The Role of Women in The Lord of the Rings

[Bêthberry]

You are very right, Mr. Underhill, that Eowyn's

turn from death and slaying to become a healer and "lover of all things that grow and are not barren" is part of a wider motif of a spring flowering in Middle-earth with the passing of the Shadow. The White Tree blossoms, the Mallorn grows in the Shire, babies are born.

It is even more, I would suggest. Let me elaborate and then explain why, ultimately, I am saddened by the symbolism.

One of the most eloquent and beautiful chapters of LotR is, to me at least, "The Stewart and the King", in no small measure because of the lyricism with which Tolkien treats Faramir and Eowyn. I grant all that and I am moved immeasurably by it.

The artistic vision whick Tolkien uses to symbolise the healing of Rohan through the figure of Eowyn is brilliant in terms of unity, economy, proportion and (I add in edit) even the daring to use a female character for its warrior status--perhaps even hinting at something here which Estelyn has suggsested on her thread, Females--Misssing in Action. (end of edit here). The healing of Eowyn is the healing of Rohan, released from the long dark seige of the Shadow. This is at once a brilliant stroke and (again to me) a disappointment. Although we already know the outcome of the quest, we know that Frodo succeeds in bringing the Ring to its destruction, the time frame is repeated. The passage bears quoting.

"Yes, we wait for the stroke of doom," said Faramir. And they said no more; and it seemed to them as they stood upon the wall that the wind died, and the light failed, and Sun was bleared, and all sounds in the City or in the lands about were hushed: neither wind, nor voice, nor bird-call, nor rustle of leaf, nor their own breath could be heard; the very beating of their hearts was stilled. Time halted.

And as they stood so, their hands met and clasped, thought they did not know it. And still they waited for they knew not what. Then presently it seemed to them that above the ridges of the distant mountains another vast mountain of darkness rose, towering up like a wave that should engulf the world, and about it lightning flickered; and then a tremor ran through the earth, and they felt the walls of the City quiver. A sound like a sigh went up from all the lands about them; and their hearts beat suddenly again.

"It reminds me of Numenor," said Faramir, ....

. . . .

And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor, and a great wind rose and blew, and their hair, raven and golden, streamed out mingling in the air. And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and the light leaped forth; and the waters of the Anduin shone like silver, ...

After that beautiful image of their hair mingling, we hardly need the proposal scene which follows several days later, yet it does not fail to move us and provide more coherence.

"I would," said Faramir. And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the Houses of Healing.

And to the Warden of the Houses, Faramir said: "Here is the Lady Eowyn of Rohan, and she is healed."

I grant all the beauty and proportion and symmetry. Yet, strangely, I do not read the passage where Eowyn refutes the Warden's dismissal of her as exerting her selfhood. It rather represents--again to me--the extent to which her entire focus has been shifted to Faramir, her new home, her new priorities.

It will seem curmudgeonly of me to step back and ponder this structure, but I nontheless will. As beautiful as the symmetry is I have to ask myself why Tolkien choose to use the most "modern" female character to represent this very positive move from warrior society to peacful endeavour. The healing metaphor is powerful and perfect for the ending of the warlike nature of Rohan, but to portray the women who wanted more than domestic acitivity as needing to be healed of her desire, as if it were a disease, ultimately disappoints me. Even granting that the males turn now to peaceful acitivity. But they get to do things, have activities outside the home. They still have a life and purpose beyond the threshold of the home. But Eowyn, in wanting this "more", this life of exertion and activity and intellectual endeavour, must be healed of it. I have to ask myself why Tolkien choose that particular female character to function in that particular way.

Tolkien was, as far as I can tell from his letters and the breadth and generosity of his vision, a very thoughtful, gracious, generous man. He was not cruel nor in any way bullying. Far from it. But he was a man of his generation and his faith. When I read the Catholic Encyclopedia from 1910/1911, under the entry "Woman" I find statements to the effect that women do not need to be educated, for the sphere to which they are called does not require it. The station to which women are called is honourable, but it is a domestic station.

So I turn to, Mr. Underhill, to Letter # 43, which Tolkien wrote to his son Michael 6-8 March 1941. It is a very frank letter offering advice about marriage and the relation of the sexes from a father to a son. I doubt it was written with any dispeptic mood. Yet his concept of female sexuality--using the term "uncorrupted"--and his reading of his female students are thoroughly of his time and place.

How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point--and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further, when they leave his hand, or when they cease to take a personal interest in him
. . .

Before the young woman knows where she is (and while the romantic young man, when he exists, is still sighing), she may actually 'fall in love.' Which for her, an unspoiled natural young woman, means that she wants to become the mother of the young man's children, even if that desire is by no means clear to her...

Time and acculturation make many changes and even the latest edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia takes a different point of view than the 1911 one. I by no means disparage the role of wife or mother but when I see it presented through Rosie's thirteen children, I see a vision of life, sexuality, home, purpose, which is an (edit here) a sticking point to me. Who who has seen the effects of countless years of childbearing on a woman and on the children she bears can countenance the size of Sam and Rosie's family? (And who has seen the effects of overpopulation on our Earth today.) There are people I know and to their values and opinions I will politely and respectfully demur. I cannot--(edit here) unless it is to take this number thirteen, the baker's dozen, as a magical number and see it as part of the aspects of faerie applied to the hobbits. Still and all, why to the hobbit wife and not the noble wife? (end of edit).

Lalwendë, your point about the similarity to the pre-Raphaelites is very good! Some of Tolkien's drawings remind me very much of the Art Nouveau develpments of the Pre-Raphealite art.

Mr. Hedgethistle, I have forsworn my tea and lemon today in favour of lighter refreshment.

No doubt there are typos here and turns of phrasing which I would change but I have no time now to revise. I shall return to reread this. (Edit: I have corrected coding typos and changed some phrasing, before I read the posts which have now been made after mind.)