big ideas°𐐪♡𐑂°

Grief and Crisis

Describing grief throughout essay

- Pervasive grief
- Insurmountable grief
- Calamitous grief
- Paralysing grief
Ideas/Topic Sentences:

-> There is no protocol for grieving or expressing large emotions for public figures (Blair, Priam, Hecuba)
- Demonstrated through Blairs exposure to the royal family and their inability to deal with the death of Diana
“an ex-HRH” in which the Queen refrains from sharing her grief with the public as it is seen as a ‘private
matter’ and chooses to follow ‘protocol(The Queen doesn’t grief for the death of Diana. Her disconnection
with her people caused her to grieve in private. )’
- Symbol of royal standard demonstrates the emerging chasm between the royal family and the ‘people’ during
times of significant crisis
- Coupled with Blairs frustration “would somebody please save these people from themselves’
- All this culminates in Frears exploring the limitations of protocols in times that require significant emotional
responses
- However through Priam's interactions Malouf reveals the importance of turning away from tradition in order
to discover authentic emotions and experiences (griddlecakes symbolism)
- Griddle Cakes symbolism -> the beauty and love in the simple ‘joy’ of life described through griddlecakes
that ‘has an effect, it really does’. The griddle cake that Somax gives to Priam is is a symbol of the nature and
power of storytelling which allows Priam to understand what it is like to be ‘human’
- It is only through the intervention of the God Iris, that Prian realises there is a way for him to move beyond
his paralysing grief by doing ‘Something impossible. Something new’
- Hecuba is ‘more tied to convention then she believes’. Constrained by her anger at achilles, she is unable to
support her husband and honour hector and see’s achilles as a ‘butcher’ -> literary allusion to macbeth
-> In times of chaos grief can prevent leaders from fulfilling their duty and responsibility affecting not just the leaders
themselves, but the people they are leading (Achilles and Queen)
- Malouf introduces this idea by opening his text with Achilles unable to overcome his despair which ‘holds
nothing, and itself cannot be held’. Unable to break his destructive cycle, Malouf extrapolates on the
extraordinary circumstances Achilles lack of pragmatism is causing by enlightening readers through his
third person omniscient narration revealing the collective thinking of his men who ‘no longer know what
authority they are under’ and ‘breaks every rule they have been taught to live by’
- Metaphor - Malouf’s metaphorical presentation of Achilles’ spirit reaching a ‘twilight kingdom’ and
‘changing colour’ exemplifies the debilitating nature of his overwhelming grief propelling him to act as a man
“obeying some darker agency” creating a “barbaric spectacle”, with the adjectives “darker” and “barbaric”
emphasising that leaders who don't behave as people expect becomes problematic for the people they are
leading. Malouf suggests that for leaders, the merging of the two ‘spheres’ is inevitable and the rejection of
public responsibility creates turmoil and frustration in society.
- Paradox - Just as Achilles Myrmidons ‘no longer know what authority they are under’, the British people
feel abandoned by the Queen whose ‘instinct is to do nothing’, foregoing public responsibility. This is
reinforced by the Queen being trapped in a paradox she is not prepared for. Bound to her oath ‘duty first, self
second’, and her previous approach to crisis ‘quietly with dignity’ does not serve her modern desire for
‘glamour and tears, the grand performance’. Frears showcases through the Queen’s silence, leaders
jeopardise their public role when stepping away from the public that viewers find profound with ‘one in four
now in favour of abolishing the monarchy’. Consequently, the Queen's refusal to acknowledge Diana’s death
as broader than a ‘private matter’, like Achilles in his ‘torment’, demonstrates to the audience how private
issues spiral into public crises creating a strain between a leader and their people.
-> It is not until fully embracing grief that individuals are able to see a future beyond despair (Queen, Priam,
Achilles)
- Both the Queen and Priam Break down and weep privately in order to move beyond the crises they face ->
Mis en scene - When the Queen is alone, Frears deliberately directs her away from the camera as the
Queen is not allowed to cry, depicting to audiences how leaders are always expected to be detached and ‘not
wear one's heart on one’s sleeve’ as emotions are a private affair, for the queen “that's how I was brought up,
that's all I’ve ever known”.
- Strong symbolism of ascending and descending of stairs
- However, Priam learns to grieve through the power of Somax’s storytelling. In lyrically making grief as
natural as the ‘water as it went hoping’ ‘ we go on, for all our losses’ Malouf is suggesting that one must
embrace grief in order to be fully present in life.
- Symbolism - Priam’s grief is heartfelt as it is the grief of a father who returns as ‘the air is fresh and clear’,
symbolic of the cleansing effect of Priam’s tears as Priam grieves in silence similarly to the Queen, conveying
to readers how loss propels leaders to personal growth and overcoming grief provides a personal ‘triumph’.
- Allegory - Achilles development, who feels ‘a perfect order of body, heart, occasion’ finds how ‘everything
around him is subtly changed’ evokes how crisis provides lessons for leaders and plays a role in their
development as an individual to find ‘the true Achilles’ who has found himself through tragedy. It is in
Achilles accepting his fate ‘something has freed itself and fallen away’ Malouf highlights the need for grief to
be felt, honoured and its restorative power.

