Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on David Malouf's Ransom. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Ransom: Introduction
Ransom: Plot Summary
Ransom: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Ransom: Themes
Ransom: Quotes
Ransom: Characters
Ransom: Symbols
Ransom: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of David Malouf
Historical Context of Ransom
Other Books Related to Ransom
- Full Title: Ransom
- Where Written: Sydney, Australia
- When Published: 2009
- Literary Period: Postmodernism
- Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction
- Setting: Troy (legendary and quasi-historical city on the coast of modern-day Turkey), the Bronze Age
- Climax: Priam pleads with Achilles for Hector’s body, and Achilles agrees to return it.
- Antagonist: Fate
- Point of View: Third-person omniscient
Extra Credit for Ransom
Recommended Reading. Malouf considers the Iliad the greatest literary work in existence, but he also reserves special praise for writers like Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. As far as his fellow Australians go, he cites Patrick White as a particular source of inspiration.
An Eye for an Eye…or a Heel. As Ransom hints, Achilles would not survive the Trojan War either. While Achilles’ death is not part of the Iliad, but the most popular version of the story of the war names Paris—Hector’s brother—as his killer. According to legend, Paris shot Achilles in his only weak spot: the heel his mother Thetis held onto while dipping him in the River Styx to make him otherwise invulnerable.