Shakespeare’s play Macbeth and Malouf’s novel Ransom both explore themes about freedom. The themes of freedom are largely characterised by their modes of textual representation – the play and the novel. Malouf’s novel is a heteroglossic text and is able to explore the themes relating to freedom through multiple focalisations and intertextuality with Homer’s Iliad. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s Macbeth explores the theme of freedom with asides, soliloquies and the supernatural. However, despite these differences in their representations of freedom there is a convergence for the reader in the implications for narrative meaning. Regardless of their contexts both texts elevate free will over predestination.

Malouf’s novel Ransom reimagines …show more content…
Malouf’s opens his novel by telling us, via third person narration: “the sea has many voices” (Malouf loc 28). Mikhail Bakhtin defined the term heteroglossia and it describes the plurality of social voices in a novel (Bloomsbury). Malouf uses heteroglossia and reinforces it with the structure of his text. The text is divided into five chapters and the first two chapters explicitly shift the focalization between Achilles and Priam. The first chapter is focalized through Achilles and Achilles informs the reader that he knows that he will die prematurely: “That is fixed, inevitable” (Malouf loc 77). Malouf uses Achilles to introduce to the reader the idea of fate and inevitability. Achilles fate is fixed but there is still choice when Achilles acknowledges alternate scenarios for his own death: "it will end here on the beach . . . or out there on the plain” (Malouf loc 77). The second chapter is focalized through Priam. After Hector's death Priam has a dream vision of the messenger god Iris. Rather than being mocked by the gods, Iris tells Priam about how things are and not the way the gods want them: “but the way they have turned out. In a world that is also subject to chance” (Malouf loc 360). There is a warning of danger and the danger lies in individuals taking responsibility for their own actions, becoming self-conscious. Hecuba warns Priam: “Imagine what it would lead to, what would be …show more content…
Shakespeare explores the ambiguity about whether Macbeth is fulfilling his fate, or if his choices lead to his downfall. Miola sides with free choice when he argues: “Shakespeare clearly sides with a Catholic view of action and theology of free will” (Miola Xviii). Miola then refers to Macbeth’s choice between good and evil: “I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (1.7.46-47). Miola further reinforces this interpretation of the pre-eminence of free will when Macbeth recounts the weird sisters prophecy about