Textual Representation of Themes Relating to Freedom in Ransom and "the Eldest Princess"

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It is the eldest Princess’s awareness of the possibility of freedom that lends her the impetus to contemplate exercising her own free will; “I could just walk out of this inconvenient story” (Byatt 191). The Princess surmises that if she leaves her path then she will have failed in the Quest, which she was doomed to do anyway. “It would make no difference to the Quest” (Byatt 191), but all the difference to herself. Education is introduced as a key concept in attaining freedom; the Princess is characterised as “a very learned young woman” (Byatt 190), and is referred to as having “read a great many stories in her spare time” (Byatt 187), stories which lead her to conclude that she is doomed to fail if she continues in her role of the eldest Princess.

Thus Priam and the Princess’s quests for the body of Hector and the bird and its nest become symbolic journeys for their own identities. The symbolism of the Princess stepping off the path of her own story echoes the quest for identity that we all share. Priam takes the very same step out of his story as king as he seats himself on the cart in a plain white robe without staff or amulet or armband, his cart pulled by a pair of mules. While the Princess’s physical steps symbolise a movement towards emancipation and the freedom to create her own stories, the act of casting off his kingly trappings symbolises Priam setting aside the role of king in his quest to become a father.

Holland (816), argues that “all of us, as we read, use the literary work to symbolize and finally to replicate ourselves”. Themes of change and chance and freedom pose many more questions than they answer in terms of what we mean when we speak of identity. Is the identity of a king in the adornments he wears? Is identity something we can wear as a cloak? Is it the man who is important, or merely the symbol? The Eldest Princess recognises identity as irrelevant to her role early on in her story when she realises that stepping off the path will make little difference to the Quest. However, when we consider the subsequent fates of her sisters as a direct result of the Princess abandoning her quest, we begin to see the effect the Princess’s quest for her own story had on the lives of those around her. The stories of Priam and The Eldest Princess illustrate the common need we all have tell stories; to share and analyse our experiences, to express our emotions and to connect with others on a deeply personal level.

Works Cited

Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London: Routledge, 2000. Web.

Byatt, A.S.. The Story of the Eldest Princess. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. Web.

Campbell, Jane. A.S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination. Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2004. Print.

Holland, Norman N.. “Unity Identity Text Self”. PMLA 90.5 (1975): 813–822. Web.

Iser, Wolfgang. Interaction Between Text and Reader. London: Routledge, 2006. Web.

Malouf, David. Ransom. London: Random House, 2011. Print.