EMAIL: Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 Subject: RE: VCE ENGLISH 2012
hi Barry
I'm up to page 80 and the last 20 pages have stumped me, is it just Priam talking to Hecuba the whole time about how he wants to get hectors body back?
A
Hi A,
Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday - we arrived home from our week's hol down at Blairgowrie late in the afternoon, and I was a bit tired so took it easy last night.
Now - to the 20 pages that have you stumped.
Priam has:
a vision ?
an encounter with the goddess Iris?
a dream?
a hynogogic experience?
a moment of insight while in the disoriented space between sleeping and waking?
has an intuition?
[I think Malouf suggests all of these as possibilities, but settles on no single one as explanation, so as readers we are uncertain as to EXACTLY what has happened. But we do know it was a powerful experience, one that leads to clarity in Priam's mind.]
And Priam comes to a clarity about what he must do - an intuition. So he goes to his wife, Hecuba, to tell her.
The 'solution' is: He must strip himself of the trappings of his 'ceremonial self' - Priam as king. He must go to Achilles, not as a king, not in pomp and circumstance, not with all the implied power of a king, but as a man reduced to his bare essentials ... a man who is a father, nothing more, to beg the return of his son's body.
[Perhaps part of his intuition is that ALL men - all people - "wear" ceremonial robes, that all play out ROLES, and that BEHIND/ BENEATH/set apart from that ceremonial/OUTWARD self, there is an inward self. And that INWARD self is something we ALL share - even the great Achilles, the great warrior, the great jackal!]
Hecuba objects. "He will just murder you". [She refers to Achilles as a jackal - that most ignoble of creature, a creature with no mercy, no gentleness - a creature that tears away at the flesh of the dead, that survives on and by death and mutilation].
She sees Achilles as inhuman, a jackal, with no "human" core.
IMPORTANT: This distinction between "ceremonial self" (or outer self or persona) and the "inward self" is a key concept. Go back to the very opening, and we see it there - in Achilles two selves : the father/human farmer/warrior self that takes over when he is a boy of 6, and the 'eel-like"/ watery/ mother self that has been hidden for so long.
Malouf is touching here upon an important idea that psychology has been exploring too - the notions of MULTIPLE SELVES, and of the CHILD SELF as ONE of these selves.
Priam seeks to convince Hecuba that the ACTION he plans is the ONLY way - that only through a ransom of himself can he regain the dead body of his son.
He then tells Hecuba the story of his own life - and of how he 'lost' his child-self. The story concerns the mighty Hercules, half man/ half god. Priam has not always been Priam. He was once Podarces, son of a king. A child of around 6 [a parallel with Achilles]. His father's kingdom was under attack from Hercules. To protect the young boy, Podarces father had hidden him among the peasant children - living in squalor in the village. The war goes badly for Podarces (Priam's) father; Hercules is victorious.
Hercules wants to find the prince.
[It was common in those times to kill off the whole family of a king, so tehre would be no "rightful heir" to the throne. Even in the 20th century, this practice was still happening. When the Communists took over in Russia, the Tsar and his whole family were executed. The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the killing of most of his sons is perhaps another example.]
Priam tells Hecuba the story again ... of how Hercules told Podarces young sister that he would spare whoever the girl chose. This of course could have been a trick. Hercules could easily have been tricking her into disclosing where Podarces was. That is certainly what the young Podarces FEARED was the case.
But Hercules spared the child that the girl identified. He gave Podarces a new name - PRIAM - a word that means "ransom".
I hope that that makes that section of the book a little clearer.
I can't believe that we have only 11 days left till classes start.
Have a great last few days of break.
Regards
Barry
Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday - we arrived home from our week's hol down at Blairgowrie late in the afternoon, and I was a bit tired so took it easy last night.
Now - to the 20 pages that have you stumped.
Priam has:
a vision ?
an encounter with the goddess Iris?
a dream?
a hynogogic experience?
a moment of insight while in the disoriented space between sleeping and waking?
has an intuition?
[I think Malouf suggests all of these as possibilities, but settles on no single one as explanation, so as readers we are uncertain as to EXACTLY what has happened. But we do know it was a powerful experience, one that leads to clarity in Priam's mind.]
And Priam comes to a clarity about what he must do - an intuition. So he goes to his wife, Hecuba, to tell her.
The 'solution' is: He must strip himself of the trappings of his 'ceremonial self' - Priam as king. He must go to Achilles, not as a king, not in pomp and circumstance, not with all the implied power of a king, but as a man reduced to his bare essentials ... a man who is a father, nothing more, to beg the return of his son's body.
[Perhaps part of his intuition is that ALL men - all people - "wear" ceremonial robes, that all play out ROLES, and that BEHIND/ BENEATH/set apart from that ceremonial/OUTWARD self, there is an inward self. And that INWARD self is something we ALL share - even the great Achilles, the great warrior, the great jackal!]
Hecuba objects. "He will just murder you". [She refers to Achilles as a jackal - that most ignoble of creature, a creature with no mercy, no gentleness - a creature that tears away at the flesh of the dead, that survives on and by death and mutilation].
She sees Achilles as inhuman, a jackal, with no "human" core.
IMPORTANT: This distinction between "ceremonial self" (or outer self or persona) and the "inward self" is a key concept. Go back to the very opening, and we see it there - in Achilles two selves : the father/human farmer/warrior self that takes over when he is a boy of 6, and the 'eel-like"/ watery/ mother self that has been hidden for so long.
Malouf is touching here upon an important idea that psychology has been exploring too - the notions of MULTIPLE SELVES, and of the CHILD SELF as ONE of these selves.
Priam seeks to convince Hecuba that the ACTION he plans is the ONLY way - that only through a ransom of himself can he regain the dead body of his son.
He then tells Hecuba the story of his own life - and of how he 'lost' his child-self. The story concerns the mighty Hercules, half man/ half god. Priam has not always been Priam. He was once Podarces, son of a king. A child of around 6 [a parallel with Achilles]. His father's kingdom was under attack from Hercules. To protect the young boy, Podarces father had hidden him among the peasant children - living in squalor in the village. The war goes badly for Podarces (Priam's) father; Hercules is victorious.
Hercules wants to find the prince.
[It was common in those times to kill off the whole family of a king, so tehre would be no "rightful heir" to the throne. Even in the 20th century, this practice was still happening. When the Communists took over in Russia, the Tsar and his whole family were executed. The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the killing of most of his sons is perhaps another example.]
Priam tells Hecuba the story again ... of how Hercules told Podarces young sister that he would spare whoever the girl chose. This of course could have been a trick. Hercules could easily have been tricking her into disclosing where Podarces was. That is certainly what the young Podarces FEARED was the case.
But Hercules spared the child that the girl identified. He gave Podarces a new name - PRIAM - a word that means "ransom".
I hope that that makes that section of the book a little clearer.
I can't believe that we have only 11 days left till classes start.
Have a great last few days of break.
Regards
Barry
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