Quote:
Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
But a more malevolent pleasure must be acknowledged, if I remember aright - cannot seem to find the reference right now: in the self-debate between Smeagol and Gollum, there is the pleasure of relief, on Smeagol's part, that the time is not yet upon him to betray Frodo; but the pleasure Gollum feels in the 'tricksiness' of his plan to bring them to Shelob.
|
I think you hit the nail in the head here by introducing the difference between Smeagol and Gollum.
For it seems to me clear (more or less) that there are two different persons or two sides of one person here - and two different ideas of pleasure at stake. And with those you could say "
Tolkien is saying something about this to his reader".
But it wouldn't be Tolkien if it would be that simple.
Now the antagonism between Smeagol who wants to be loved and cared for and who likes to bind with others and Gollum who rejoices in vengeance, or the suffering of others if they advance his aims - or alternatively fill the void left by losing of the "drug" or help to get it back (one of the few strong interpretations of PJ and his team I kind of like; making Gollum like a heroin-addict is, I think, a good idea), but that kind of leaves your initial examples unanswered.
So how to fit the enjoyment of food?
First of all it is not sexual pleasure Gollun values. Tolkien's universe is very a-sexual of course, but with the kind of hedonism Gollum seems to represent it is worth noting it's not of sexual nature. Although physical pleasure - like being comfortable - isn't a strange idea to him either.
I could see both Smeagol and Gollum to enjoy good food. It's just that their "mutual" history has taught them to enjoy the raw meat instead of stewed rabbit with taters...
One way of seeing it is looking at Gollum as a child I think. The kind of instant gratification -problem all addicts have.
Another way of going at it would be looking at the "quality" of pleasures - going a bit biographical here then - and reading it as a mature person's view of the world where food is the pleasure number one when talking about physical pleasures.
A more profound (and possibly a bit far-reaching) interpretation would be that if you take Gollum as a symbol of (a fallen) humanity you find that beneath Good and Evil - the eating of the apple from the tree - you have only an animal state "beyond good and evil" (as Nietzsche said) which is just the limbo Gollum has slowly entered into- but with his two personalities is still fighting against, from both sides.
And there's a nice twist there: sometimes it feels Gollum is the happiest when just catching fish aka. not when he is doing his evil-plotting or trying to be a goodie.
The longing for paradise is a theme in Catholicism and has been interpreted in many ways... one of the enlightenment ways of looking at it was talking about the "noble savages" who were uncorrupted by "civilization".
Blah... this seems to be kind of associative ramble rather than well thought posting and I'll end here for the time being (and go to sleep).
But there should be ideas to agree and disagree with enough...
