[davem]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

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?

I would tend to speak of 'authorial intentionality' only when it is conscious & deliberate - otherwise we're speaking of what Tolkien called 'the author of the story, by which I do not mean myself'. I wouldn't say that 'Shelob is supposed to represent one of these ancient wicked female figures? or archetypes?' - I wouldn't say those archtypes were 'wicked' - they were the 'dark' face of the Goddess, who was the source of all things to the ancient mind. Yes, in the medieval view that 'negative' view of the feminine was commonplace, but that was due to the 'demonisation' of Eve, & the Christian tendency towards dualism, which misunderstood the Goddess had both dark & light aspects, & split her in two - Virgin Mary & Eve/Mary Magdalen. Perhaps Tolkien's 'worship' of Mary, manifested in Galadriel/Varda, caused the 'Dark Mother' aspect to be split off into Shelob. But I don't think that symbolism was put in there deliberately. Certainly Tolkien idealised women, put them on a pedestal, & probably repressed anything that didn't fit. And repressed contents tend to become twisted & perverted, swallowed up into the 'Shadow'. But I don't think that was in Tolkien's conciousness when he wrote, I don't think he would have recognised it, simply because it had been repressed. I do think though, that even if Lembas had popped into his head as he was writing, he would immediatley have recognised that as a form of the Host, & recognising it, he would have made a concious decision to keep it in.

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':

And couldn't you also provide an equally long list of literary references linking females to birth, nurturing, compassion. The mediaval period was also the time of the Troubadours & Trouvieres, of Courtly Love & the idealisation of the female. Woemn were personified in extreme ways, both bad & good. And so were men - we see men lionised & denigrated in the literature of the time. I think there's a danger in focussing on Ecclesiastical sources, which is mainly where we find the really venomous attacks on woman. Its rarer to find anything of that kind in vernacular literature.

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?

No, probably not, but Shelob is far from the worst villain in the book, or the most monstrous. I think a case can be put for Tolkien, conciously at least, simply trying to create the most extreme sensation of horror & fear in the reader at this point. And she is the only female baddy (unless we count Lobelia). Yes, we have lust, gluttony, cruelty, a whole list of 'sins' walking around in female form, but draw together all the male villains of the book into one figure, & I think you'd have a worse & more monstrous villain. The Male comes off far worse than the female.

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.

I think a case could be made for Galadriel giving in to her appetites - using Nenya to make for herself a realm, where she can halt time, prevent death, rule uncontested - different appetites, but she gives in to them nonetheless.

And can't we have one female bad guy, just so we men don't feel we're completely at fault - its not like we're dealing with the real world

Originally Posted by H-I

But if Galadriel be Crone - i.e. the most proud and most 'mindy' of the three, than all three as one would oppose Shelob - focus and image of Feminine perverted.

No, because the Crone is an ugly, deformed, destructive, cruel, foul, etc, etc 'witch' who eats liitle children all up . And that's because the Crone is not a seperate figure, but an aspect of the Goddess, who is also Maiden & Mother. Its only when you seperate the aspects that you fall into the trap of either seeing it as a male conspiracy to denigrate women, or into presenting the Crone as a wise, kindly old lady. The Crone symbolises death, & its attendant horrors. As Mother she gave life, as Crone she takes it away. All things spring from her womb, & all things, in the end, are swallowed up by her gaping maw. Galadriel & Shelob are perfect symbols of her two faces, & it only becomes a problem if you view them as seperate figures, unconnected to each other. Brigid & Morrighan are the same Goddess. All the positivity which Bethberry finds missing in Shelob is manifest in Galadriel & Arwen & (Goldberry) - whether Tolkien intended that or not.