LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 3 - Mount Doom

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by davem

'Heroic failure', 'tragic hero', or, in short, Everyman.

To add to Davem's excellent thesis here, and to go slightly away from the chapter at hand, this makes the Lord of the Rings a much more moving and powerful book in that it offers the hope of FORGIVENESS, the idea that even those who ultimately succumb to wrongdoing have a hope of redemption, a hope of regaining a happy, fulfilled life. The parting at the end of the story is a good deal more hopeful if we realise that it means that Frodo has a chance at finding peace again, at finding redemption, instead of just a trip to the doctor/psychiatrist from which he will not return.