Ransom Essay- Year 12 2012 By Rhys 422h3k

“The first two chapters of Ransom show Priam and Achilles as two leaders facing critical disconnections from their true selves” If being critically disconnected from one’s true self means losing touch with your own identity, then it is accurate to say that in Malouf’s Ransom, both Achilles and Priam have lost touch with their core being. Achilles disconnect is due to the clash between his mortal and divine natures, coupled with his extreme grief at the slaying of Patroclus. Similarly, Priam has also deviated away from who he actually is due to the pressures of his regal role. It takes the process or ransoming Hector’s body to bring both men to a fresh understanding of their essential humanity. Achilles, being born of both earth and water, leads to a confused understanding of his true self. Malouf takes pains to communicate to the reader that Achilles is the offspring of Peleus, a Greek hero, and Thetis, a divine sea nymph. From his mother Achilles inherits water-like traits. He is changeable and cannot easily be contained. According to Malouf “water... holds nothing, and itself cannot be held” (p.4). Through connecting Achilles so intimately with water, Malouf is asserting that Achilles identity is “is shifting and insubstantial”. (p.4) Achilles is not brought up by his mother so his identity is not exposed to traditional feminine traits such as comion, tolerance and gentleness. Instead from a very young age Achilles “enters the rough world of men, where a man’s actions follow him where ever he goes in the form of a story.” Achilles becomes “a hardened self.” Effectively Achilles is robbed of his childhood and immersed in a world of violence and bloodshed. Due to the loss of his childhood and early introduction to the world of men, Achilles has never had the opportunity to learn who he truly is. He becomes a lost man who is buried beneath grief and anger. The loss of Patroclus to Achilles evoked the disconnection of Achilles identity. The bond that Achilles shared with his adopted brother Patroclus was strong, strong enough to make Achilles feel as if they were the same person, Achilles refers to Patroclus as “this man who as half himself”(p.18). Achilles and Patroclus spent their lives from the age of ten; training, eating and eventually growing up to fighting together side by side. When Patroclus was made his adopted brother by Peleus, “the world for Achilles, reassembled itself around anew centre” (p.14), his old centre being his mother. After the event of Patroclus’ death at the hands of Hector, Achilles felt so much grief and rage for the loss he has just been hit by. He then realises that Patroclus was the one “he had needed all along, this other, before he could become fully himself”, we see that Achilles didn’t realise that he was his true self when Patroclus was in his life, but after Patroclus’ death he feels the disconnection of how he is not truly himself. Malouf clearly expresses Achilles’ disconnection from his true self

when Achilles “runner spirit has deserted him”(p.45)which shows, he is no “warrior”, no “farmer” and no “leader”, for “Achilles the runner” runs no more. The effects that Achilles experiences from the loss of his core being turn him into a “man obeying the needs of some other, dark agency.” (p.25) Through the loss of Patroclus, Achilles is deeply affected by the disconnection from his true self and becomes in his uncertainty someone searching for an end to his grief, his rage and ultimately to find his true self again. Immediately after Achilles slew Hector he realised that taking Hectors life did not end to his grief, and it didn't return him to his true being. Malouf shows Achilles' sudden realisation of this, by Achilles "Inwardly raging"(p.30) and "the selfconsuming rage that drives him... wastes his spirit in despair"(p.35), his spirit being his true self. Due to Achilles loss of his own being, he quickly turns away from how others tell him to live; turns away from his humanity. By turning away from his humanity he turns away from his role as a hero, as a leader whom, “his grief overwhelms him. He breaks daily he every rule they have been taught to live by" and becomes, "a wolf, a violator of every law of the gods and men". Ultimately Achilles does not reconnect with himself, because of his emotional turmoil and ambivalent nature over the death of Patroclus, and this effects Achilles in such a way that he turns into a "man obeying the needs of some other dark agency". Priam was first connected with his true self when he was Podarces. After his sister has picked out him from the rabble as her gift and he was given the new name Priam meaning “the price paid”, this is where he senses the two paths that have been laid before him. One path was the path to slavery and the other to the king of troy. The difference between the two were that he could be his own true self as a slave, where as if he was king he would have to hide and not show his own true self. Priam like the mighty warrior Achilles needs to reconnect with his own true self. Due to being forced into the regal role, Priam is told by others how he is supposed to live, because of this he loses sight of who he really is and how he wants to act. One of the reasons why he accepts the “royal sphere” is because he believes that he has been ordained to that position by the gods, meaning that his fate has already been laid out for him, that there has been no “chance” or “luck” involved. Also to suppress his actual being from his son’ and his people he uses “the proper illusion” to maintain his “royal image” which he hides himself behind. This is the period in the novel where Priam has not reconnected with his real being. The Priam reconnects with his own true self through both his journey to ransom Hectors body back from Achilles and also through his bond with Somax/Ideus. When Hecuba tells Priam to take his “unheard of”, “plan” to their son’s court Priam thinks to himself “Mightn’t it be time to expose myself at last to what is merely human”, meaning being his own true self. To divest himself of all royal garments and go as “man to man”, “father to father” to the killer of his son, dressed plainly in white with nothing but a mule and cart with a simple driver. By doing this Priam throws away his regal role to assume he slave path and be “the

lucky one”, to be human, too be himself rather than “becoming their living map”. Also the bond that Priam develops with Somax, by sharing one common position; being a father who has lost sons is constructed by Malouf along with Somax’s story telling gives the reader the impression that Priam is reconnecting with his own true self. Being “merely human”. After the whole journey that Priam undertakes to get back his son Hector and by doing something “unheard of” he becomes “a man remade”, finds and connects with himself once again. We see that first two chapters show as leaders, both Achilles and Priam face disconnection on a critical level that cause them to lose touch with their core being. We see that Achilles being born of earth and water, not being raised by his mother, and losing Patroclus all cause him to become disconnected from his true self and become confused of his own identity. Priam on the other hand assumed the regal identity after he became “the price paid” and did not reconnect with his own identity, until he was an old man, journeying as a father to his son’s killer. By Rhys Buchhorn.