Fate, Chance, and Change Theme Analysis

In much of Greek mythology and literature, fate appears as an ultimate and inescapable force. This is certainly true of the stories surrounding the Trojan War, including the Iliad: in Homer’s version of events, the deaths of Hector and Achilles, and even the fall of Troy itself, are all preordained. As a retelling of a single episode from the Iliad, Ransom largely works within this same tradition, depicting the final destinies of its characters as fixed and unalterable, at least by the time the story opens. At the same time, however, the novel attempts to reconcile this concept of fate with more modern ideas about chance and free will in order to envision a world in which internal change is possible, even when external change is not. 

Fate itself appears in various guises in Ransom, some more traditional than others. Priam, for instance, at one point associates destiny with the will of the gods. But other, more earthly forces exercise in the book a similarly binding power over human lives. Priam, for instance, describes the royal sphere he occupies as king as one in which speech, actions, and events are never “accidental” but are instead carefully plotted out ahead of time in order to adhere to set symbolic meanings. Regardless of the particular form it takes, however, fate often overrides individual desire and action in the novel. This is particularly clear in Malouf’s treatment of death, which—because it is universal and inevitable—is perhaps the most basic kind of destiny at play in the novel. Far from being avoidable, for instance, Hector’s death at Achilles’s hands is presented as the only possible outcome of both men’s lives: “a meeting that from the beginning had been the clear goal of their lives and the final achievement of what they were.” What’s more, Ransom structurally emphasizes this connection between fate and mortality by repeatedly flashing forward to deaths that take place beyond the timeframe of the novel, but which nevertheless seem settled—most notably, Neoptolemus’s grisly murder of Priam during the fall of Troy.

Of course, it's possible that the details of Hector's and Priam's deaths have not always been set in stone. The goddess Iris, for instance, describes the siege and fall of Troy as "the way things are" rather than "the way they must be," implying that things might at one point have gone differently. By the time the novel begins, however, there is very little sense that major changes to Troy's future are possible: events have taken on a momentum of their own. Interestingly, however, the climax of the novel—Priam’s visit to Achilles with treasure in order to ransom his son’s body—seems to exist outside the bounds of fate, however that fate is defined. Although the meeting is possibly preordained in a certain sense (Priam, after all, foresees it in a vision), the novel also describes it as an event that flies in the face of every major form of “destiny,” including social convention, individual character, and even physical probability (no one, for instance, thinks it is even possible for Priam to reach the Greek camp alive). In fact, Priam’s plan is a direct response to Iris's words: as he explains to Hecuba, the simple act of relabeling fate as "chance" might provide an "opening" where humans can exercise free will, presumably because it expands the range of actions they can imagine. This in turn can have a snowball effect. For instance, Priam's actual meeting with Achilles does not entirely conform to his vision of it, because Achilles kneels to Priam before Priam has the chance to do the same. In other words, by acting in such an unexpected way himself, Priam creates a moment in which others can behave in similarly surprising and unscripted ways.

In the end, of course, Priam’s actions do not alter the material facts of either his own destiny or Achilles’s. Since both men are (still) fated to die in the war, it is tempting to conclude that Priam’s newfound hope in the idea of chance is misplaced. In reality, however, something has changed over the course of the novel: Priam and Achilles themselves, who shed some of the norms and burdens associated with their usual roles as king and warrior, and become more fully human as a result. This is why Priam's insistence on "naming" fate as chance is so important. However fixed external events may be, Ransom suggests that humans can rise above their fates by creating moments where internal change is possible.