Tradition and change

Sample intro

Traditions and protocols have long held important roles in maintaining power and reinforcing established leaders. At
the centre of both Frears’ biopic ‘The Queen’ and Malouf’s ‘Ransom’ both provide a deliberate meditation on the ways
in which tradition can be both helpful and important in crises. However, it is in comparing the vastly different ways in
which the two protagonists, Queen Elizabeth and Priam, break with tradition in order to respond to profound and
unforeseen loss that we come to understand that there are limitations to the usefulness of tradition. Furthermore, it is
through a study of the ways in which people without power are able to change and adapt quickly that it becomes clear
that traditions can serve as a means to separate the ruled from the ruler. Ultimately, both texts express the profound
impact grief can have on leaders and suggest that traditions, which serve to separate rulers from their subjects, fail
them as they are unable to separate their emotional needs from their duty.
Ideas/Topic Sentences:

-> Change provides leaders with the opportunity to meet the needs of both the people they lead, the institutions they
represent and themselves (Priam and Queen)
- In his representation of Priam stepping away from tradition and being ‘just any man’
- ‘Chance to break free of being always the hero’ -> about achilles
- Priam embraces change and believes that life is fated but pushes for change by stripping himself of royalty
and being a parent
- ‘Such forms might not be altogether useful’ Some traditions must be shaken and protocol is not always useful
in the real world
- Griddle Cakes symbolism -> the beauty and love in the simple ‘joy’ of life described through griddlecakes
that ‘has an effect, it really does’. The griddle cake that Somax gives to Priam is is a symbol of the nature and
power of storytelling which allows Priam to understand what it is like to be ‘human’
- ‘But i am also a father’
- ‘Not as a king but as an ordinary man’ and also as ‘a father’ -> Priam wants to change and believes that
protocol is not always useful and wants to awaken achilles own sense of empathy
- ‘Do what is most human’
- Change is beneficial -> the flowers ‘these are for you’ the impact that the Queen has had on her people when
learning to become more ‘modern’ and sees how ‘the world has changed’ -> In deliberately employing
parallelism Frears invites his audience to see the Queen’s response to Diana’s death as having fulfilled the
needs of the people. She is restored to her position, stepped in tradition, and returns to her previous place as
a beloved monarch.
- The queen facing her own irrelevance in society understands how she must share her grief in order to fulfil
her duty
 - Blair begins to understand how rules and regulations are sometimes necessary “I think there’s something
ugly about the way everyone is bullying her”

-> Tradition provides stability for those that believe their position is tied to status not action
- Queen mother -> “You must show more strength, reassert your authority”
- “Your the greatest asset this institution has, one of the greatest it has ever had”
- prince philip -> does not want to change -> “Your the sovereign the head of state, you don't get dictated to”
- Hecuba -> ‘more tied to convention then she believes’ her ineffectiveness leads to a change in values
- ‘That butcher’ literary allusion to macbeth and displays how Hecuba is unable to support her husband due to
her being blinded by her grief
- Family -> Deiphobus -> believes that image is important in
-> Ultimately, neither change nor tradition provides guarantees about the way in which legacies are presented,
secured or remembered
- Somax being erased from the story
- The media - montages - diana -> leaders being presented as a victim
- The painting symbolism ->
- The gods
Further ideas on tradition
- Tradition is often limiting when bridging the gap between leaders and their people
- Leaders face hardship when deciding when it is right to forego tradition in favour of changing the future.
- Often it is the influence of secondary characters that allows for a breach in tradition and a change in
protocol.
- Unchecked grief can supersede one’s autonomy and tradition
- Frears and Malouf both assert that adaptability in upholding tradition is also needed in order for us to grow
and develop as humans.
- Frears and Malouf both demonstrate that change is often propelled into possibility through the support and
urging of others.
- Both texts outline that tradition is their comfort zone to follow, therefore they fear that stepping out
Public vs private
Sample Intro:

