Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[Child of the 7th Age]

Dininziniel,

This is an interesting thread but I think you've raised two related issues rather than simply one.

First, there is the general theme of "loss versus joy" in Tolkien's writing. You pose the question in these terms:

The question is: what does Tolkien tell us in his various stories, essays, and letters about the loss incurred through great and profound struggles--even when light triumphs over darkness. Is it possible to have the opposite outcome where "all is light and full of joy"?

Tolkien clearly thought there could be no joy that was pure and unblemished. At least three influences helped mold this view:

• Tolkien's personal experience as a child and young adult, namely the loss of both his parents, and his guardian's subsequent order to separate from Edith.
• His basic Catholic belief that the world is inherently flawed and there can be no real victory until the end of time
• The influence of the Northern epics and legends that were equally or even more somber in tone than his own writing

All of these influenced Tolkien's portrayal of loss, which is a consistent theme throughout his writing. Which of these had the greatest impact? We can only guess, but I would think his serious difficulties in childhood had a great deal to do with how he came to feel underneath. Perhaps the other two gave intellectual expression to what lay below.

Your second question centers on Frodo and the extent to which he personally suffered loss. I find myself in a strange position here. On the one hand, no one could possibly argue that Frodo was not profoundly affected by the Ring. What happened to him left a lasting mark, and Davem has summed up this idea very well.

Yet, I wonder whether Davem hasn't portrayed Frodo in too stark terms? He and I have had a similar discussion before on suffering, so I don't think he'll be too surprised at what I'm going to say.

First, here is what Davem wrote:

The state of despair he had entered into by the end of the story is one which probably none of us can truly understand. He had no hope - neither in life, or in death. There was no light & joy here in this world - not for Frodo, & one wonders if there was for Tolkien.

I would not say this, and I am not sure Tolkien would either.....Frodo being in a state of despair so extreme that he has no hope in life or death. That is further than I am willing to go. When I read Davem's post, I had a vivid image of the poem "Sea-Bell" in my head. There is no doubt that the nightmare Tolkien depicts in Sea-Bell was part of Frodo's experience when he returned to the Shire. But it was, in my estimation, only one part. There was more going on than that. Frodo acted as deputy mayor, and managed to live with Sam and his family.

For many years, I acted as a grief support counselor and briefly as a crisis counselor. Grief is very strange. One moment it can totally overwhelm you, and the next you manage to stagger on and go through the motions of living. I imagine Frodo's experience was similar to that: very, very bad times alternating with times where he felt empty and sad but was able to get through the day. This is how Tolkien depicts Frodo's periodic "episodes".

Strangely enough, one of the dominant expressions of ongoing grief and depression is not overt despair and reckless action but complete exhaustion and immobility. You feel as if you can't take another step forward. Because of this, it is difficult to make decisions or act in a concerted way. The fact that Frodo decided to go West in hope of finding help tells me that, as sick as he was, there was enough left inside him to try and seek a better path.

I do not see Frodo as totally devoid of hope. He still had feelings for Sam and the Shire. Because of this, Frodo was capable of recognizing that on a certain level the Shire had been saved and could even tell this to his friends. What he wasn't capable of doing was taking an active role in that saved Shire, or fitting in again.

Near the end of the book, we see the shores of Tol Eressea through Frodo's eyes:

Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. and then it seemed to him that is in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld a white shores and beyond thema far green country under a swift sunrise.

This verbal portrait suggests a tiny glimmer of light underneath all Frodo's grief and guilt. When a person is totally immersed in despair, they are incapable of appreciating either goodness or beauty. The fact that Frodo could look on those shores and sense their underlying purity suggests that something in him was still capable of responding to goodness.

This really brings us back to Din's initial post, how Tolkien saw joy and loss as intertwined. The feeling at the end of LotR is not utter despair but rather bittersweet loss. As hurt as Frodo was, I think that this was even true for him.


Frodo was hurt, terribly hurt, but I do not see it as a hurt without hope. We don't know what happens to Frodo in the end, perhaps because Tolkien himself did not know. Perhaps he found healing in this world, and perhaps he did not. But the way Frodo is depicted in the final chapter at least suggests to me that a tiny measure of hope was there and healing was still possible.

