LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 8 - The Scouring of the Shire

[davem]

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.

(Firstly, I have to point out that this was written before I read Esty’s excellent (as usual) introduction, so I’m duplicating odd points she’s made. As Sam said: ‘May I be forgiven!’ )
I think what’s interesting is that what happens to the Shire & Isengard is seen as the consequence of ‘modernisation’, of technology - this is what technology produces - thugs (‘ruffians’) ruling the roost, beautiful old things swept away & replaced by ugly, polluting, ‘machinery’. In short, technology is bad & ‘Men’ (‘Hobbits’) must be rescued from it. The problem, though, is that it seems that the alternatives are either

rows of new mean houses along each side of the road, they saw the new mill in all its frowning and dirty ugliness: a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking outflow. All along the Bywater Road every tree had been felled.

or the bucolic idyll symbolised by the healed Shire with its Mallorn centrepiece. Of course Hobbits are no more if those are the only options. Anyway, the travelllers have returned home, & as its not as it should be, they are going to put it right. There’s no sense that there may be some good things worth retaining, or salvaging, from the industrial revolution that has swept the Shire - it is all BAD & must be gotten rid of.

Of course, the question arises as to why the Hobbits of the Shire allowed it all to happen, did nothing when the Party Tree was cut down, Bagshot Row was turned into a quarry, the Old Mill was demolished & the Grange & the sycamores (to be seen in Tolkien’s painitng of Hobbiton across the Water in TH
http://galeria.tolkienianos.com/deta...660d00d1189ec6 - the Grange is the square building with the inner courtyard on the left side of the road, the sycamores the trees with the pink blossoms beside them). Maybe it happened too gradually, bit by bit. Maybe they needed to be roused by others to whom the whole thing would come as a sudden overwhelming blow. If Gandalf was right about this being ‘what they were trained for’ then it seems that their experiences in the Wide World were just as much about preparing them for what they would face at home as they were about saving the world form Sauron. Certainly, some of the Hobbits had ‘gone over’ to the other side. It seems that their fate was to be simply overruled & put back in their place, made to conform. Ironically, perhaps it would have been those very ‘traitorous’ Hobbits who would have enabled the Shire & its inhabitants to avoid their future isolation & its entry into the world. The desire of the majority of the Hobbits to have things the way the had always been (cf Denethor’s desire to have things as they had been ‘in all the days of his life, & in the days of his longfathers before him’) may have been the very thing that ensured their disappearance.

In a sense, & oddly perhaps, this is the most ‘old fashioned’ section of the book - both in style & politically - even the use of the term ‘ruffians’ smacks of upper/middle class sneering contempt for the ‘lower orders’ - which is not to say that the ‘ruffians’ aren’t deserving of such an attitude. One thing that does stand out is that none of the ‘ruffians’ have names - apart from Bill Ferny.

I think its obvious that SoS is not an allegory of the situation after WWII - the world the returning Hobbits find - with rationing, ugly cheap housing, etc - is similar (as Shippey has indicated) to post-war Britain*, but the response to it is pure wishfulfilling fantasy on Tolkien’s part. It didn’t happen - much as he may have wanted it to. For me, it is this chapter where we get our clearest glimpse of the author’s ‘biases’ & see most clearly his political philosophy/ideological stance. Perhaps in one sense we are not seeing the Merry, Pippin Sam & Frodo we’ve come to know & love in this chapter, but the TCBS bringing a winnowing sword to clear the ‘ruffians’ out of England.

I did wonder whether the events which took place in the Shire would have happened if the Hobbits had not left to undertake the Ring Quest - would the Shire have gone that way anyway? Would Frodo, Merry, Pippin & Sam have succumbed in the way all the rest did? Was it necessary that they be ‘removed’ from the Shire so that some Hobbits could be ‘tempered’ in the fire, returning stronger & beter able to return as ‘saviours’? Certainly Sam, Merry & Pippin take control of the situation, begin to organise the resistance & order the battle.

Something else we see in this chapter is the violence Hobbits are capable of - Frodo even has to struggle to prevent them killing unarmed prisoners at one point. These are not the peaceful, harmless stay at homes, the charming, absurd Boffins, Bolgers & Bracegirdles we’ve come to know & love. Put them into the right circumstances & they are as capable of cruelty & viciousness as much as any other race in Middle-earth. Some, like Ted Sandyman, even go over to the other side - betray their people & culture. The Shire is not what we thought it was. Things have come to the surface that may have been hidden, but were probably always there. In this chapter we, & the Hobbits themselves, must confront the truth about who they really are.