Both David Malouf's lyrical reimagining in the iliad, ‘Ransom’ and Stephen Frears’ docudrama ‘The Queen’ explore
the conflict within leaders in their struggle to balance their public duty and private grief. Frears and Malouf elucidate
the difficulties that leaders face and the distinction between public perception and individual affairs after traumatic
events that significantly impact leaders personally. It is through grief that Malouf and Frears highlight how leaders
must deal with their private affairs whilst also dealing with public duties and expectations that burden them.
Moreover, both texts examine how balance is essential and how overshadowing one’s private role over the public can
be problematic and cause a strain between leaders and their people. Consequently, both Malouf and Frears
protagonists ultimately reveal the distinction between their public and private lives which forces leaders to deal with
their grief and impacts the people that they are responsible for.
Ideas/Topic Sentences:

-> Ransom and The Queen depict how leaders cannot escape grief that forces leaders to merge their public and
private ‘spheres’ that can impact entire societies and not just the leaders themselves. (Queen, Achilles, Media)
- Foreshadowing - By opening Ransom with Achilles straddling between two worlds, Malouf foreshadows
his ultimate inability to balance his commitment to duty and his emotions. After the death of Patroclus,
Achilles struggles to overcome his paralysing grief whilst also fulfilling the needs of his people who see him
as ‘mad’ and don’t know what to think of a leader who ‘breaks every rule they have been taught to live by’ as
a paralysed leader with no semblance of authority existent, emphasising to readers how leaders are
incapable of fulfilling their duty and lack pragmatism when overcome by personal matters.
- Metaphor - Malouf’s metaphorical presentation of Achilles’ spirit reaching a ‘twilight kingdom’ and
‘changing colour’ exemplifies the debilitating nature of his pervasive and self destructive grief propelling him
 to act as a man “obeying some darker agency” creating a “barbaric spectacle”, with the adjectives “darker”
and “barbaric” emphasising that leaders who don't behave as people expect becomes problematic for the
people they are leading. Malouf suggests that for leaders, the merging of the two ‘spheres’ is inevitable and
the rejection of public responsibility creates turmoil and frustration in society.
- Paradox - Just as Achilles Myrmidons ‘no longer know what authority they are under’, the British people
feel abandoned by the Queen whose ‘instinct is to do nothing’, foregoing public responsibility. This is
reinforced by the Queen being trapped in a paradox she is not prepared for. Her duty bound to her oath ‘duty
first, self second’, and her previous approach to crisis ‘quietly with dignity’ does not serve her modern desire
for ‘glamour and tears, the grand performance’. Frears showcases through the Queen’s silence, leaders
jeopardise their public role when stepping away from the public that viewers find profound with ‘one in four
now in favour of abolishing the monarchy’.
- Consequently, the Queen's refusal to acknowledge Diana’s death as broader than a ‘private matter’, like
Achilles in his ‘torment’, demonstrates to the audience how private issues spiral into public crises creating a
strain between a leader and their people.
-> Frears and Malouf illustrate how insurmountable grief transcends rank and overcoming loss through the duality of
both the public and private lens allows growth in oneself. (Queen, Blair, Priam, Somax)
- Mis en scene - When the Queen is alone, Frears deliberately directs her away from the camera as the
Queen is not allowed to cry, depicting to audiences how leaders are always expected to be detached and ‘not
wear one's heart on one’s sleeve’ as emotions are a private affair, for the queen “that's how I was brought up,
that's all I’ve ever known”.
- Paradox - The Queen struggles to share her grief as leaders are upheld to “not to make a fuss”, but her
failure to change and adapt places her in her greatest conflict with her people. She struggles between a
paradoxical drive to be both popular and dutiful.
- Contrast - In contrasting the sea of flowers in front of Buckingham Palace to the Queen’s lack of grief for
her seeing “simply no precedent for the funeral of an ex-HRH”, the Queen’s refusal to allow the public ‘a
proper chance to grieve’ creates a burden on the queen as during times of crisis leaders are burdened by the
public expectations as a leader.
- Contrast - However, in Tony Blair's clear contrast to the royal disconnect who understands the need for
duality between both private affairs and public needs, understanding how “one must modernise” and is
acknowledged as ‘Mr saviour of the monarchy’, Frears illustrates how balancing both private and public
matters is an attribute of strong leadership as crisis forces growth and development in a leader.
- Symbolism - Priam’s grief is heartfelt as it is the grief of a father who returns as ‘the air is fresh and clear’,
symbolic of the cleansing effect and reflection of inner thoughts of Priam’s tears as Priam grieves in silence
similarly to the Queen, conveying to readers how loss propels leaders to personal growth and overcoming
grief provides a personal ‘triumph’
- Griddle Cakes symbolism -> Griddle Cakes symbolism -> the beauty and love in the simple ‘joy’ of life
described through griddlecakes that ‘has an effect, it really does’. The griddle cake that Somax gives to Priam
is is a symbol of the nature and power of storytelling which allows Priam to understand what it is like to be
‘human’
- However, Priam learns to grieve through the power of Somax’s storytelling. In lyrically making grief as
natural as the ‘water as it went hoping’ ‘ we go on, for all our losses’ Malouf is suggesting that one must
embrace grief in order to be fully present in life.
- Allegory - Achilles development, who feels ‘a perfect order of body, heart, occasion’ finds how ‘everything
around him is subtly changed’ evokes how crisis provides lessons for leaders and plays a role in their
development as an individual to find ‘the true Achilles’ who has found himself through tragedy.
-> Ultimately, Frears and Malouf illustrate how public image and identity is important in maintaining order in
society. (Queen, Blair, Diana)
- Juxtaposition - The Queen’s absence from the public during crisis is problematic as the British people turn
on her and paint her as a ‘villain’ which juxtaposes how she is a ‘victim’ as the British are ‘bullying her’ in
doing ‘50 years in a job she never wanted’. Frears invites the audience to understand the fragility of
leadership and how the queen's failure to uphold her public image is her ultimate downfall that creates
doubt and uncertainty in her people. This contrasts how Diana, the ‘people's princess’ who is loved by the
British has maintained a strong public image even in death in which Frears reminds audiences of the power
 of public image that defines a leader. Through the montages of Diana escaping the press, Frears utilises a
montage unveiling the horrors and burden that comes with duty and the suffering of being in the public eye
that will always follow a leader.
- Contrast - Frears paints leaders as ‘victims’ to their own people which contrasts the Queen's portrait which
is a reminder of the power of the media to portray the queen and the ‘duty’ of the queen to deliver to her
people's needs. Comparatively, Priam's need to step out of tradition concerns his family who believe doing
something ‘new and unheard of’ is a danger to his ‘royal image’ that also ‘exposes him to insult’ similar to the
Queen who worries ‘it might send out the wrong signal’. Malouf suggests how the desecration of royal image
is also the destruction of oneself and their role as a ruler which can create fear in their people as Priam
understands how ‘a good king is as good as the image he presents’.

