In addition to being another source of humble, everyday enjoyment, the griddlecake that Somax gives to Priam is a symbol of the nature and power of storytelling. As King of Troy, Priam is used to language that operates in specific and set ways (often by symbolizing something abstract and idealized). The idea of telling a story that does not hold any "higher" meaning is novel to him, and Somax's description of his daughter-in-law making the griddlecakes is his first experience of this kind of language. What's more, when Priam actually eats the griddlecake, he is impressed by its "lightness"—a quality Somax attributes to the way his daughter-in-law flips the cakes as she cooks them. This idea that Priam can "taste…the lightness of the girl's wrist" in the griddlecake itself speaks to the ability of narrative to collapse boundaries of time and space through its focus on immediate, sensory details. Ultimately, this makes storytelling a way of promoting empathy, because it allows Ransom's characters to experience, in a visceral way, events that they do not or cannot have direct access to.
The Griddlecake Symbol Timeline in Ransom
