The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 01

Fordim Hedgethistle · 03-10-2005, 11:05 AM

The question of the narrative splits -- ruptures, really -- is a good one. For my money, I've always just assumed that the primary reason was for suspense. It's a great way to keep the reader going: Gandalf and Pippin riding to war in Minas Tirith *whap* back in time by a few days and with Sam and Frodo. Of course, the worst one is still coming: "Frodo had been taken by the enemy" *wap* back to Gandalf and Pippin -- AAAAAGGH!!

But Bb points out a very interesting possibility with the thematic apposition of these two stories: the action-packed group-communal effort of societies against evil on the one hand, and the quieter suspenseful individual-private struggle between good and evil within each individual's heart and mind. It's not so much a back and forth movement as an in and out: history (Aragorn/Ganalf et al) and biography (Frodo, Sam, Gollum); societal and individual.

I'm really not happy, though, with any kind of Freudian approach to the current tale, if for no other reason than Freud was pretty much wrong about everything other than the fact that childhood experiences leave a mark on the developed adult. That, and the absence of a sexualised dynamic between Frodo, Sam and Gollum, makes Freud rather a red herring. Ditto for Jung, who would have us looking at these three -- who are among the most well-developed of Tolkien's characters -- as archetypes.

I suppose if I were to say anything about this division of the tale in the language of psychobabble, I would say that the story in the west is the "conscious" tale of history: it's composed of the events that everyone knows about and that everyone would expect to be a part of the tale of the End of the Third Age. Frodo, Sam and Gollum are history's "unconsious" part: unseen and unknown by almost everyone, quietly working away at a deeply personal level where the battles are moral and spiritual not physical (although there is physical trial).

Is this a way of looking at Sauron? He is so totally committed to the "conscious" face of history that he ignores the "unconscious" part until it is too late. Frodo's arrival at Mount Doom as the return of the repressed?????

Herm. . . .

03-10-2005, 11:05 AM	#22
Fordim Hedgethistle Gibbering Gibbet Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Beyond cloud nine Posts: 1,844	The question of the narrative splits -- ruptures, really -- is a good one. For my money, I've always just assumed that the primary reason was for suspense. It's a great way to keep the reader going: Gandalf and Pippin riding to war in Minas Tirith whap back in time by a few days and with Sam and Frodo. Of course, the worst one is still coming: "Frodo had been taken by the enemy" wap back to Gandalf and Pippin -- AAAAAGGH!! But Bb points out a very interesting possibility with the thematic apposition of these two stories: the action-packed group-communal effort of societies against evil on the one hand, and the quieter suspenseful individual-private struggle between good and evil within each individual's heart and mind. It's not so much a back and forth movement as an in and out: history (Aragorn/Ganalf et al) and biography (Frodo, Sam, Gollum); societal and individual. I'm really not happy, though, with any kind of Freudian approach to the current tale, if for no other reason than Freud was pretty much wrong about everything other than the fact that childhood experiences leave a mark on the developed adult. That, and the absence of a sexualised dynamic between Frodo, Sam and Gollum, makes Freud rather a red herring. Ditto for Jung, who would have us looking at these three -- who are among the most well-developed of Tolkien's characters -- as archetypes. I suppose if I were to say anything about this division of the tale in the language of psychobabble, I would say that the story in the west is the "conscious" tale of history: it's composed of the events that everyone knows about and that everyone would expect to be a part of the tale of the End of the Third Age. Frodo, Sam and Gollum are history's "unconsious" part: unseen and unknown by almost everyone, quietly working away at a deeply personal level where the battles are moral and spiritual not physical (although there is physical trial). Is this a way of looking at Sauron? He is so totally committed to the "conscious" face of history that he ignores the "unconscious" part until it is too late. Frodo's arrival at Mount Doom as the return of the repressed????? Herm. . . . __________________ Scribbling scrabbling.