davem,
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Whether this is deliberate on Tolkien's part is the question - maybe it came through unconsciously ...
To me all this is part of a deep undercurrent to the Legendarium - I'm just not sure that in the case of Shelob (as opposed to Lembas, for instance, which I think is a deliberate reference to the Host) that its intentional, or even conscious on Tolkien's part. I suspect that he just wanted something really terrifying, & being stuck in a pitch black tunnel with a giant spider is pretty terrifying.
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Well, here we are back on some unresolved Canonicity issues, I think. Just what constitutes evidence for authorial 'intentionality'. What is authorial intentionality? Must it always be conscious and deliberate? What kinds of things
in the text would persuade you that Shelob is supposed to represent one of these ancient wicked female figures? or archetypes? Is it just happenstance that the gender attribute given to this terror is female? And happenstance that the terror is given such intense physical traits of appetite?
(Aside: Doesn't Carpenter tell a story of Tolkien being bitten by a tarantula while a child i South Africa?)
Would you need to see a long line of literary references to decay, rot, corruption and how they are linked to females? Medieval literature fairly reeks with such descriptions and attributes. A initial line about Shelob capitalises 'she':
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But other potencies there are in Middle-earth, powers of night, and they are old and strong. And She tht walked int he darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back int he deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not haunt her now.
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And is it just happenstance that Shelob is given disgusting details of parturition?
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and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, ...But her lust was not his lust. Little she knew of or caref for towers, or rings, or aything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her.
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Does Tolkien ever use 'lust' in any other context in LotR?
Fordim,
Well, there certainly is a contrast between Shelob and Galadriel in terms of who gives in to her appetite and who does not, who luxuriates in it and who is so distanced from her mate that he stays behind when she sails West.
In terms of your opposition between consuming and controlling, where would you put a figure like Goldberry, who controls the weather but who certainly sustains and supports others? Or are you suggesting that this consuming and controlling are merely flips sides (ying/yang) of those who lack self-control?