Comparative Essay Ransom v The Queen Compare how perceptions of leadership are challenged in Ransom and The Queen. The intricacies and challenges of leadership when in a position of power and how to appropriately handle change is a pivotal concept that historical fiction often investigates. David Malouf’s Ransom and Stephen Frears’ The Queen both experience the death of a public figure which acts as a catalyst to represent the hard choices a leader must make, especially when they are bound by tradition and personal or public opinions on how they are expected to respond. Each narrative presents to the audience a world of conflict, uncertainty, and a sense of impending change. Malouf offers an insight into a world where the need to compromise …show more content…
Both Elizabeth and Priam are influenced by those around them and display the concept that good leaders must compromise and adapt to their people. Frears presents the British people as being appalled that the Queen and the royal family didn’t acknowledge Diana’s death, and Elizabeth starts to find herself ruling over people she no longer understands. The monarchy begins to be scrutinized as the newspaper articles start to push Elizabeth to show her people that there is a “heart in the house of Windsor”. This reveals the beginning of Elizabeth making slow changes to acknowledge the nations grief, such as putting the “flag at half-mast” over Buckingham Palace, and in turn this helps fix the public’s view on the monarchy. In Ransom, Priam experiences similar pressure from external forces as his wife and family try to convince him to not proceed with his plan to retrieve Hector's body from Achilles. Malouf presents Priam as trying to convince his family that he must be seen with no royal pieces on him on his journey so he is seen to do “what any man might do”. This emphasises how Priam adjusts to change when his leadership is challenged and his kingdom is “ravaged”. The Queen conveys that change is hard but ultimately for the better to remain a well perceived leader and Elizabeth is pushed to change, whereas Ransom tells different …show more content…
Elizabeth and Priam each realise that tradition cannot be relied on to be a good leader, but instead real leadership comes from the recognition of human qualities and understanding people’s needs. Elizabeth and the royal family heavily follow tradition and protocols, and the audience sees a perspective of the harsh way the royal family treated Diana’s death. Elizabeth starts to question what her people “wanted from their queen” and this highlights the struggle that she has gone through to understand why she is so out of touch with the public expectations around how she should respond to Diana’s death, further adding to Frears deconstruction of tradition and how it cannot be relied on to hold up a good public appearance. Similarly, in Ransom Troy relies on stability and culture but this is seen to change after the death of a public figure. Priam adheres to traditionalistic approaches but breaks these standards when he dresses as a “normal man” and leaves the troy to retrieve his sons’ dead body. This reveals a different perspective of Priam as people see him in a different light, as a leader who adapts to change. Achilles demonstrates another aspect of this as he is also shown to disregard how he is perceived as a leader by those that follow him, “for he is their leader, but he breaks daily every rule that they have been