Andy Qi

To be true to oneself is the ultimate state of being. Do ransom and Invictus support the viewpoint?

In the biographical film Invictus directed by Clint Eastwood and the novel Ransom written by David
Malouf, leaders such as Mandela and Priam pursue being “true to oneself” in different ways,
allowing followers and entourages of the leaders to follow similar pathways. Being true to
themselves in both the text and novel has allowed both leaders to fulfil their vision which is their
ultimate state of being. For example, both leaders face the difficulty of being true to themselves,
with Mandela asserting his authority as the President and dissimilarly, Priam who steps out of his
“royal sphere” to fulfil his vision. In addition, followers of Mandela at first struggled with being true
to themselves by opposing Mandela’s decisions, characters such as Pienaar and Mandela’s Security
details become true to themselves in order to be faithful to their leaders vision in order to achieve
their ultimate state of being. However unlike the Princes who were unfaithful to Priam’s vision, the
Princes struggled with acceptance and never became true to themselves.

In both texts, the leaders Mandela and Priam fulfil their “ultimate state of being” by being true to
themselves. In Invictus, Mandela takes the challenge to be true to himself by reinforcing his
authority as the President of South Africa “Madiba” towards South Africans and Afrikaans. In the
face of conflict between the South Africans and Afrikaans due to mistrust between the nation and
their leader, Mandela asserts his role as the leader by arguing towards his vision of the “Rainbow
nation”, for example during his speech at the Sports committee, Mandela uses his authority as the
President to urge the committee to change their decision to remove Springbok rugby and the
colours green and gold, promising to ”build our nation, using every single brick available to us” in
order to achieve the vision for a united South Africa. However in the novel Ransom, Priam
transitions from a King that was an important symbol of Troy into a father by stepping out of his
“royal sphere” and defying his Princes in order to fulfil his own self-perception that he is a normal
man in pursuit of the body of his son. Likewise to Mandela, Priam faces an immense challenge due
to the conflict between the Trojans and the Greeks and has to visit the killer of his son Achilles as “an
ordinary man, a father” but unlike Mandela, Priam steps down from his authority. This can be seen
when Priam rejects all the symbols that segregates him from an “ordinary man”, such as when he
rejects the formally decorated chariot and demands a very humble cart and driver in order to
become true to himself which would help him achieve his desire to be reunited to be with the body
of his son.

In both texts, characters such as Springbok rugby captain Pienaar in Invictus and Somax the carter in
Ransom pursue being true to themselves seamlessly by undertaking a much more influential role in
helping their leaders fulfil their visions. In Invictus, Pienaar becomes an inspirational leader helping
Mandela achieve his ultimate vision of a united South Africa while Somax becomes a helper to fulfil a
king’s vision. However in Invictus, Pienaar faces a much more difficult situation where he is
scrutinized for Springbok’s defeats and having the burden of responsibility fall on him, thus this leads
to Pienaar’s failure of being true to himself during the meeting with Mandela by perceiving himself
as owner of “trading company” rather than the captain of the Springboks who represent South
Africa. In addition, Pienaar lacks support from his family at the start due to the mistrust between
Afrikaans and their South African leader Mandela. This is depicted by Eastwood when Mr Pienaar
claimed that Mandela’s supporters will “drive [them] into the sea” which adds further difficulties
that Pienaar has to overcome in order to achieve his ultimate destiny of winning the World Cup.
Likewise in Ransom, Somax’s sons have perished in tragic circumstances, thus Somax faces
challenges of remaining true to himself and his convictions despite loss of his sons. Nonetheless he is
able stay true to himself and his convictions about his place in the world by being faithful to Priam’s
Andy Qi

vision thus, allowing Priam fulfil his goal of retrieving his sons body from Achilles. This is showcased
similarly in Invictus where Pienaar becomes true to himself and embraces Mandela’s vision after the
Prison visit where he finds inspiration in the fact that “Mandela can survive 27 years of captivity and
become president” and realizing that “nothing is impossible”. This enables Pienaar and his rugby
team to achieve their ultimate vision of “exceed[ing] all expectations” by winning the World Cup
final. In the same way, Somax is able to take care of Priam as a “child” as there was no longer
resistance from Priam that prevented Somax from speaking to him like a king. This is depicted by
Malouf when Somax reflects Priam as “looking uncertain…like a child” as they pause by the river,
allowing Somax to stay true to himself by taking the lead of being a man, which later prepares Priam
in crossing the boundaries of the Scamander River in order to achieve his desire to reunite with the
body of his son. Furthermore Somax’s self-perception of his true self is reinforced by the fact that he
sees himself as a humble cart man and a man without any decorated status, which is highlighted
when he resents being named Priam’s “Idaeus”, as otherwise he would only be true to the title
rather than himself.

However one key difference between the text and the film is how entourages respond in different
ways to their leader’s fulfilment of their ultimate visions. As depicted in Invictus, Mandela’s security
details face difficulties in mistrust and conflict due to the dispute between Jason and Etienne at the
start of the film, with Jason claiming that “not long ago these group tried to kill us”. Similarly, Priam’s
sons Deiphobus and Polydamus struggle with Priam’s vision of his desire to retrieve his son as they
both speak to Priam of his image as a king instead of his true self. This is outlined when Deiphobus
directly approaches Priam as a “treasure we cannot allow to be lost” because of his symbol of Troy’s
greatness and likewise to Polydamus who tried to convince Priam of his “old age” as they try to
dissuade Priam from his desires. However, on the contrary, both Jason and Etienne embrace
Mandela’s vision of a united South Africa by overcoming their difficulties through their acceptance of
their leader’s vision of a “rainbow nation” and hence, they become true to themselves as highlighted
by the Rugby World Cup final where they share a moment of celebration when Springboks won
against the All Blacks. Meanwhile Deiphobus and Polydamus never pursue being true to themselves
through the novel as they never conformed to the key element of Priam’s true self of being “merely
human”.

In conclusion, both Eastwood and Malouf demonstrate the differences in how characters in both the
novel and film become true to themselves and the similarities in challenges they face. In Invictus,
Mandela was able to become true to himself by utilising his authority as the president by using his
power to fulfil his ultimate vision of a “Rainbow nation”, which inspired Pienaar and his security
details to follow similar pathways. Meanwhile Priam steps down from his image of Troy’s greatness
to become an “ordinary man” which allows him to stay true to himself instead of his “kingly image”.
Thus this empowers Somax to conform to Priam’s desires of reuniting with his son’s body. For the
security details Jason and Etienne in Invictus, challenges were faced at the start of the film but they
were able to conform to their true selves by accepting Mandela’s vision of a united South Africa. Yet
in Ransom, Deiphobus and Polydamus struggled with Priam’s vision and were never able to conform
to their true selves.