Cirrus@Austlit

This paper draws on the critical approach implemented by the Partnership Studies Group (PSG, University of Udine), which applies Riane Eisler's partnership model to literary texts and focuses on the values of caring, empathy and creativity, often stereotypically described as 'feminine', in David Malouf's novel Ransom (2009). I will illustrate how in Ransom Malouf talks about men, violence and death while gracefully revealing a more sensitive, sensible and different approach to life, which adds a partnership dimension, tied to a Goddess figure, to Homer's story of war, pride and grief, and goes beyond the epistimological violence of 'dominator' systems. This more equitable mode of living is one of the fundamental tenets of Malouf's work. [Author's abstract]