Ransom: Part 3 Summary & Analysis

As Part 3 opens, Somax's interactions with Priam are still somewhat tentative. Somax is especially aware that he does not know the customs that govern addressing a king, so he initially avoids saying anything. Significantly, when Somax does break his silence, it's because he is newly aware of Priam as a father like himself; when Priam mistakes the covered treasure for Hector's body, Somax instantly realizes what has happened and knows what to say. In other words, the exchange illustrates a type of communication based in empathy rather than protocol.

Despite his wish to experience life as an ordinary person, Priam is still uncomfortable with the everyday world at this point in the novel. Here, for instance, he seems to be at a loss as to how to act in his new surroundings. Once he has settled in alongside the river, however, Priam begins to take pleasure in the ordinary nature of the scene and his place within it: he is amused, for instance, that the fish ignore him just as much as they ignore Somax. Relatedly, Priam also finds himself grateful for Somax's "rough" manners, which he thinks may be more useful than "a knowledge of the forms." The implication, again, is that the ceremony and symbolism of life at court is not suited to everyday life, which is full of unexpected twists and turns.

Somax's remarks about the dual nature of humanity are presumably not a new idea to Priam, whom Malouf has shown to be highly conscious of both his mortal, human side and his royal and eternal one. The easy way in which Somax connects the earthly to the spiritual, however, does seem to impress Priam. As Somax describes it, a "good comfortable feeling in the belly and the legs" actually "help[s] the spirit along." This idea that the spiritual and physical might be inseparable from one another is clearly very different from the uneasy split Priam feels between the two halves of his identity. The talk about the griddlecakes, meanwhile, begins to hint at the role of storytelling in the novel, which Priam will reflect on in the coming pages.

More than perhaps anything else in the novel, Priam's description of his surroundings as "incidental" reveals the connection between everyday life and chance. What Priam appreciates about the scene is not only its unimportance, but also its arbitrary nature: the fish Priam sees, for instance, could just as easily be different fish. This noticeably contrasts with Priam's experiences as King of Troy, where everything that is "accidental" is either ignored or transformed into a symbol of something idealized and eternal. Boar hunting, for instance, is never about "this particular occasion, or this boar, or this king." Now, however, Priam discovers that he appreciates the immediacy of the ordinary and coincidental.

Priam's thoughts on language in this passage grow out of and reflect his earlier thoughts on chance and the everyday. Somax's speech, like the world Priam has now entered, is "unnecessary" in the sense that has no established purpose; it does not, for instance, reinforce a social relationship, or symbolically represent a truth about the universe. The story of the griddlecakes is not really "about" anything other than itself, but this allows it to offer an uncommonly vivid window into the day-to-day lives of Somax and his daughter-in-law. In fact, the story is so real to Priam that he seems to "taste" elements of it in the griddlecakes. This idea that storytelling can render distant events viscerally present to a listener or reader is central to Ransom, where it allows characters to step outside their own minds, lifespans, etc. in order to empathize with others.

As the conversation strays further and further away from the formal language of the Trojan court, it is Priam who finds that he does not know how to proceed. As a result, the question he eventually asks does not directly involve the topic that had piqued his interest. It does, however, offer new insights into Somax's life, which Malouf suggests is one function of storytelling. More specifically, it prompts an extended meditation on mortality, with Somax noting how strange it is that all the vitality of the human spirit exists in a frail physical frame. This awareness of human vulnerability plays a key role in Priam's later appeal to Achilles, since (Priam says) it ought to inspire compassion.

As Somax talks more about the circumstances of his children's deaths, the differences between his worldview and Priam's become more evident. In Book 2, Priam attributed the death of Hector (and all the disasters that might result from it) to a longstanding and malicious divine plan. Somax, however, seems to view even the gods' actions in terms of accident, suggesting that they might have killed his son by mistake. In other words, Somax sees chance (rather than fate) at work even on a cosmic level, imagining that events could have and might have unfolded differently.

