EDIT: Whoa! Many more posts since I began this one: Apologies to those in between!
Original post (book):
Why do I feel so strongly that the answer to the question "Why did Frodo claim the Ring" isn't to rule the world, to save the Shire, or even to save Bilbo, but simply that he wanted to possess it? And why do I feel that Tolkien does not hold Frodo responsible for his "failure" at the Sammath Naur?
Since I've already gone over it before, I'll put my arguments in favor of "posession" into italics so you can skip it if you like:
(begin posessiveness section)
For one thing, Tolkien says that Frodo's failure was adumbrated from far back. " to foreshadow vaguely; to give a sketchy representation or outline of, to suggest or disclose partially; overshadow, obscure". Tolkien then refers to the fact that Frodo couldn't even toss it into his own fireplace. So for starters, even if Frodo had been airlifted at that moment from Bag End to the Cracks of Doom, he would have failed. Why? Frodo had posessed the Ring for (50 - 33 = ) 17 years before Gandalf informed him the thing was deadly. It was something Bilbo had given him, that few knew about. No doubt he and Bilbo had many secrets; this was one of them, one that he touhed every day. For those seventeen years, he carried it in his pocket on a chain. That meant that every time he changed breeches, he re-chained the ring into his breeches pocket. We know from his gaffe at the Prancing Pony that he had the habit of playing with the things in his pocket, fingering them, whenever he was nervous. The Ring was always there when he was nervous. (along with other items such as coins or a pocket-knife.) Now look at his response when Gandalf challenges him to toss it into the fireplace:
Quote:
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The gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was its color, how perfect was its roundness. It was an admirable thing and altogether precious.
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Remember Gandalf told Frodo that a Ring of power looks after itself; that the owner never loses it or gives it away; he may toy with the idea at first, but he won't be able to do it; and to Gandalf's knowledge, Bilbo was the first person ever to freely (with prodding!) give the Ring away. The Ring itself enforces the idea of posession. Gandalf said Frodo would be and indeed demonstrated that he was very posessive of it at the Fireplace. Throughout his journey, Frodo makes two serious efforts to give the Ring away: once to Gandalf; once to Galadriel. Other than that, book-Frodo keeps the Ring close and hidden (as he is directed to do.)
THe language that Frodo uses whenever his posession of the Ring is challenged, by Sam, or by Gollum, is language of posession. Sometimes it's that he posesses the quest; sometimes it's that he posesses the burden; when aroused to anger or self-defense, however, the language is that of posessing the Ring. "No, you won't, you thief!" he tells Sam. He is always reluctant to let anyone else, including Gandalf at his fireside or Bilbo at Rivendell, to handle or touch the Ring. We are told frequently that he grasps at it, that his hand reaches for it, sometimes uncontrollably. Whenever there is Nazgul-pressure that reaching-for-the-ring is more difficult to resist.
So... from The Shadow of the Past onward, Frodo's posessiveness of the Ring is foretold, implied, described, discussed, and both subtly and overtly displayed. It's not like Tolkien hinted a few times. He repeatedly hammered the subject home that Frodo was jealously posessive of the Ring.
The outlines and drafts that he wrote saying that Frodo had prior intentions of world-rule, or perhaps ordering Elrond or Galadriel to preserve the Shire for him, or Bilbo, are not in the final version. There is nothing in Frodo's statement in the final version to imply ambition. There is only language implying relationship between him and the Ring. "I have come; but I do not now choose to do what I came to do. I will not do this thing. The Ring is mine." Nothing else is mentioned besides the Ring, Frodo, the thing he came to do (destroy the Ring) and his choice. The old posessiveness which has been there all lalong is still there; and Tolkien gives no indication in the final version that any new sin has occurred. (Of course the sin of posessiveness is still there, as it has been all along. But there is no indication that ambition to rule has been added to it.)
(end posessiveness section)
Tolkien discusses the Sammath Naur in his letters in terms of insanity and demonic opression ("Sanity restored"; "the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment".) In addition, he compares Frodo to those recently released from torture and prison: "In the case of those who now issue from prison 'brainwashed', broken, or insane, praising their torturers, no such deliverance is as a rule to be seen. But we can at least judge them by the will and intentions with which they entered the Sammath Naur."
Clearly, Tolkien considers Frodo claiming the Ring as
(a) under demonic opression "the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment".
(b) insane: "if he still preserved some sanity" and "He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (III224-5); he was restored to sanity and peace." (Tolkein's italics, not mine, BTW)
(c) not a free decision, from the statement "a free agent in normal command of the will"
To me these statements by Tolkien sound like a legal defense: "Not guilty due to demonic opression and torment, insanity, and unbearable coercion of the will."
Reconsidering the references to " those who now issue from prison 'brainwashed', broken, or insane, praising their torturers", I believe Tolkien spent time considering the results of World War II. Now it's my turn to guess, but looking at TOlkein's statements about prison camps and torture, I think he was affected by the prison camps of WWII and the horror stories of what had happened to the inmates of the prison camps. While he may have begun the tale with plans of having Frodo decide to "defect", he was mailing the final Mordor chapters to Christopher throughout the war, and the outlines came before then. I think that WWII changed him and that he felt that "defection" was no longer neccessary; that Frodo had been through such torment that he was broken, and defeated, and changed inwardly by the torment, like a prison-camp inmate. "It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome-- in themselves."
Further, Tolkien discusses Frodo's temptations later, from the perspective of having returned to the Shire. He discusses pride (the desire to have returned a hero: as maril once said, to walk up and casually toss the Ring into the Chasm) and he discusses the temptation to still desire the Ring and to regret its destruction "It is gone, and now all is dark and empty": no more wheel of fire. Tolkien does not discuss in the letters that Frodo felt guilty over his decision to save the Shire by force, or to order Galadriel or Elrond (or Gandalf) to preserve the Shire, or anything similar to that.
So, to sum up what I see as Frodo's sin in all of this: Posessiveness (which he had had all along, and which he was unable to resist in the end) ; pride (wishing he had returned a hero and not an instrument of Providence) and the temptation to regret the destruction of the Ring and still to desire it (possessiveness again.) Was he imperfect? Certainly. Did he fall? Yes; before the quest by his Fireplace, if not before; and again, once he returned to The Shire, he was tempted by pride, and regret. Do I count The Sammath Naur as another fall? Not separate from his fall at The Fireplace; I see it as one and the same; and in terms of "falling" at the Cracks of Doom, like Tolkien I hold him not guilty (demonic opression, insanity, and coercion of the will.)
Does he need salvation? Yes. He did at his Fireplace, too. He needed salvation all along (just like the rest of us; all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.) There was nothing about his decision at the Cracks of Doom that changed that in any way.
Tolkien stated in Letters that Frodo was a study of a hobbit broken by long torment. Does he need healing? Of course; that's made apparent by his pride and his desire to still posess the Ring that he can't free himself of, but his need is also due to the torment and breaking and opression that he went through.
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Good Grief, this was supposed to be a summary??? [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]
<font size=1 color=339966>[ 12:18 PM January 22, 2004: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]