Family and relationships

- Both texts explore how they also have an identity as parents and grandparents and their own people outside
their leadership role
- It is in time of crisis that both texts outline the importance of assistance in guidance through unlikely sources

Priam neglects his role as King entirely, to be a father. This isn’t just shown in danger, approaching Achilles, but also
the way he does so. He demands an old cart and an ordinary cart driver

‘If you’re suggesting that I drop everything and come

down to London before I attend to two boys that have just lost their mother… you’re mistaken.’ This is where the
audience is shown that the Queen not going to London isn't just about her pride or loathing for Diana, but her love for
her grandchildren and role as grandmother

Queen -> Although she is the Queen, her first priority is her grandchildren “duty first, self second” + stuck in
protocols and distance, grew up with 7 different prime ministers, adapt a thousand year institution

Blair -> The Prime Minister but has a messy home, dresses casually, has a casual meal “fish fingers”, labour

Phillip -> take the kids hunting, refusing to change

Storytelling
- Linked to legacy strongly
- Blair telling the queen ‘this will be a good week for you’
- ‘This will happen to you too’ Queen to Blair
- Priam's origin story
- Between knowing a story and living it are two different realities
- Somax stories change priam
- Legacy of ransom and somax being written out
- Media misrepresenting the queen
- Prince philip trying to maintain the monarchy

Vocab to use Addressing audience

 - Anguish -> extreme pain and suffering - Allows audience to see
- Semblance -> outward appearance - Which viewers find profound
- Neglection -> failing to give care - Enlightening readers through his third person
- Culpability -> responsibility for a fault omniscient narration
- Inevitable -> unavoidable
- Turmoil -> state of great disturbance,
confusion, or uncertainty
- Foregoing -> choosing to let go
- Spiral -> to join together
- Incapacitated leaders -> deprived of power
- Impaired ability -> not able to
- Insurmountable -> unable to get over
- Transcends -> goes beyond
- Desecration -> destruction of
- Chasm -> rift
- Paralysing -> unable to move
- Pervasive -> spread throughout body
- Pragmatism -> practical

Reminders
- Synonyms for shows
- Links more than ‘similarly’
- Links should be more than ‘similarly’
- Spell key characters correctly
- Topic sentences are big ideas
- Think about incorporating harder parts of the texts- The Gods, Nature, legacy etc