Gollum and Pleasure

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Good question! Interestingly, the examples you quote are all related to food. Are there other areas in which he also experiences pleasure? I don't recall him admiring a beautiful landscape - admittedly, they didn't travel together in the nicest places, but Ithilien was described as lovely by Frodo and Sam.

Is the joy of eating the last pleasure to survive?

I think there may be a bit of Tolkien's Catholicism sneaking through too. All of the pleasures Gollum seems to retain are pleasures of the flesh (of which eating and drinking is probably the most fundamental). Tolkien was an old school Catholic and the Old school view was that, more or less, ALL the pleasures of the flesh were ultimately corrupting (the whole "The World, The Flesh and the Devil" thing) since they distracted you from spiritual manners (or why asceticism and mortification were generally regarded as such laudable acts). Gollum is corrupted by the ring, so it is only logical that his fleshy desires are enhanced. After all what the rings really feeds on is desire; if the victim has no pleasures he really has no desires to work on either. He or she doesn't even really have fear to work on since even fear carries a desire in it (the desire for what one fears not to occur, or to be able to prevent it)

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I think there may be a bit of Tolkien's Catholicism sneaking through too. All of the pleasures Gollum seems to retain are pleasures of the flesh (of which eating and drinking is probably the most fundamental). Tolkien was an old school Catholic and the Old school view was that, more or less, ALL the pleasures of the flesh were ultimately corrupting (the whole "The World, The Flesh and the Devil" thing) since they distracted you from spiritual manners (or why asceticism and mortification were generally regarded as such laudable acts). Gollum is corrupted by the ring, so it is only logical that his fleshy desires are enhanced. After all what the rings really feeds on is desire; if the victim has no pleasures he really has no desires to work on either. He or she doesn't even really have fear to work on since even fear carries a desire in it (the desire for what one fears not to occur, or to be able to prevent it)

But on the complete opposite side, he has half of ME wishing that more people would value good food and cheer like hobbits do.

I must say, though, this is an excellent topic and something to think about - which I definitely will.