[symestreem]

To borrow a quote from the movie,

How do you go back?

What did Frodo have left, really? He gave up his normal life in the Shire for a life of war and misery to save the world; then when he accomplishes his task, this life too is gone? What did he have left? Sure, he had Sam and his family. I think Frodo is mourning his past lives- both of them, because in his "first" life, before the Ring, he was happy; and in his "second" life, the Quest, he had a purpose, something to hold on to. To borrow another quote:

What are we holding onto?

Frodo's life was empty; he had superficial things, and a few friends. But even Sam could not understand what he had gone through; perhaps Elrond, Gandalf or Galadriel could have, but they weren't there. After going through what Frodo went through, everything else seems sort of unimportant. Like in the story of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, when the Knights who found the Grail were taken to heaven because they had nothing else to do. What did Frodo have to live for? Even when he had the Ring, there was more light in his world because he was battling it, and that was an act of good. But now it's just sort of... grey...
Also, remember that this took place upon the anniversary of Frodo's poisoning by Shelob. Perhaps he didn't always feel this way, just when memories came rushing in...

When the memory of the fear and darkness troubles you...

I

[davem]

Child, ok, maybe I did go a bit too far - but then I wonder. If we accept the 'conceit' behind LotR - it was written by the Hobbits involved - then who exactly wrote the account of Frodo's arrival at the Undying Lands? Sam did. Is Sam constructing a 'happy ending' for Frodo's story - perhaps based on Frodo's own account of his dream in Tom Bombadil's house. We can't know if Tolkien intended us to take the last scene as an actual event in the story. For me the scene gains in poignancy if it is Sam's own invention, his own hope for Frodo's recovery. Hope poignant as grief, but hope without guarantees. The Sea Bell seems a truer reflection of Frodo's state at the end.

I still feel that Tolkien is saying something about the effect of extreme trauma - though I bow to your experience, Child. He seems to be saying that the worst part is not what it 'gives' you but rather what it takes from you. Its not that you end up with an overwhelming weight of grief, pain (physical & emotional) & terrible memories. Its that it takes something. After that kind of trauma something is gone, which can never be regained. There is a hole, a void, which rather than healing over, simply grows. I think this is what happened to Frodo. A void had been opened up with the loss of the Ring, which grew over time till it swallowed up everything he had left - or would have if he'd stayed. Its like he was watching everything he loved & cared about, his personality, his 'self' being slowly but inexorably sucked into that abyss.

Again, after Sam watches the Ship sail out of the Havens we know nothing of what really happened to Frodo or the others on that Ship, so the hope it portrays is in question - some readers will choose to accept it as a fact, others as Sam's hope for his friend. I can't help thinking that was deliberate on Tolkien's part.

[Dininziliel]

Quickly, addressing hope vs. despair and what happened to Frodo after departing ME—Letter # 154:

. . . the mythical idea underlying is that for mortals, since their ‘kind’ cannot be changed forever, this is strictly only a temporary reward: a healing and redress of suffering. They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will ‘die’—of free will, and leave the world.”

Frodo, Bilbo, Sam (and Gimli?) would heal, find peace, and then willingly leave the world. This would give hope (for those who choose good), and is perhaps what Tolkien wants us to understand about the nature of our (human) existence in this world. I know there are better Tolkien citations, but that’s the one I found first!

Now, on the original question--

I think what I was really asking was if Frodo’s experience is the natural and inescapable outcome of having carried & then lost the Ring—is the personal, inner struggle with evil & good always going to end in a living void on earth even if good wins out? This has turned out to be a slippery wicket as it seems to touch on many things yet nothing all at once. Child helped greatly by seeing two parts to this:

First, there is the general theme of "loss versus joy" in Tolkien's writing. Tolkien clearly thought there could be no joy that was pure and unblemished.

Child then listed three reasons for this, but this is the most immediately relevant one to my mind:

His basic Catholic belief that the world is inherently flawed and there can be no real victory until the end of time.

