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08-20-2005, 06:58 AM | #1 |
Stormdancer of Doom
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Adoption and Foster Care
Bilbo adopted Frodo.
Elrond fostered Aragorn. First Aunt Beatrice, and then Father Francis, fostered Tolkien. What other adopted/ foster relationships are there in Tolkien's works? How do these relationships compare and contrast? How deeply did Tolkien's own experience affect his characters' relationships? (And if C7A started another thread like this, please link it. I searched, and found not.)
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08-20-2005, 09:03 AM | #2 |
Auspicious Wraith
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Thingol and Túrin too.
There was certainly great love in all of these relationships, and they were all beneficial to both parties....I....think? Could argue? Have any other authors (who never had such experiences as Tolkien) placed as great an emphasis on adoption and foster care in their books? It immediately strikes me as a pretty straight-forward consequence of the author's life. Interesting topic.
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08-20-2005, 09:23 AM | #3 |
Cryptic Aura
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It is an interesting topic, Helen.
There's orphans aplenty in Victorian literature. Pip in Great Expectations for one. Jane Eyre for another. Earlier on, Tom Jones was a foundling. Well, really an illegitimate child abandoned because of the mores of the time. They don't have a very good time of it. except for Tom of course. (I wonder, what 'baggage' does the name 'Tom' carry?) But then Cinderella was an orphan, wasn't she? or just motherless? Snow White? Could this also be part of the fairy heritage?
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08-20-2005, 10:24 AM | #4 |
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Well, Theoden looked after Eomer and Eowyn after their parents died. I think it's touching that despite Theoden had a child of his own, he called Eomer his son (LotR, book 5, ch.5) and probably treated him as one, too. There's also great affection between Theoden and Eowyn. After all, she was ready to die for him. I'd say that Theoden replaced Eomer and Eowyn's parents pretty well.
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08-22-2005, 05:50 AM | #5 | |
Stormdancer of Doom
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"The Fairy Wife" concept is near & dear to me, as is also the Dol Amroth story. I hadn't thought of those connecting with this. (I'm not sure yet if they do.)
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08-22-2005, 06:50 AM | #6 |
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There is also the Galadriel/Arwen relationship after Celebrian leaves Middle-earth, which seems to be close between grandmother and grandaughter. It is interesting how all these relationships are positive when often literature, films and particularly TV soaps often exploit the vulnerability of the 'orphan'. This might be more understandable in older literature as such situations would be a lot more common and the official support netwroks did not exist as they do today (though they still leave much to be desired sadly).
It's not something I had particularly noticed before, but now I've thought about it, Tolkien does have a very positive outlook on such relationships. It could of course be simply a necessity in such societies that children left alone are cared for, or that it might be difficult for a figure such as Aragorn's mother to bring up a child in the wilderness; it could be sheer practicality. But there do seem to be a lot of these rleationships in the books, so it's likely they are a reflection of Tolkien's own upbringing.
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08-22-2005, 11:10 AM | #7 |
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Didn't Maglor look after Elrond and Elros for a time?
I forget the exact situation... been a while since I read the Silmarillion. Elrond also helped raise Arathorn II as well as Aragorn, right? -Elrowen |
08-22-2005, 06:26 PM | #8 |
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An interesting topic
Although I think that Tolkien was undoubtedly influenced by his own experiences of losing both of his parents at an early age the theme of the adopted/fostered hero is one that crops up time and again in literature. I can think of many instances from Greek myth to the Bible, Shakespeare and beyond. Not all of these adoptions/fosterings ended happily, but here are a few of the positive ones I can think of: Beowulf, who was 'sister-son' to the King of the Geats, his own father having died, he was raised by his uncle, the king. Moses, adopted and raised by the sister of the Pharoah of Egypt. Luke Skywalker, orphaned and raised by his aunt and uncle (sorry, I had to add that one Each of these, having been raised in a benevolent atmosphere went on to perform heroic deeds. I wonder if those whose experiences were less fortunate were spurred on to less glorious deeds? Time for some research, I think! Like Bethberry, I also wonder if we can include the influence of fairy tales?
