Oh, my. I…um… I’ll just dive in. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Having a sex life and being a sex object are, of course, not the same thing at all. One can only be a sex object in the eyes of those who refuse to see one on other terms. This does not seem very applicable to Arwen; I think Tolkien’s conception of her is a rather different one. It is true that she seems like a prize at the end of RotK, especially since we don’t know her very well. I would argue, however, that to the extent that she does fill that role, she’s not a sexual prize, but a social one. When the hero becomes king, he gets to take to him a noble elven wife who will purify his blood and improve his right to rule over Middle-earth. Certainly. And we’ve hardly met her, so this is just about all we can see at the moment.
But this is also a love match, and surely Tolkien went to the trouble of writing the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen for the very purpose of making that clear to us. She’s not (as she might seem to have been) simply a gift of goodwill from Elrond to Aragorn; on the contrary she exercises (and here’s some trendy postmodern feminist vocabulary for you) agency. As Lush points out, she
chooses to marry Aragorn, and to make all the sacrifices that she makes for him, because she’s in love and it seems best to her (and not, you’ll notice, because she’s being pushed to by any kind of social construct, or even by Aragorn himself). We even see her at the moment of her choice and understand the forces between which she’s torn. An object? Nah, Arwen’s a person. And she certainly goes through as much suffering to get Aragorn as he does for her.
What kind of feminism is this that only allows you those two views of women, both negative? I’ve never heard anything like it!
As for her comments at Aragorn’s death, bombur, the quote in English is
Quote:
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not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to men, it is bitter to receive.
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I call this wisdom. She’s not, in my view, suddenly whining about her mortality, but using the perspective it gives her as a source of compassion for the wicked Numenoreans. How many people are reevaluating their judgement of others at a time like this?
--Belin Ibaimendi
[ September 15, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]