Child then posited the second part:

. . . the second question centers on Frodo and the extent to which he personally suffered loss.

Being thus refreshed by the clarity of this framework I went looking for Tolkien’s words on the matter. Since I’m reading Letters of . . . from start to finish I thought I would check my notes & annotations to see what could be found. Gosh, it sure did take awhile, but the effort was rewarded in a letter I haven’t gotten to yet.
Letter #181:

The view, in the terms of my story, is that though every event or situation has (at least) two aspects: the history and development of the individual (it is something out of which he can get good, ultimate good, for himself, or fail to do so), and the history of the world (which depends on his action for its own sake)—still there are abnormal situations in which one may be placed. ‘Sacrificial’ situations, I should call them: sc. Positions in which the ‘good’ of the world depends on the behaviour of an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal . . . he is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his ‘will’: that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under the duress.

(This same letter also contains an answer to Firefoot’s question:

How can anyone come away unmarked or unaffected from a war or other bitter struggle?

Tolkien/Letter #181:

. . . I think that ‘victors’ never can enjoy ‘victory’—not in the terms that they envisaged; and in so far as they fought for something to be enjoyed by themselves (whether acquisition or mere preservation) the less satisfactory will ‘victory’ seem.

It would be impossible not to want a personal outcome to any struggle.)

So, there are two things operating simultaneously—(1) individual self, and (2) self in a flawed (Tolkien would say “fallen”) world. My orientation to LotR, and now most of Tolkien’s work as I perceive it, is its reflection of and instructive application regarding the world within me and the world outside me. I was coming at this with the presumptive notion that we all take up the Ring at some point and have the choice of wither it (and we) shall go. I wanted to know if, in this fallen world, there is a possibility for me, or anyone, to carry the Ring to Doom, cast it in, and then go home in joy and peace. Or am I (and anyone else) doomed to Frodo’s experience as Davem so chillingly described:

There is a hole, a void, which rather than healing over, simply grows . . . which grew over time till it swallowed up everything he had left - or would have if he'd stayed . . .

According to what Tolkien said in letter #181, this latter outcome is the more likely one as it would be beyond all endurance for me (and anyone else).

(I am also recalling Tolkien’s many statements regarding the “long defeat” in the battle w/evil until the final ending of the world, but cannot recall the source.)

The immediate, natural next question is: Jeepers! Why bother? Perhaps the answer to this is the answer to Davem’s question:

What does the Ring not come to symbolise/contain for Frodo? What is not destroyed along with it?

Last, part of the original question was: What can be found in Tolkien’s work—LotR, Letters of . . . , HoME, UT’s, Silmarillion. etc. [to further support or refute the positions presented so far?]

[davem]

What we don't (or I don't) know is whether Frodo would have willingly made the sacrifice he did, if he had known the ultimate outcome. Journeying to the Undying Lands would not, at the beginning, have been enough to persuade Frodo to undertake the task. If Gandalf had told him 'you'll lose everything, including yourself, everything you love, & your possibly your sanity, but you'll save the Shire & get to go into the West & live with the Elves for a while before you die', I can't see Frodo thinking 'Whoo, yeah! I'll have some of that! Where do I sign up?'

But at some point before the end, had he decided the price was worth worth paying, & was the journey up the Mountain done in full concious awareness of what he was doing - before he broke & surrendered? If not, then what kind of God or fate could force him into that position of loss - not a loving one, or possibly one who 'loved the world', but not Frodo himself very much.

Or perhaps it was only afterward, when it was all over, that he could say, 'OK, I was forced into it, I have had everything that matters to me snatched away, & I'm left with this hole in me which is going to swallow me up, but I can now see it was worth it'

Or maybe, in the end, he just had to accept that that is just 'the way things are in the world' - which for a short line is a horrible summation of our position. Thinking about that, its one of the most devastating ideas I've ever come across - Frodo goes through Hell, is destroyed by it, & in the end he says - 'That's just the way life is'. This is either despair on an unimaginable level, or its a final, desperate attempt to impose meaning on horror. Frodo is asked to do too much, & he isn't told what he is being required to sacrifice. This says something about the world & our place in it that I find deeply disturbing.

