Ransom Study Guide

David Malouf is of mixed Lebanese and Jewish ancestry, and grew up in Queensland, Australia, where he also attended university. After graduating, he divided his time between Australia and Europe, teaching English in a number of secondary and post-secondary institutions. His first breakthrough as a writer came midway through his teaching career, with the 1962 publication of Four Poets—a volume of poetry. Although he largely shifted his focus to novel-writing in the mid-1970s, many critics (as well as Malouf himself) consider his early experiences as a poet key to his compact and lyrical style as a writer of prose. In 1978, Malouf published his second novel—the widely acclaimed An Imaginary Life—and subsequently resigned from his position at the University of Sydney to pursue writing full-time. In all, Malouf has written nine novels, ten volumes of poetry, and multiple other works, including short story collections, essays, and even the librettos for several operas.

There is considerable debate over whether a real historical conflict resembling the Trojan War ever took place. Ruins of an ancient city founded in the 3rd millennium BCE and rebuilt several times do exist in modern-day Turkey, but it is difficult to know how much this historical Troy resembled its fictional counterpart; the Iliad was not set down in written form until the 8th century BCE, which was likely four or five centuries after the events it described. That said, Malouf traces his own affinity for the story of Troy to his childhood memories of World War II, since he first heard about the Trojan War in 1930s Brisbane—a staging ground for the war in the Pacific.

The plot of Ransom derives from a single episode in The Iliad—an epic poem by Homer that covers a few weeks of the ten-year Trojan War. Where the Iliad traces a path from Achilles’ argument with Agamemnon through Hector’s slaying of Patroclus to Hector’s death, Ransom refers to these events only briefly and in flashback, focusing instead on King Priam’s efforts to win back the body of his son from Achilles. This links Malouf’s novel to other contemporary works that expand on scenes or characters from classic literature—particularly novels like John Gardner’s Grendel, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Lavinia, and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, which are all reworkings of epic poems (Beowulf, the The Aeneid, and The Odyssey, respectively).