On the face of it, Somax's story seems like it ought to be very familiar to Priam, who has also lost a number of sons. As Somax talks, however, Priam realizes that fatherhood has meant something very different to the carter, whose relationships to his children do not carry any deeper symbolic significance but are instead simply about the child as a specific individual. By contrast, Priam cannot even be sure of his sons' number, since even this basic fact has more to do with demonstrating Priam's "godlike activity in the sphere of breeding and begetting" than it does with reality. In other words, Priam's experience of fatherhood is another metaphor, or "manner of speaking." As such, it differs markedly from Somax's extended narratives about his sons, which are literal and rich in detail.

Given Beauty's connection to the pleasures of everyday life, it is significant that her presence is what gives Somax the will to continue on after losing his second son. Just as Priam has found—to his own surprise—that he can find beauty and interest in the world despite his son's death, Somax was able to take comfort in the humble pleasures of ordinary life after a similar loss. The passage further links this to the novel's depiction of mortality by suggesting that Beauty was responsible for the death of Somax's son. In Ransom, the everyday world is also the physical, mortal world. It is therefore inseparable from death, but also the source of much of what gives life meaning.

Priam's thoughts on leaving the resting spot confirm the transformation that is taking place within him. Having gotten past his initial discomfort, Priam now truly enjoys Somax's meandering and "unimportant" stories, as well as the similarly incidental surroundings. The fact that Priam intends to commit all these particularities to memory suggests that he himself is becoming more ordinary and human.

Although it isn't clear at this point in the text, Orchilus is actually Hermes, the Greek messenger god. In traditional mythology, Hermes is also a trickster god, which perhaps explains his secretive and somewhat antagonistic behavior in this passage. Interestingly, however, Priam interprets Orchilus's/Hermes's boastful speech as "play-acting." This is certainly true in the sense that Hermes is acting under an assumed identity, but it perhaps also points to the wide gap between the worlds of gods and men in Ransom. Because humanity and mortality are so tightly intertwined in the novel, even a god who has assumed human form can only "play" at being a man.

Superficially, the friction between Hermes and Somax stems from "Orchilus's" youthful arrogance. In retrospect, however, it is clear that the two characters reside on opposite ends of the epic-everyday spectrum: Hermes is a god and thus an entirely supernatural figure, while Somax is a human and largely unremarkable in strength, intelligence, etc. The tug-of-war between the two therefore embodies two different systems of value. In the end, Ransom will largely favor the everyday world that Somax represents, although it does retain certain elements of an "epic" worldview (e.g. an appreciation for honor and heroism, though in slightly unconventional forms).

In addition to enjoying the immediate, sensory details of the journey (e.g. the feeling of water around his feet), Priam takes pleasure in telling himself the story of crossing the river virtually as soon as the moment is over. Although this is not the first time Priam has told a story in the novel, it is the first time he has done so purely for pleasure. This is significant, because Ransom suggests that storytelling—in addition to heightening people's capacity for empathy—is also a useful vehicle for experiencing the ordinary and visceral events that make life interesting.

Although Hermes, as a god, belongs to a very different world than most of the novel's characters, his speech in this passage does touch on many ideas central to Ransom. For instance, his remark about the pleasures of "talk[ing] and hear[ing] news of all that's happening in the world" bears a striking resemblance to Priam's new appreciation for ordinary conversation. 

The revelation that Orchilus is actually Hermes doubles down on the symbolism of crossing a body of water. Since Hermes is the escort of souls to the afterlife, the implication is that the journey to Achilles's hut is a metaphorical form of death. This speaks to the internal changes Priam has already begun to experience as a result of his actions, casting aside his identity (or "dying") as a king in order to be reborn as an ordinary man. Hermes's persistence in calling Priam "father" is significant in this respect, since it refers to the role Priam has taken on in going to retrieve his son's body. It is also yet another demonstration of the power of language in Ransom, since Priam immediately feels more confident in his capacity as a parent when Hermes refers to him as a father. Language, in other words, has the ability to shore up a person's identity (or possibly even confer an identity on him).

Like Priam's departure from Troy, Priam's arrival in the Greek camp marks a major break with what is usual or expected. The soldiers' typical evening pastimes—chatting, playing with dice, etc.—come to an abrupt halt when the gate appears to open by itself. Malouf describes this (and other, similar moments) as a kind of suspension of normal time and activity. Ultimately, these disruptions of routine life provide a window in which change can occur.