[Firefoot]

This is either despair on an unimaginable level, or its a final, desperate attempt to impose meaning on horror.

I do not agree with either of these two points. Like Child, I believe that Frodo had some hope, hope of peace and healing. Despair is only for those who have no hope. On the same lines, if Frodo had hope, then there would not be that horror, because Frodo did not utterly lose everything because he had hope.

Frodo could not have known what he would go through when he volunteered to take the Ring in Rivendell. He might have had some sketchy idea, but he still believed that he would be able to go home and live in the Shire in peace when it was all over. Had he known what he would go through, perhaps he would be in somewhat of the same situation as Merry and Pippin as Gandalf describes for Elrond:

It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared and be shamed and unhappy.

Not exactly the same, but rather than 'danger' perhaps 'sacrifice'. It still doesn't go just right, but generally makes my point.

But the point is that even though Frodo did not realize it at first, he changed; realized the sacrifice that he would have to pay for the world to be saved. I believe he understood this, at least to a small point, when they realized there would not be enough food for them to get back. There could be no going back. Frodo and Sam had plenty of options to turn back, but they didn't, even realizing full well that if they didn't, they wouldn't go back. There came a point when they figured their task was to accomplish the Quest and die. But even in this, I believe Frodo had hope - not for himself, but for the whole of Middle-earth: that if he could cast the Ring away then the world would be saved. He accepted his task just the same when he was in Mordor as he did in Rivendell.

Or perhaps it was only afterward, when it was all over, that he could say, 'OK, I was forced into it, I have had everything that matters to me snatched away, & I'm left with this hole in me which is going to swallow me up, but I can now see it was worth it'

Frodo wasn't forced into it though. He was willing to make the sacrifice. At the end he suffered devastating loss and pain, but he did see that it had been worth it.

"But," said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, " I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done."
"So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that otherrs may keep them.

It seems that Frodo was very accepting of his loss, and I believe that this is for two reasons: that he was able to see the Shire and Sam safe and in peace, and because he had hope that there still might be peace and healing for himself in some way.

[Dininziliel]

"What if they'd known what would happen" type questions are ultimately only an intellectual exercise that lead to Nietzschian voids if one does not pull out in time! At any rate, if it were possible to know the future, then we'd be in another reality and none of the premises of LotR would work.

Regarding the horror of going through hell to save the world/others only to reap the void . . .

Tolkien's tales are very much concerned with the Fall--which I characterize as the [vain] attempt to put personal self above God/Eru, nature, others. What dooms the Elves if not their attempt to stop time & tide (what Tolkien calls "embalming")? What was the original Fall if not Melkor trying to be Sinatra and do things his way? (Hmmm, wonder where that came from!)

I think in LotR and The Silmarillion we see where that sense of personal self leads--fear & loss. Two examples are: (1) fear of death, which was intended as a blessed gift from the "long defeat" and all forms of weariness, and, ironically, (2) inevitable loss of self. (Two examples that come readily to mind are Ar-Pharazon & Gollum, respectively.) Perhaps by the time Frodo returned to the Shire his "void" was the suspension between utter loss of self and whatever it was that the Ring did not take, as Davem so insightfully asked. Frodo was both in and out of light/darkness = "grey."

The horror comes from not trusting Eru's will and Love. Look at the results starting from the Valar (calling for the Elves to return to Valinor setting off a chain of events in The Silmarillion) to Frodo, who innocently (?) & unselfishly took on the Ring and was inevitably ensnared by it. (I can't recall now whose tag line this was, but it says it all perfectly--"Frodo could not live with having failed at an impossible task.")

We need not fear if we have sufficient faith in Eru's will; what Tolkien does so well is to show us how to walk through this "fallen" world where such faith is so hard to come by. No matter how complete the darkness seems, there is always light (darkness cannot exist without it!), and the most wonderful thing is that even the smallest amount of light can be enough--thus, there is always hope! Why? Because that's the way Eru made it be. The real world is in the invisible; this is inherent in the stories, and stated by their author.