[Child of the 7th Age]

Narfforc,

I am sorry. You may be less alone than you think. Few people come to the prime of their life without going through some very tough things. In the case of our family, we lost our first born daughter to SIDS. When we checked on her at 2 am, she was fine. When we went back two hours later, she lay silent in her crib. The hext year was very hard for us.

Tolkien seems to have know a lot about sadness. He lost both his father and mother at a young age. He saw his relatives turn upon his mother because she chose a faith different than their own. He went off to a senseless war just out of university and saw the dreams of his closest friends end with their death. Even in his marriage to his beloved Edith, there is evidence of tension and times of difficult adjustment. Everything his biographers have said tells us that he was a person who felt things deeply. He definitely had his ups and downs. He could be moody one moment and joyous the next. He seems to have fought depression at times.

The marvel is that, out of all this, Tolkien still found meaning. That meaning is emblazoned in his writing. If he could speak of despair and hope being akin on the brink, that was because it came from deep within himself. I do think there are times in life when a person's greatest hope is also their greatest despair. Our son was born nine months after the death of his sister. We were grieving for the one and welcoming the other. Just as others have said, Tolkien's characters faced difficult situations, and these situations encompassed both hope and despair. I think Aragorn's quote does not just apply to this particular scene in question, but to the entire book. It is a common theme that runs through Tolkien's writings: the intermingling of the bitter and the sweet.

The destruction of the Ring would mean the end of a great evil: it would also signal the departure of the Elves and much else that was magical from Middle-earth. If Aragorn did the right thing and took up his duty, he might forestall the victory of Sauron but he would virually guarantee his own death and his separation from Arwen. Who can read the plight of the Ents and their response to Saruman and not sense that both hope and despair lay behind their actions: a determination to push back the evil that Isengard represented and a recognition of the fact that their own part in the unfoldidng music of Arda was soon to be over.

To put it bluntly, there is no joy that does not have its down side, at least as long as we dwell in this imperfect world. What gets us through is our ability to see both sides of things. Even in our greatest moment of despair, tiny hope takes root and grows, and, in our time of tragedy and fear, we go on because there is still that distant possibility of hope. Sometimes, hope seems far away and sometimes closer, but Tolkien tells us it is there, along with the despair.

Eomer - I'm afraid I haven't helped your thesis. I don't honestly know how you could quote Tolkien in an essay that argues life is meaningless. You could make a good argument, and quote many other philosphers and writers, but I can't see Tolkien belonging in that group. In any case, great luck with your scholarly endeavors!