Visible souls....

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

... he is the one character we truly get into the head of, often distressingly so.

I would say that there are a few, albeit a limited number, of characters who might be described as having "psychological depth" in the modern sense, even though we do not "get into their heads" as such (or not all of them anyway). But, consistent in many ways with the thoughts expressed on this thread, they are invariably those who are, to one degree other, morally ambiguous. In addition to Gollum, I have in mind Boromir, Eowyn and Denethor.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Very interesting thread Child.

I think that perhaps Tolkien is doing something far more radical than we have yet recognized here. So far, the discussion seems to be proceeding in and from the assumption of Tolkien’s characters as individuals. That is, they are individual characters who may not be presented in a psychological manner, but they are still individuals. I’m not so sure that this is the most effective way to regard them, particularly given how much of their characterization they owe to works like Beowulf.

Quite simply, the whole concept of the individual is a very recent invention. The idea that the “real me” is some kind of floating consciousness or conscience “inside” my mind is an alien thought to worlds like the ones from which Tolkien drew most of his inspiration. The idea that one’s “true” or “real” identity is internal and not external was anathema to the world view of the Anglo-Saxons.

To this point we’ve been characterizing the debate in terms of modern “psychological” models of self in opposition to more ancient “moral” models. I think a more accurate way to put this, however, would be that ‘these days’ our stories (and our lives) tend to focus on how we are in conflict with ourselves: that the real battles we fight are with the inner-self, and that that’s where change is important. I cite the flood of self help books and television shows that try to help us be better people by altering our perceptions of ourselves, of boosting our self-confidence, of getting ‘in touch’ with our own feelings or ‘inner child’ or whatever. These all spring from the idea that we are individuals, that we are being primarily defined by out own unique sense of who we are: that our identity is built around and dependent upon the “I”.

Interesting to put that next to the context of the characters in Middle-earth. The characters who think in terms of self-determination, or even self-improvement, are people like Saruman, Boromir and – most disturbingly – Sauron (with his obsession over the Eye/I). These are the real individuals in the text, in the modern sense, insofar as their identity is defined by what they want, what they desire, what they think of themselves, what they want others to think of themselves. The heroes of the book are just not individuals in the sense we think of individuality. They are not defined by their inner core, by what they are but by what they do.

Back to Beowulf. Beowulf was not an individual who struggled with and overcame his own inner doubts and demons to become a better person. He fought three monsters and defeated them. He is thus, by contemporary standards, a very two-dimensional character insofar as there is no sense of individuality to him. He is a hero like all the heroes before him, and a pattern for all the heroes to come. I find very much the same circumstance and view in LotR. I simply do not try to understand the characters as individuals, but as parts of a larger fabric. Frodo, on his own, makes no sense and is, to be blunt, quite boring – until he is placed alongside his foils/parallel characters: Sam, Aragorn, Gollum and Sauron. It’s the same for all the characters.

Another literary form that comes to mind is the Romance (like Gawain and the Green Knight – another work with which Tolkien was intimately familiar). In Romance the human condition is explored not through individual characters, but as that condition is expressed in its various modes and parts within the stories of different characters. In LotR, there is no one character who sums up the experience of human life, there’s not even an attempt at this. Instead, that experience is explored by all the characters from their unique perspectives, forcing upon us the necessity of keeping the whole fabric in mind rather than focusing on just one character at a time. The radical thing about LotR for me is that it highlights the arrogance of modern constructions of self: we really think that, on some level, the truth of the human condition can be realized by and through intense scrutiny of just one person’s life: usually our own. We are the centres of our own truth, and the basis upon which meaning can be found.

What a lot of pressure to place on an individual! Tolkien has a different view. The human experience is not found in each of his characters, it is expressed by all of them.

[littlemanpoet]

If any character in LotR could be said to be 'modern' it is Gollum. He's complex and intangible and yet in the great tradition of characters who can chill our blood. - Lalwendë

You do raise my hopes for my own humble story, since I also have one very complex character amongst a slew of mirror types. What do you mean by intangible?

My turn to be thunderstruck. - mark

You helped me to arrive at this insight, mark.

I would say that there are a few, albeit a limited number, of characters who might be described as having "psychological depth" in the modern sense, even though we do not "get into their heads" as such (or not all of them anyway). But, consistent in many ways with the thoughts expressed on this thread, they are invariably those who are, to one degree other, morally ambiguous. In addition to Gollum, I have in mind Boromir, Eowyn and Denethor. - The Saucepan Man

Eowyn?

