[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

You have so beautifully summarized the reasons why Frodo felt like a "broken failure" that there is nothing I can add.

But there is one point you mention that I wonder about:

And what kind of existence could he have had in the Undying Lands, after Bilbo dies? A Hobbit among the immortals, lost & alone, for all the love he may have been shown by Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel. He truly belonged with his own, in the Shire, walking in the woods & fields. But he is born to undertake the Quest which will destroy him. THhere's a 'mystery' there, which I'm convinced has grown out of seeing WW1 'through enchanted eyes'. Tolkien has an understanding of God's will & intentions which is deeper & profounder than most of us are capable of.

It is the little piece in italics where I have a question. Unless I misunderstand you, you seem to be saying that this was Frodo's doom, and there was simply no hope of changing it. Your statement implies that there would be no healing for Frodo in the lands to the West. Perhaps this is true, but I do not think even Tolkien was certain of that fact.

Why would JRRT have shared with us that lyrical vision in Tom Bombadil's house, and then repeated it in the final page of the book if the author was certain that Frodo would be lost and alone with no possibility of relief?

... the grey rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise"

It's interesting. In the earlier drafts of the story, there is a very different ending. Frodo takes an active part in the Scouring and the inhabitants of the Shire honor him. Yet, even in this ending, Tolkien could not bring himself to have the hobbit remain in the Shire. In HoMe (sorry, but I don't have the page handy), there's a reference to the fact that Frodo (still named Bingo at this point) withdrew to a little hut on the edge of Hobbiton and eventually chooses to go overseas because he has been changed to the point that he can no longer remain in the Shire -- not because he needed healing but because he no longer fit in.

In the final version of the work, Frodo changed in two ways. First, of course, there were the terrible internal wounds that brought him torment. But secondly, the Elven light in his face had been growing, and the capacity to look at Gollum with mercy. Both sides of Frodo grew in the latter portion of the story: that which was attracted to the lure of the Ring; and that which Gandalf described while Frodo lay injured in Rivendell:

He is not half through yet , and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can see. He may become like a glass filled with clear light for eyes to see that can.

This is clearly a reference to the phial of Galadriel, and implies a possible destiny beyond that of the doom of the Ring. I'm therefore not totally convinced that Frodo would be lost and alone in the West.

My feeling is that Tolkien himself really wasn't sure what would happen to his hobbit. Sometimes I almost sense that two sides of Tolkien were in conflict here.
As the lover of ancient northern myths, there is an innate pessimism that suggests Frodo was indeed doomed. And the author's experiences in the war could not help but reinforce that.

And yet there is a glimmering of something else here. To Tolkien, the worst "sin" in the world among good men was despair. And I can not conceive of him sending Frodo off to the West with only the possibility of that. Perhaps, his Catholic or religious side at least wanted to suggest the possibility of hope and healing for Frodo. This was in no way a certainty, yet neither do I think that the portrait of a heartsick and lonely Frodo was the only possible outcome.

There is another point from which one might infer the possibility of healing. In the earliest drafts, Tolkien added the words about Sam eventually coming across the Seas but put them in brackets -- the usual way to indicate he wasn't sure if a line should be in or out. In later drafts, the brackets were removed. Why would Tolkien imply that Sam was to come later to Tol Erresea if the only option for Frodo was a gloomy one? Sending Sam over in these circumstances doesn't seem to make sense; there has to be some hope of healing if Sam's visit to the West is to mean anything.

Perhaps, ultimately, Tolkien saw Frodo's destiny not too different from his own. JRRT was a man often weighted down with sadness; his childhood and years in the war were a hard legacy to bear. Yet part of him reached out beyond that to a hope he say encapsulated in the tenets of his religious faith. The doubts were there (the Letters make that clear), but so was the hope. Pehaps that is how he wanted us to envision that final sailing to the West.

Child