the story, exploring the choices faced by Priam, Achilles, Somax and others and examines human experience and human nature in extreme situations.
The text follows the great English tradition of narrative storytelling – to examine human behaviour. The story of Troy is not as important as looking at what the story tells us about human experience. In this sense, Malouf continues an ancient tradition of narrative.
The ancient Greek gods were highly respected and were often feared. The Greeks co-operated with them in fear of their powers. They believed that the gods took an active role – either benevolent or mischievous – in their daily lives. Their belief was that the gods could influence the physical world; there are many instances of this in Ransom. They also believed that the gods could appear in physical form; eg. Hermes. Priests and priestesses were there to offer sacrifices, human and animal, in temples to appease the gods.
The Trojan war of the Iliad lasted for roughly ten tears. Ransom is set at a point in its ninth year. It started when Paris of Troy, son of Priam, stole Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her Greek husband, Menelaus, who was the King of Sparta, and spirited her away to Troy. Menelaus and his royal brother, Agamemnon, gathered the Greeks forces, called the Achaeans, and their allies to sack the rich and beautiful city of Troy. However, Troy was very well defended and fortified and the battle had raged back and forth for nine years before the incident that is the basis of Ransom. There were great privations on the battlefield as well as great tragedy, deprivation andboredom.
The story
AN EPIC NARRATIVE: what is it?
What are our oldest stories? How did storytelling begin? Why is narrative our most common form of writing?
Ancient Greek society was concerned with the afterlife; how their stories would be told in posterity. Fame and heroism give a life the status of an epic narrative after death. Malouf says of Achilles – “He had entered the rough world of men, where a man’s acts follow him wherever he goes in the form of story.” (6) Achilles knew his story would be a greater one if he chose a warrior life.
Priam can see the future fate of Troy and sees his own death at the hands of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. He doesn’t want this to be his story; he wants to “cut this knot that we are all tied in” (58), “To take on the lighter bond of being simply a man.” (59)
Malouf looks at how stories can change in the telling. He takes this 24 hour period out of the Iliad and shows us who the characters really are: their human side as well as their heroics, their motivations, fears, love, etc. He shows us that their lives can be subject to change, they are not all predestined. He shows us the universal qualities that make them human.
The Iliad is THE story, the beginning, the model for all later narratives. Malouf tells stories within the story to illustrate the value of storytelling in looking at what it is to be human, qualities such as grief, paternal love, fear, heroism, loyalty, pride, dignity, etc. He takes a critical moment out of the Iliad and looks at universal human values and lessons to be learnt in times of deprivation and loss.
There are a number of stories within the main story:
Ø Priam/Peleus
Ø Podacres/Hersione
Ø Patroclus
Ø Briesis
Ø Beauty
Ø Somax’s family
Ø Neotolemus
Ø Cassandra
Ø Hermes
Ø Priam’s sons
These all serve to illustrate both the power of storytelling and its importance in human life and the meaning of the book, such as the nature of heroism and the role of chance in human life.
Mythic tales like the Iliad tend to ignore the smaller, detailed stories within it; the narrative sweeps along in epic proportions and can be described as a saga. By structuring the story into five parts:
1. Achilles
2. Priam
3. The journey of Priam and Somax
4. Confrontation
5. Resolution
and using very little direct dialogue, Malouf concentrates on the human aspects of storytelling – the people, and how they influence their own lives. His highly descriptive, at times intimate and lyrical style gives us a detailed understanding of and empathy for his characters and the choices they face. The narrator plays the role of sympathiser and is, at times, omniscient in his observations and understanding. (n.b. are Malouf and the narrator the same voice? )
A central irony in the text is that gregarious, sociable Somax becomes “one of those who have no story that will ever be told.” (75) The reader believes him, but he is not believed by later generations (“He is a known liar” 218). The story and people of Troy become “the stuff of legend, half folklore”. (216) Somax is seen as “a stealer of other men’s tales” (218). His listeners can’t remember Troy – “there was a town hereabouts.” (219) Malouf reminds us that those who are powerful can become epic, mythic figures, but we can easily lose sight of the humanity in it all. The personal and the individual become lost; the larger characters and stories live on.
The journey of Somax and Priam is a quest metaphor within the text, both finding new parts of themselves and opening up to new experiences and emotions.
The book finishes with Somax to reinforce the importance of storytelling in our tradition – “ . . . what a tale he will have to tell! He will tell it often over the years.” (215)
The idea of a ransom
The idea of a ransom drives the whole plot. The great Priam is a product of an act of ransom; the whole course of his life comes from and is a result of his being a ransom when Hersione, his sister, is given to Telamon as a prize of war. Even his name, Priam, means the price paid.
We are led to understand from the first that ransom is a serious matter; it is a code of honourable behaviour and exchange in a civilised world. It is not like today’s understanding of a ransom, which has connotations of criminality and kidnapping.
The ransom offers a way out of an impasse – Priam’s release from disgrace and indignity; something “new” (58). For Achilles, it breaks the spell he is in; he can forgive both Hector and himself. It is a part of social relations. According to Priam (182-3) it accords “high honour”.
Through practising a form of ransom, human dignity and civilisation defeat barbarism. It shows that civilised human conduct is still possible, even in war, and that individuals can choose and not be bound by circumstances.
