[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

I think you are asking something so basic, something so fundamental to being human, that it simply can't be contained in the character of Frodo alone, or on the pages of this thread.

The basic reality is this: there are no assurances in this life. Tolkien recognized that in his own childhood, and he wove that truth into the characters he created. Frodo is the most obvious example of someone who did the right thing, yet had to pay the consequences. Yet there are other characters in the book whose lives were tinged with untold sadness and loss: Arwen, Elrond, the Ents, and even poor Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, to name but a few. Sometimes, like Frodo or Arwen, we make a conscious decision to do what is right, knowing that stance will require us to sacrifice. More often, we are like Elrond or Lobelia, trying to muddle through things until something hits us in the stomach--something so massive that we know we'll never truly be ourselves again.

You might laugh at the inclusion of Lobelia's name in the list, but stop and think about it. She was a mother who saw her son murdered and probably cannibalised. With all her small sins and shortcomings, did she (or her son) really "deserve" such a fate. As a mother myself, I think it is clear that she did not.

I'm in my mid-fifties which is older than most people on this thread or site. As I've gone through life, one of the things that's struck me is how few people come to middle-age without being touched by a major tragedy in some way. As I talk to friends and neighbors, I compile a list of truly heartbreaking things, families touched by all the shadows and griefs of the universe, things that just shouldn't happen to good and decent folk.

Tolkien became an expert in such things at a very young age: losing both his mother and father, having to contend with the anti-Catholic prejudice that was rampant among his relatives, and enduring the horrors of trench warfare including the loss of close friends. The young man had a choice. He could have become embittered and unproductive, and turned his back on the faith his mother gave him. Like so many others of his generation, he could have embraced alienation and made cynicism his hallmark. But he didn't do that.

Instead, he kept plugging along, combatting the depression, which evidently did come in bouts, by finding meaning in friends and family, religious faith, and the myths he loved so much. When I read LotR, the impression I come away with is of sadness, loss, and sacrifice, but with one important difference. I sense that there is something good and decent that lies at the core of Middle-earth and also at the core of life so that perhaps Frodo's suffering (and ours as well) has some meaning, even if I am too limited to understand it fully. When I set down the book, I do not feel despair, horror or alienation, which is true with many other works I've read, but rather sadness deeply intertwined with joy.

Sadness intertwined with joy..... I think Tolkien has it right. Life is like that. One minute you're laughing, the next you're crying, and sometimes you're doing both at once. This is not to belittle one feeling or the other, merely to say that they're both there, and we simply don't have a lot of control over what hits us in the face. As Gandalf more eloquently said, we can't control what's presented to each of us, we can only try to make the right and decent response. And sometimes that's so hard....

I grieve with Frodo and with those around me who've hit a tough spot in this universe. I grieve for my own losses. Only a blockhead would deny that injustice doesn't exist. I've seen enough of it to know. Yet is that all there is? I just don't think so, and Tolkien's writings resonate with me precisely because he felt the same way.

Read those last words that Tolkien wrote when Frodo first saw the shores of Tol Eressea. Really read them.... the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back , and he beheld white shores and beyond them a green country under a swift sunrise. There is no way that could be Samwise speaking. It sounds nothing like him. It is Frodo and Frodo's visions from the house of Bombadil, and to me it speaks of the possibility of healing. Not the assurance but the possibility, and that's all we can expect in this life.