LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 9 - The Grey Havens

[Aiwendil]

One small thing that I think ought to be noted in connection with the last chapter is that the removal of the epilogue altered not only the tone of the work's end but also its emphasis - quite radically, I think.

As published, the final lines are of course:

At last they rode over the downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland; and already they were singing again as they went. But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was a yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.

In some of the Book I discussions, we discussed the 'homely house' in LotR - the safe place where the company is received and offered respite. Here we have a short but strong evocation of the same thing, except that this time the house to which Sam comes actually belongs to him. Aragorn is king; the Elves have gone across the sea; but Sam's fate is to become an ordinary person, with a home and a wife and children. And insofar as that is presented as a good and desirable fate, this ending affirms that ordinary Hobbitish (and human) life. The world (this world, the ordinary world) is, after all, good.

Nothing in the epilogue mitigates that, but it does twist the whole sentiment around. This is how Tolkien intended the book to end before being convinced to drop the epilogue:

'March the twenty-fifth!' he said. 'This day seventeen years ago, Rose wife, I didn't think I should ever see thee again. But I kept on hoping.'
'I never hoped at all, Sam,' she said, 'not until that very day; and then suddenly I did. About noon it was, and I felt so glad that I began singing. And mother said: "Quiet, lass! There's ruffians about." And I said: "Let them come! Their time will soon be over. Sam's coming back." And you came.'
'I did,' said Sam. To the most belovedest place in all the world. To my Rose and my garden.'
They went in, and Sam shut the door. But even as he did so, he heard suddenly, deep and unstilled, the sigh and murmur of the Sea upon the shores of Middle-earth.

Again, we have an affirmation of domesticity - but this time it is sharply undercut by the very last sentence. Tolkien originally intended the last line of LotR to speak of the Sea, 'deep and unstilled'. The line calls very vividly to mind Frodo's words to Sam earlier - that he, too, bore the Ring and that he may one day sail West as well. The message is clear - though Sam clearly is content in the Shire with his family, he may not be quite as whole as he thinks. Insofar, then, as Sam is a kind of 'everyman' here at the end, that 'everyman' may not be completely whole. Like Frodo, Sam may have been irreversibly changed - perhaps not wounded as Frodo was, but torn in two just the same.

I think that this is an important window into the whole issue of 'sea-longing' in Tolkien's works. For Tolkien, the sea seems to represent a kind of yearning - not an ordinary yearning or desire for ordinary things, but a profound, transcendental desire. It seems to me that it is something very much like Tolkien's 'sea-longing' that makes humans want desperately to believe in a God, or in Nirvana, or in any of the other transcendental ideals. In the Silmarillion, this is explored through Tuor and Earendil. In LotR, it is explored through Frodo. When Frodo (like Earendil) becomes unable to find contentment in Middle-earth, he must go over the sea to seek it. Just so, when a real person cannot find fulfillment in the ordinary world, he or she longs to 'go across the sea' - to find something beyond the ordinary world.

I think that the loss of the last line is the truly regrettable thing about the exclusion of the epilogue (even if that exclusion was ultimately necessary). For here Tolkien encapsulates the whole issue quite succinctly. Sam may be the most content person in Middle-earth, with his Rose and his garden, in 'the most belovedest place in all the world.' But even he hears the Sea. To me, this is one of Tolkien's most insightful comments about human nature.