Chance and consequence : the gods and man
Malouf explores the idea that destiny is not altogether fixed, that life offers a chance that could be seized. According to Priam (61) it is “the opportunity to act for ourselves”.
In Ransom, the gods are minimised. They do some things – eg. Helped raise the walls of Troy (211), Hermes’s intervention on the journey of Priam and Somax, the renewal of the corpse of Hector. However, they are seen as an acceptable explanation for what can’t be explained rather than the total masters of human destiny. Priam questions whether the gods have really visited him to plant the suggestion of a ransom (46).
The real question for Malouf is how much influence human beings can have over their future. Malouf doesn’t discredit the gods but he does show that life is not predetermined; we are offered choices.
eg. The bird that hovers above as Priam and Somax leave Troy in the cart piled high with gold for the ransom – Helenus interprets it as “Jove’s messenger”, an eagle; Somax sees it as a chickenhawk after prey (101).
The novel balances opposing ideas about why things happen – is it free will or predestination? The Greeks firmly believed in predestination, that life was ordered and decided before birth. Priam took a chance and in doing so, was able to restore Achilles to wholeness and balance. Those who relied on the gods (eg. Helenus and Hecuba) were proved wrong. Somax is an agent of change; he shows Priam the world that he does not know.
At some points, Malouf writes as if the furure is already fixed – eg. the death of Achilles (23) and Achilles’s vision of his own son killing Priam. But Achilles does acknowledge alternate scenarios for his own death; the beach or the plain (9).
Who is a “hero” in RANSOM?
Achilles
Ø A traditional interpretation of a hero as defined by the ancient Greeks
Ø Driven by the “warrior spirit” (7)
Ø “the whole terrible machinery of the man” (199)
Ø “noble bully” (57)
Ø “most ferocious . . . of the Greeks” (197)
Priam’s son Helenus and other sons at court
Ø “heroes of the tables and the dance” (80)
Neoptolemus (son of Achilles)
Ø A flawed hero; he botches the killing of Priam
Ø “youthful hero” (212)
Ø “to be the son of the great Achilles is a burden” (213)
Ø Not as strong or as blessed as his father
Hector (son of Priam)
Ø A great Trojan warrior, noble by birth
Ø Honourable in life, deserves respect in death
Priam
Ø A royal King but not suited to Achilles’s type of heroism
Ø “I come as a hero of the deed that till now was never attempted” (209)
Ø “The image I mean to leave is a living one. Of something so new and unheard of . . . . “ (89-90)
Somax
Ø An anti-hero compared to warriors and kings
Ø In touch with the intimacies and intricacies of life and with the natural world
Ø Deeply connected to family and unashamedly feels and displays emotion
Ø He lives the longest of all the characters in the text and is described affectionately and in some detail in the final pages: “He is a known liar. He lives to be a hundred years old and drinks too much.” (218)
Key questions
How is the role of a hero redefined as the story unfolds?
Who are the real heroes in RANSOM and what is true heroism?
In what ways is RANSOM a book about war?
Extracts:
1. Death of Patroclus, p. 21-5
2. Trojan army, p. 102-4
3. Camp, p. 167-8
4. Women, p. 193-4
5. Landscape, p. 205-6
6. Priam’s death, p. 212-4
According to the novel, what does war bring to both the individual and society in general?
What criticisms does Malouf make about war, and how does he do this?
What effect, according to Malouf, does war have on human dignity and human values?
Is Malouf claiming that we can eradicate war from society?
The bonds between men
The novel explores the nature of loyalty and male friendship, and father/son relationships. How does it achieve this?
FRIENDSHIP
1. Patroclus and Achilles
There is a profound connection between Achilles and Patroclus. After Patroclus became his adoptive brother, Achilles felt that “It was as if all along he had needed this other before he could become fully himself.” (14) The company of men is a social basis on which Achilles builds his life. He is “ . . . in a kind of no-man’s land” after the death of Patroclus and needs to be “ . . . readmitted to the companionship of men.” (13) Achilles resents that Automedon was with Patroclus at the time of his death : “It was Automedon who stood astride the body and, blinded by tears, fought the Trojan jackals off.” (169)
2. Achilles and the Myrmidons
The relationship that Malouf describes between Achilles and his Myrmidons illustrates the nature of loyalty and leadership – eg. 167-72
3. An easy friendship develops between Somax and Priam – shared values (eg. love of family) and a recognition of each other’s experience brings them together. “What he had to say . . . was full of something else. Interest.” (127)
4. Achilles and Hector : They live parallel lives on different sides. Both are remote from their fathers, both are skilled and highly respected warriors, both are of royal blood. “ . . . they were joined, he and Hector” (23) At the point of Hector’s death, Hector spoke to Achilles in “ . . . a meeting that from the beginning had been the clear goal of their lives” (23). After Hector’s death, Achilles sees his body as “ . . . a mirror of his own” (191) and reflects that “They are in perfect amity.” (191)
FATHERS & SONS
1. Somax and Priam : though from very different social levels, both share the experiences and worries of fathers. Both grieve for dead sons; Somax is concerned for his granddaughter (“the last of my blood” 131) while Priam’s concern is for the fate of his royal bloodline.
2. Somax empathises with Priam – “since he too was a father” 113)