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08-22-2005, 09:58 PM | #9 | |
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Other than the similar presence of the trope of orphans and foster care, what evidence is there that this would be derived from Tolkien's own experience? I don't ask to be curmudgeonly but because in my reading of writers' letters and relations with other writers I have found that the autobiographical impulse is rarely so directly or openly satisfied. It is usually far more complex and hidden. I mean, it is interesting that Tolkien associated himself with Faramir, the younger brother, yet he was the older brother in real life. And we all know what happens to the older brother. Loss of parents at an early age is profoundly unsettling for a child's development. We know that Tolkien had a very close relationship with his mother through their mutual faith. And we also know that to some extent he harboured regrets at the role his guardians played in his love affair with Edith. Yet Edith too was similarly orphaned, was she not? Does that explain why both Aragorn and Arwen were motherless at the time of LotR? Or does it perhaps provide a wider way to explore a variety of issues about character, loyality, motivation? And is fostering that is blood-based more successful than fostering that is assumed without blood ties? Changlings and selkies, Helen I think Tolkien has omitted from his perilous realm. Why?
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08-23-2005, 01:59 AM | #10 | ||
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I suppose the most interesting question this raises is whether life experience really does influence a writer and to what extent?
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08-25-2005, 05:10 AM | #11 | |||||
Stormdancer of Doom
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Meanwhile, Father Francis also forbade Tolkien to pursue Edith until he was-- twenty-one? which was when he was back from the war. Beren was set to an impossible task-- Luthien accompanied him, and so the task succeeded (more or less); I wonder if this is how Tolkien wished his early years had worked out. Comparing Tolkien and Aragorn, I think the insistence of the foster-father that the young man earn the hand of the bride by proving his valor/ earning his manhood is a similarity of note. Quote:
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The Silkie was probably omitted by basic catholic morality; I have no problem with that omission, really. Makes LOTR a nice, family friendly book.
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08-25-2005, 01:48 PM | #12 | |
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I think there are many things written in Tolkien's books and histories that reflect what he went through in life. And not so that he could cling to the past and to the hurt, but more like a memory. Something in every human that has the ability to do something well longs to tell the story of the emotional things that have happened in the past though their art. The greatest authors are often men and women that have been through a lot in life - loosing parents, going through war, loving someone and being torn apart from them, seeing bondage and longing to see freedom - and they want to release all that stuff that's in them and sometimes the only way they can do that is to write. And because they have so much experience in life and actually have something to write about that they've been through first hand, their books are great and become classics and so it goes on. But these are only fragments of thoughts that I have not had time to complete and never will complete totally. All I'm saying is, it's possible that Tolkien put a lot into his books that happened to him in life on purpose. - Folwren
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08-27-2005, 03:46 PM | #13 | |
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Here goes my third attempt at replying--and here's hoping that I won't be called away before I can finish.
Okay, in light of the many examples and comments here, let me suggest a way to develop this trope that Helen has kindly handed us. Let's assume that Tolkien was exploring his own upbringing through these myriad examples. I guess the first question I would ask is, "Does Tolkien use himself as a way of explaining of the world, or does he use the trope of fostering as a way to explain himself? We don't normally consider him one of the autobiographical poets, like Lal's example of Plath, so how do we understand what these references are doing in the stories. Are they essential or are they plot fillers? If is Tolkien exploring his own fostered childhood, does he come to any conclusions? What sort of self-understanding might be at work here? Is he suggestsing something about the human mind and its capacity to function? Does he suggest a long-suppressed longing for an absent mother? What, if any, emotional pain is there in these stories? Is there any angst in these examples which suggest Tolkien was writing out his pain or anger? Is there anything sublimated that the writing covers over, in denial? Are we given enough details about these fosterings to see their various effects? These might be, I hasten to add, the wrong kinds of questions to ask. They presuppose a kind of pyschological complexity derived from the modern novel, a genre Tolkien was not using. (Note, I do not say this as a complaint or criticism.) I seem to recall something in either Carpenter's biography or in the Letters that Tolkien did harbour regrets that a youthful infatuation was blown out of proportion into something more than it should have been by the guardian's instransience. I'll have to look for this passage, as clearly it will be important here to specify the exact context, but I'm running out of time. One quick specific note, though. Quote:
