Ransom: Part 5 Summary & Analysis

Priam and Somax's journey back to Troy offers a rare glimpse into the effects of the war on the common people of Troy. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the scene is not one of total desolation. In fact, even the burial mounds are supporting a kind of "life" by furnishing people with wood and valuables. This, again, points to the ways in which life and death are intertwined in Ransom. The orphaned children, meanwhile, are the flipside to the main form of loss depicted in the novel; unlike Priam, who has a lost a child, these children have lost their parents.

Priam's actions in this passage contrast sharply with the earlier description of the king publically pouring handfuls of dirt over his head in response to Hector's death. Whereas the latter was a somewhat ceremonial expression of grief, this is an intensely private and personal moment, which suggests that Priam's relationship to his son has become more individualized and human, if only in death. Somax's response underscores this point, since he recognizes the "small sounds" of Priam's grief as ones that he himself has made. The fact that Somax's thoughts turn from this to his granddaughter is a testament to the ability of life to go on in the wake of extreme loss and upheaval. Relatedly, Somax's apparent happiness at the thought of returning to life "as usual" points to the priority Malouf gives to the ordinary and everyday. When all is said and done, the momentous meeting between Priam and Achilles is simply a minor "adventure" for Somax, whose primary focus is on the unheroic details of his own life.

Priam's reflections during the return journey pull together all of the novel's themes. Priam's rebirth as an ordinary man and father comes at a very late hour in his life, and will do nothing to prevent either his own death or the fall of Troy. Nevertheless, Ransom suggests that the transformation is an important one, not only for Priam's own sake, but also for everyone who will eventually hear his story. This is in keeping with Malouf's broader ideas about identity and the virtues of ordinary life. In the end, Ransom suggests that the most honorable and difficult role an individual can assume is being "merely" human.

Far from detracting from his status as King of Troy, Priam's experiences of life as an ordinary man have made him at home in the role as he never was before. Bolstered by the memory of the time he spent sitting on the riverbank, Priam returns home in a state of "exultant wellbeing." He even gives himself over to the same gods that he had earlier suspected of "mocking" him, allowing them to draw him onward with their music. Priam, in other words, is newly accepting of his fate as King of Troy, even knowing where it will lead him.

In this passage, Malouf once again uses the idea of suspension to capture an experience that seems to take place outside the bounds of time and mortality. Although Achilles knows on some level that he will die soon, he is no longer defined by this knowledge, instead feeling the "lightness" of his "spirit" at work in him again. That being the case, Malouf's reminder of Achilles's impending death comes across as brutally terse: "It has not [been suspended]." The abrupt change in tone sets the stage for the description of Priam's death that follows.

Malouf's decision to include a graphic account of Priam's murder might seem puzzling at first glance. While it certainly underscores the idea that certain aspects of fate are sealed, it does so in such a grisly manner that it risks overshadowing the significance of the internal changes Priam and Achilles have experienced in Ransom. That said, the scene also functions as a final reminder of the potential hollowness of an "epic" life. Neoptolemus wants to be a "hero" on the same level as his father. His actions, however, are "boyish," clumsy, and ultimately a source of great shame to him, despite the public fame he enjoys as Priam's killer. His actions also run counter to the realizations Achilles has had over the course of the novel. Far from avenging his father, then, Neoptolemus's actions in this passage actually dishonor his memory.

The blink-and-miss-it reference to Helen in this passage is perhaps the strongest evidence in the novel as to where Malouf's interest lies. The abduction of Helen was what kickstarted the Trojan War, so a reader might plausibly expect any story about that war to deal with her. In Ransom, however, she is barely present and completely overlooked by Somax in favor of more down-to-earth concerns.

If Ransom is in large part about the transformation of Priam and Achilles into ordinary humans, the novel's final pages reverse the process. Figures that were once "flesh and blood" to the people of Troy become abstract and legendary as time passes. Although Somax's stories themselves do not appear to change, it becomes increasingly harder for his listeners to imagine the characters he describes as real people—in part because the mundane details Somax provides do not jibe with their ideas about how kings, warriors, and gods would act. In a sense, then, this passage traces the process by which Malouf's relatively "ordinary" versions of Priam and Achilles could have been the larger-than-life figures that appear in Greek mythology.

On the face of it, Ransom's ending might seem anticlimactic or even inappropriate, given the rest of the novel's tone. Malouf not only ends with Somax (rather than Priam or Achilles), but also seems to dismiss the entire plot of the novel by suggesting that no one believes the carter's stories. It is important to remember, however, that Ransom is to a large extent about Achilles's and Priam's rediscovery of the everyday world as a source of pleasure and continuity. In that sense, it is fitting that Ransom ends with Beauty—a source of humble but real delight to those around her. The implication is that life has gone on, even in the wake of Troy's fall.