Quote:
Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
Yeah. I agree with this. But I don't buy "split personality"; I think that all the Smeagol that had remained inside the creature got snuffed out when Sam chose his words badly at the moment he almost repented.
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And of course, it was Smeagol himself who did the 'snuffing'. He chose to respond the way he did to Sam's words. Sam , effectively, passed him a loaded gun & Smeagol chose to put it to his own head & pull the trigger. One could argue that if Sam hadn't given him the 'gun' he wouldn't have killed himself, but one can't argue that Sam pulled the trigger himself.
But ... Gollum is Smeagol & vice versa. They are not two different beings in the same body, he is a single being who makes a moral choice. We are dealing here with Smeagol making a final choice that he doesn't care anymore - Smeagol is Gollum with the remnants of a conscience, Gollum is Smeagol having decided that conscience is going to get him nowhere - he casts it aside with less regret than Sam later casts away his pans.
We have here not so much a 'split personality' as an individual who makes a moral choice to finally & completely become a monster - of course, by that time its actually easier to take that last little step than to turn around & trek all the way back, but the point is all along his long road Smeagol has been in control of his choices. Smeagol/Gollum is no more a 'split personailty' in the psychological sense than any of us who have had that inner argument with ourselves over whether or not to take the last cake or leave it for the missus, whether or not to leave our details when we shunt that parked car when there's no witnesses about or to use the Bart Simpson Get out of jail free' card - 'It was like that when I got here'. Of course, the first few times we argue with ourselves over whether or not we should do it, but the more often we choose the former & give in the easier it becomes. That's simply about having a conscience & choosing to act in accordance with it or ignoring it or more usually constructing complex justifications ('the cake would have gone off/they wouldn't mind me having it', 'Its only a small scratch & hardly worth making a fuss over - in fact, anyone who would make a fuss over such a small scratch is such a petty minded jerk that they're not worth the hassle I'd have to go through', 'That vase was an accident waiting to happen - balanced so precariously on that little table....'). As I said, every step down that road gets easier to make, & turning around & going back gets harder & harder, but I think that's the kind of person Tolkien is showing us in Smeagol, rather than an individual suffering from a mental disorder. Smeagol/Gollum is not mentally ill, but morally corrupt - as a result of his own choices.
Of course, that's not to say that his failure to repent isn't tragic - it is (didn't Tolkien say he wept?) - but by that point it was pretty much inevitable. One feels that if Sam had woken up & simply said 'Good morning' Smeagol would have taken it the wrong way. The idea that at that point, so close to getting his hands on his Precious, anything was going to stop him, is I think mistaken. He still, I believe, intended to lead them to Shelob & take his Precious back, but in what would prove to be the last flare of conscience & empathy in him (before he killed it) he fleetingly considered the consequences of that act.... Sam's words simply enabled Smeagol to make the choice he really wanted to make all along. He could proceed with his plan, but blame Sam for 'forcing him into it'