Of course, the destruction of the Shire, after all Frodo’s struggles, only adds to his sense of failure & hopelessness. In the end, no matter how much one gives of onself, whatever sacrifices one makes to fight it, evil continues on - life is a succession of ‘defeats & fruitless victories’ as Elrond put it.

Its interesting that, in the end, Saruman awaits them at Bag End. Saruman, with his mind of metal & wheels, stands at the heart of things, is the source of the ugliness & destruction that has spread out across the Shire. Its been said that his words are what finally put paid to Frodo’s hopes of recovery:

Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.'

I wonder. I think that by this point Frodo knows very well what his fate will be. Clearly he is tired. He offers forgiveness to Saruman & compassion to Wormtongue, but it is rejected. I can’t help feeling that the state of the Shire on his return, was the final devastating blow to Frodo - firstly, he had ‘failed’ (in his own mind at least) to destroy the Ring, secondly, he had ‘failed’ to save Gollum, finally, he had ‘failed’ to save the Shire (he says as much to Sam before his departure: ‘ I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.’ We’ll deal with that next chapter, but it seems significant that those words express his feelings that he had taken on himself the ‘saving’ of the Shire. He says he tried to save it, & that it has been saved - the implication being that it was saved by others, almost in his despite, but certainly without his playing any part in its ‘saving’.). He took on too great responsibilities, felt he had obligations that he had to live up to, & so in his own mind he had failed in everything he set out to do. ‘Saving’ the Shire (& saving Gollum) were as much beyond his capabilities as destroying the Ring was, but he still felt, irrationally, that he had let everyone down. The almost insignificant part he plays in the final version of the story (as opposed to the earlier versions, where he is the hero) is perhaps as much down to these feelings of inadequacy & incapability of getting anything right. He perhaps feels by this point that whatever he does will go wrong.

Saruman has become a pathetic figure, fallen from the heights of the Ainulindale to a wandering beggar who will die by the hand of his equally pathetic ‘slave’. To see him behaving like a petulant brat is shocking when we remember what he had been. Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond, all had deferred to him; he was head of the White Council. Even after his ‘fall’ into evil he had commanded armies. He had the rulership of Middle-earth within his grasp. At the end he is reduced to trying to murder a Hobbit, after trashing his home out of spite. The way he ends, throat cut, his body shrivelling to nothing, his spirit blown away by the wind, is perhaps the lowest fall, the most tragic end, of any being in Middle-earth. Yes, both Melkor & Sauron were defeated, but they ended as a result of battle or divine intervention. Saruman’s end was pathetic, sordid, ugly & disgusting. Yet he chose every step he took. His pride lead him to reject every offer of redemption, even lead him to believe he was still great, still a power, still worthy of awe & respect. His end raises interesting questions:

To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

What is the ‘mist’? His Fea? Its difficult to imagine what else it could be - yet if it is that, what could it mean that it disolves into nothing? Could Saruman’s fate be worse than that of Morgoth & Sauron - could it really be that he goes neither to Mandos nor to the Void, but simply ceases, becomes nothing at all?

‘Sharkey’ as Saruman’s nickname is interesting, as originally it was to have been the name of the chief ruffian - not Saruman, but an ’half-Orc’. A ‘shark’ in common parlance means ‘A swindler; a pilferer; an extortionate dealer; landlord or the like.’ (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable). It seems likely that the ‘derivation’ Tolkien gives (‘It was probably Orkish in origin: sharku, 'old man'’.) may have been invented to account for the chief ruffian being called Sharkey & turning out to be Saruman - once Tolkien had discovered ‘what really happened’. It would be interesting if that was the case, in showing how Tolkien developed his languages.

Reading the early drafts & comparing them with the final version almost encapsulates Frodo’s story. In an early version of the Scouring chapter Frodo is the hero, defeating the leader of the ruffians in single combat. The earlier versions are incredibly fast moving & exciting - more so in some ways than what we have. What’s missing is Frodo’s sadness, grief, confusion & desire to do the right thing - to heal, to forgive, to understand - & encourage the same desire in his fellow Hobbits. Saruman is correct when he says that Frodo has ‘grown’. He has grown to far, too high, for most of his fellow Hobbits - one reason, perhaps, that he will fade into the background so quickly & easily. Its not simply that affairs in ‘forn parts’ don’t interest them, its that he is now beyond them, morally & spiritually. He, more than anyone else in Middle-earth, has looked into the Abyss & realised that he is looking into himself. Its a realisation that cannot be communicated to others, so it isolates him. There is no going back.

*Its also been pointed out that the memorial set up to those who fell in the Battle of Bywater: ‘The fallen hobbits were laid together in a grave on the hill-side, where later a great stone was set up with a garden about it.’ is very similar to the Cenotaphs & Memorial Gardens to commemorate the Fallen of both World Wars.