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08-27-2005, 04:41 PM | #14 | ||
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Long way of saying its perfectly understandable that he wrote a mythology for England - though as one speaker (Ronald Hutton??) pointed out at Birmingham what he actually seems to have produced was a mythology for America. |
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08-27-2005, 07:32 PM | #15 | |||
Cryptic Aura
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EDIT: John Milton might be forgiven, after the Commonwealth and then Restoration, for calling his history, The History of Britain, that part especially now called England. He was an early enthusiast who wished to make use of the Arthurian tales, if I am not mistaken.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bęthberry; 08-27-2005 at 07:56 PM. |
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08-28-2005, 06:39 AM | #16 | |||
Illustrious Ulair
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I think delving too deeply into the biographical aspect is fraught with danger - we don't know enough about the man - Helen stated that Tolkien married Edith at age 21 after returning from WW1. He didn't. He was born in 1892, so he would have been 21 in 1913, a year before WW1 began & they were already married before he went. They married (according to Carpenter) on 22 March 1916 & Tolkien embarked for France on 4 June of that year. I don't mean to pick on Helen here, but I think there is a danger of reading the text & making assumptions about Tolkien's life which may not apply. Quote:
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Of course, Tolkien didn't reject the Arthurian legends out of hand - he even began to write an epic poem on Arthur - he just felt that England needed a national myth. That 'throwaway' comment in my last post, about the Legendarium having become rather a 'mythology for America' says a lot in this context. Why have so many modern Americans not adopted the tales of the First Nation peoples & gone rather for Tolkien's Northern European inspired tales? |
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08-28-2005, 07:30 AM | #17 | |
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But there already was a strong tradition of legend in England - the problem is that it was and mostly is, held orally by ordinary people. These types of tales include Robin Hood, the best known, but also many other folk tales. Some have been lost with urbanisation, maybe their relevance was not as important, and it remains to be seen how many will survive the mobility of people that we see today; as children grow up far removed from older relatives will they hear the old folk tales as often? Will they be lost as we descend into the homogenised English culture which is dominant over regional identity such as identifying as Geordies, Tykes, Dalesmen, etc. It isn't surprising that the Welsh and Scots are determined to hold on to their own regional cultures and languages. Although I understand that even in Scotland the dominance of the two largest cities is homogenising culture there. These old folktales might have some hope of survival in the form of children's writers making great use of the evocative and exciting creatues and ideas they possess. JK Rowling (love her or hate her) is making use of them, and Tolkien made use of them (as seen with Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow etc). Though I do have to say that Tolkien's own mythology makes much more use of creatures of his own imagining - he is no comprehensive saviour of the old English folk tale.
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08-28-2005, 07:47 AM | #18 | |||
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Here I might remind the discussion here of something we all know--the amazing way that language--linguistics--inspired Tolkien. He created the mythology at least in part to provide a place for his invented languages to be employed. Tolkien explores words rather than his own life, you might say. This is not to deny that his life also gets into the story, but to suggest that its presence in the story is not easy to isolate. Quote:
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EDIT: cross posting with Lal and now little time to reply. Wasn't York originally a Viking outpost? No wonder Yorkshiremen are so antipathetic to Southerners. And no wonder the Brontës received the kinds of criticisms they did--Irish and Yorkshiremen! (Gaskell used the Yorkshire heritage to explain away the 'inelegant' aspects of the works to Southern types.) I am ever so fascinated by such internet sites as Mysteries of Britain--an incredible wealth of story and legend there. And wasn't Robin Hood a Yorkshireman who fought against the Norman French invaders?
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bęthberry; 08-28-2005 at 08:14 AM. |
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08-28-2005, 09:21 AM | #19 | |
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I was interested to read about fostering in Celtic sources, but it's an important theme in many of the early cultures of Europe. The sources in which it is particularly evident are the Icelandic sagas, in which many of the characters are fostered by followers of their parents. The political uses are evident in the fact that Hákon, king of Norway was officially foster-son to Athelstan of Wessex; and in Laxdćla Saga he is described as 'Athelstan's Fosterling'. The social convention seems to have been to send one's children to be fostered further down the social spectrum. I would suggest that Tolkien is more likely to have been drawing on Icelandic sources than Celtic ones, although I don't doubt that he could easily have known both. The important point is that fostering was an important means of perpetuating family alliances and personal loyalty. That Tolkien used such a theme is not surprising at all.