I do find it interesting how your comment dovetails with Fordim's.

[quote]The radical thing about LotR for me is that it highlights the arrogance of modern constructions of self... - Fordim Hedgethistle/quote]

Lucid. Brilliant. Bull's eye. Fordim, you have said what I was moving toward, but hadn't quite made it to yet. The term I was thinking of in this context is modern self-centeredness. The trouble is that we are stuck with this modern way of seeing ourselves. Is fairy story an antedote? (among other things)

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Note: Bear with me, please, because this post is quite disorganized, and hopefully not entirely tangential; but I do have a point even if I haven't succeeded in making it clear.

I read this thread through the lens of a recent philosophy of mind class. The philosophical study of the mind/self/soul/what-have-you is concerned with basically pinning down the location of the self, whether that be internal (like in the modern psychological model) or external--although the word I'm looking for here may be something more like pervasive, because I don't think that the Anglo Saxons referenced below would have thought of themselves as existing like clothing on a body either.

Quite simply, the whole concept of the individual is a very recent invention. The idea that the “real me” is some kind of floating consciousness or conscience “inside” my mind is an alien thought to worlds like the ones from which Tolkien drew most of his inspiration. The idea that one’s “true” or “real” identity is internal and not external was anathema to the world view of the Anglo-Saxons. -Fordim Hedgethistle

Current philosophy is all in a twist because who knows how many centuries ago someone drew a hard and fast line between mind and body and now the concepts have been alienated from each other. In fiction it is no longer enough to portray the character through the minds and eyes of others, since they see only the body. In order to portray the locus of the self one has to describe the mind. Even the reductionist schools of thought that portray the mind as an offshoot of the body, or as identical to it are still thinking in terms of a mind and body dichotomy.

In Tolkien's characters this dichotomy and need to portray the inner self from the first person perspective is absent because the distinction between their internal and external selves simply does not exist.

At first I thought that the Lewis quote:

The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls.

Implied that Lewis was viewing only characters this way, with this lack of distinction, but when I looked more carefully at the quote in its entirety:

"Because, I take it... the real life of men is of that mystical and heroic quality... The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the Universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?"

I think there may be more to the sentiment than that characters are their souls. It seems to me that he is saying the same thing about the real life of man. We are the characters in the fairy story as well. When Lewis says the real life of men is of that mystical and heroic quality, the quality in reference is (and it's hard to tell exactly without having the whole context) something shared with the characters in the fairy story.

Tolkien and Lewis both consistently emphasize the similarities of life to fairy tale. Here is another example of this, where toward the end of the quote Lewis says (to paraphrase) "you haven't seen life until you recognize it for what it is: and this is it." I think it is more than likely that he would also say "you don't know yourself until you recognize yourself in this mirror." Perhaps we also are intended to be seen as visible souls.

Sophia

[Rumil]

Mmmmm nice thread,

I especialy liked Fordim's comment on the difference between scrutinising someone's thoughts (or words to some extent) and their actions.

As Child pointed out, there seem to be occasions where a character's soul is literally visible, I was reminded of a previous thread, see below-

The light in Frodo's face

[drigel]

As Child pointed out, there seem to be occasions where a character's soul is literally visible, I was reminded of a previous thread, see below-

ty Rumil! short and sweet..

I have been ineptly driving at that point for a while - but I am lazy.. sigh, I had to poke and prod for a while at this thread to get to that out.

[littlemanpoet]

Now Gollum I always think of as a 'special case'. Much more than a mere 'monster', he cannot be defined squarely as evil, nor can he be said to be good, and he is the one character we truly get into the head of, often distressingly so. - Lalwendë

This has been bugging me since I first read it. I don't think it's accurate. I don't ever remember reading any thoughts of Gollum or Sméagol that weren't actually spoken by him.

I'm close to being motivated to a re-read of LotR just to take special note of this one aspect! What characters does Tolkien "get into the head" of? We know this happens with Gandalf once, at Rivendell, as has been pointed out on this thread, but Gandalf's thinking about Frodo rather than revealing much about himself. The instance with Sam is similar. So do we actually "get into the head" of any character at all in LotR? I don't think so. I'd be happy to see some evidence to the contrary, if anybody has it handy.... - LMP