Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55
I wonder why this isn't labelled as "the first sorrow of Turin". Was he then too young to understand the full impact of Lalaith's death?
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Well, if one looks at what *is* labelled the First Sorrow of Túrin, we see that it is his separation from his mother. From its location in the story, this is Túrin's first major sorrow *after* Morgoth cursed Húrin and his family. I might be the only one reading it this way, but it seems to me an implicit possibility that the author* of the Narn sees this as the first effect of the Curse in Túrin's life.
The reason I distinguish in my footnote between the author and Tolkien is because this reading seems too... unlikely. There is, first of all, the logical fallacy of
post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after something, therefore because of it). More importantly, though, it doesn't seem congruent to me with Tolkien's paradoxically balanced treatment of fate and free will, which comes to the fore ESPECIALLY in the Narn.
This leads me to one of two possibilities:
1.) "Dírhavel" is right to lay this sorrow at the foot of the Curse, and therefore his editorialising of this as "the first of the sorrows of Túrin." Thus, this is NOT a case of
post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but Tolkien's way of suggesting that this isn't only incidentally after the Curse, but in fact proceeds from the Curse.
2.) Tolkien is *not* making the Curse the cause of the sorrow, but is using Dírhavel to suggest that it *is* in order to further the paradox-balance in the story between Free Will and Fate.
If we go with the second reading (towards which I lean), we may still have to account for why this is the
first sorrow of Túrin--we could always call it Dírhavel's editorializing and then forget about it, but that seems too easy and is unsporting anyway. There are, after all, legitimate sorrows--major sorrows--in Túrin's life so far: the aforementioned early death of Lalaith and the the loss of Húrin being foremost, and the loss of his father very closely parallels the actual case of the loss of his mother.
The only thing I can come up with about this is that the separation from Morwen was unnatural in a way that the separation from Lalaith (via death) and Húrin (via imprisonment) is not, and I think this holds some water. After all, the sickness that killed Lalaith was *not* primarily directed at her or any one individual (shades of
Urwen notwithstanding) and although Húrin's imprisonment IS the result of a directed evil on Morgoth's part, one sort of EXPECTS soldiers to die or be imprisoned in war.
One does NOT expect mothers to send their sons away alone, and virtually orphaned... which brings me to a conclusion that rather neatly parallels my last post on this thread: that Túrin's sorrows are not (
contra my Dírhavel editorial theory) the result of Morgoth's Curse, but the result of
Morwen's choice--and, to continue on that thread of reasoning, perhaps the reason Morwen gets a bad rap is because we empathize with Túrin and feel the sorrow of his loss with him, wondering what mother would do that to her son.
And a thought that I'm having through all this, though I have nothing to make of it, is the fact that Tolkien lost his father and then his mother and was fostered "in Doriath."
*Who, incidentally, may not reflect Tolkien's own view of the matter.