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08-28-2005, 11:02 AM | #20 | |||
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Its an interesting question whether one responds most strongly to a mythology which ones own culture produced. Certainly Americans seem to like to identify themselves with their culture of origin as much as with their nation (African-American, Jewish-American, Irish-American, Native-American, etc). I also notice that many American neo-Pagans have adopted the (pseudo) Celtic 'path' rather than the traditions of First Nation peoples. I think that, as so many Americans have European ancestry they respond to a 'mythology' which has its roots in European soil. In other words, what they brought with them speaks to them more strongly than what they found - one could suggest that that is the answer to your question as to why Tolkien chose to 'side' with the Anglo-Saxons over the native Britons.... Quote:
I think this is why Tolkien rejected the idea of 'allegory' so forcefully & promoted 'applicability' in its place. We cannot read the Legendarium as Tolkien's 'autobiography' as we cannot know his life experience (certainly not what went in his head & what his experiences meant to him). Having said that, CT makes a very interesting comment in the introduction to vol 12 of HoMe to the effect that what he has produced is a literary 'biography' of his father. I don't think he has, btw. I think, in the end, such a 'biographical' reading of Tolkien's works is more likely to unravel the story (or dismantle the Tower). Its an interesting 'game' but I'm not sure it gets us anywhere in terms of experiencing the Art Edited for reasons of accuracy.
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08-28-2005, 11:14 AM | #21 |
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In the last two paragraphs of his post Squatter makes a valiant attempt to get this discussion back on topic - well done! I would like to ask the other participants to do the same, as most of the discussion at present is taking a turn far away from what mark/Helen started discussing. If there is a need for general thought on the source mythologies and related issues - as related to Tolkien, of course! - please begin a new thread for that topic.
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08-28-2005, 12:24 PM | #22 | |
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Another instance where fostering is widely seen is in the modern day African community; children are often sent to live with members of the extended family, sometimes being sent overseas. Similarly, families in the British Afro-Caribbean community will sometimes send children to live with relatives in Jamaica - the usual reason given is that the schools are seen to have better discipline. In Tolkien's LotR it could be said that Gilraen sends Aragorn to Rivendell as there he will be educated to his advantage.
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08-28-2005, 02:05 PM | #23 |
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I do agree that it's possible to overinterpret a work as being autobiographical.
However, since Tolkien had the name "Luthien" carved on his wife's headstone, and declared his own affinity with Beren in letters ("Beren" was later carved on his headstone as well), investigating his connections with that myth (Beren and Luthien) and its heir (Aragorn and Arwen) does not seem to me to be much of a stretch.
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08-28-2005, 03:07 PM | #24 |
Cryptic Aura
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Well, what do you think that connection means, Helen?
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08-28-2005, 03:54 PM | #25 | |
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However, back to the topic of this thread, I do wonder why Tolkien's orphans all seem to be single children. Its easy to forget that Tolkien had a brother, Hilary, who went through the same trauma at an even younger age. If the orphan/fosterling theme is autobiographical why don't we see at least a few orphaned pairs? |
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08-28-2005, 04:32 PM | #26 |
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I can't help thinking that the inspiration for Luthien was in some way Edith - at least, Tolkien may have created Luthien as an idealised version of what he saw when he saw his wife dancing in the woods at Roos, East Yorkshire.
Hmmm, pairs of orphans? Well, Boromir and Faramir lost their mother at a young age, and from the text I do not get the impression that Denethor can have been fully involved in their upbringing in the way a father might be today. I often get the impression that the offspring of the powerful (e.g. Tony Blair's kids, Prince William etc) lead something of a restricted life as a direct result of having powerful, time starved fathers who themselves need to restrict their own behaviour being in the 'public eye', much as Denethor would have been.
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08-29-2005, 03:10 AM | #27 | |
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In other words, that whole episode was far more a fantasy than reality. Again, we seem to have Ronald seeing the world 'through enchanted eyes'. If his own life experiences found their way into his mythology it was probably in a way that was very far removed from the fact. It seems like the reality served as a basis for what appeared in the mythology, but once it had found a mythological form this mythological version of the truth seems to have 'fed back' into his memories of the primary world, so that in his memory Edith did dance among the Hemlocks in a woodland glade at twilight, rather than freezing in the blustery winds off the North Sea in November. |
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11-04-2005, 08:41 PM | #28 |
Stormdancer of Doom
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Yet another tale for which I am partly in debt to Child of the 7th Age
"When Bilbo was ninety nine, he adopted Frodo as his heir, and brought him to live at Bag End..."
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