I just have to say this about Morwen
 

I'm not going to talk about my general thoughts on Children of Húrin at present, but there's one thing that has really stuck out at me and made me think over these last few months:

Morwen.

I thought the book did a great job with taking at least one aspect of this enormous mythology and zeroing in on it, and I see that especially in Morwen's pride. I liked how she didn't want to seem poor for example. I liked the weird relationship with the servant. Class always makes for interesting discussion when it comes to Tolkien's work, but I like how it was spelled out here: hey, it sucks to be poor! Especially if you were relatively pampered to begin with, and must "save face," as it may, wherein the rest of the world is concerned.

It made me think of Jane Austen and all that class anxiety, embedded, instead, in a story that features dragons and the like. Even when divorced from the greater legendarium, it strikes me as very powerful.

As for the rest of the book... Eh. That's the sort of discussion I find myself only being able to have after a few bloody marys or something. :Merisu:

Re-writing or re-inventing oneself is a particularly (post) modern habit, so I don't see Tolkien writing Morwen in any other way than to limit her to her original self-concept. And, anyway, isn't that part of the doom of the story, that none of the characters are able to rise above their own pitiful self-image?

So I personally don't see it as a class issue, but as a characterisation issue. :)

Really? Because I see the whole "noble woman refusing to accept help" as being quite the theme in itself, not separate from, and yet still distinct in this web of woeful pride.

Can't class consciousness be part of characterisation though? I detect it in a few of Tolkien's characters - Sam and Bilbo being two good examples.

For me, her stubborn pride underlined her role as a 'queenly' figure in her community.

Thinking about it, after I've spent a fair bit of time lately enjoying watching The Tudors and this reawakening an old interest in Tudor history, she reminds me a little of Katherine of Aragon who felt she had a God-given role and would not relinquish it even in banishment.

ha, ha, reading that title.. does anyone think that the other Morwen had something of Tolkien's mother, Mabel, in her? Mabel Tolkien was refused help by her own and her husband's relatives after she converted to Catholicism. Was JRRT thinking of his mother when he created Morwen?