Frodo at Sammath Naur

[Carrûn]

From the Return of the King.

The light sprang up again, and there on the brink of the chasm, at the very Crack of Doom, stood Frodo, black against the glare, tense, erect, but still as if he had been turned to stone.

"Master!" cried Sam.

Then Frodo stirred and spoke with a clear void, indeed with a voice clearer and more powerful than Sam had ever heard him use, and it rose above the throb and turmoil of Mount Doom, ringing in the roof and walls.

"I have come," he said. "But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!"

I never really thought to much about this scene the first several times I read it - my intial reaction was more of a 'wow' along with a 'I guess that could almost be expected.' Then the other day I read the following out of Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien - Author of the Century. He analyzes the scene from pages 139-142 as part of Concepts of Evil in LOTR, but this particular section caught my attention the most:

In this place, "the heart of the realm of Sauron...all other powers were here subdued.' At that moment, standing on the very edge of the Crack of Doom, Frodo gives up. His words are: "I have come...But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine."

With that he puts it on for the sixth and final time. It is a vital question to know whether Frodo does this because he has been made to, or whether he has sucumbed to inner temptation. What he says suggests the latter, for he appears to be claiming responsibility very firmly: "I will not...the Ring is mine." Against that, there has been the increasing sense of reaching a centre of power, where all other powers are "subdued." If that is the case, Frodo could no more help himself than if he had been swept away by a river, or buried in a landslide. It is also interesting that Frodo does not say, "I choose not to do," but "I do not choose to do." Maybe (and Tolkien was a professor of language) the choice of words is absolutely accurate. Frodo does not choose; the choice is made for him.

He then goes on a bit about how this relates to the 'Boethian' and 'Manichean' views of evil.

I was curious as to what some of your opinions where on this scene - how much of the decision is Frodo's and how much of it is made up for him but external forces? Also, is Shippey accurate in his analysis or should is he grasping.

Your thoughts?

[ January 09, 2003: Message edited by: Carrûn ]