[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

One has to be careful with Freudian symbolism, lest one begin to see everything as a phallic symbol (trees, chairs, pipes and so forth). This is a trap into which pretentious pseudo-intellectuals often fall, as in the case above. Why such a weak analysis should trouble us here is a mystery to me.

I've already gone into a lot of detail on my ideas about the portrayal of women in The Lord of the Rings, so I shall be brief here: this is all about point of view. LoTR is entirely written using the four hobbits as points of reference: we see what they see; hear what they hear, and when we see someone's thoughts it's theirs that we are shown. This is why characters such as Arwen and Galadriel are ethereal beauties; this is why we scarcely see a female character but she's noble and beautiful (to a hobbit, who wouldn't be?) and this is why Éowyn gets so much attention: she spends a hugely disproportionate amount of time with one of the main protagonists, enabling us to gain a deeper insight into her motivation and character. This, I would argue, is no coincidence, since her defeat of the Witch-king is such a pivotal event in the War of the Ring. The same goes for Ioreth, whose comments are noted by the protagonists because they have such significance.

That obviously doesn't explain why women feature so lightly in the parts of the narrative with which the author is mainly concerned. Simply put, whatever might have been going on in the world around him (and we have all seen how much notice he took of that), Tolkien's view of a hero did not encompass men who allowed women to enter danger. When the women do this, as in the cases of Lúthien, Aredhel and Éowyn, for example it is without the knowledge or at least without the consent of those men whom the Victorian gender value system would cast as their protectors. This absolves Thingol, Turgon and Théoden of their respective responsibilities under that system to keep the women safe.

The fact that Tolkien shows us both the possible positive (Éowyn and Lúthien) and negative (Aredhel) results of defying this system of gender roles encompasses for me the point that, whilst Tolkien felt that it was a man's duty to do all in his power to protect women, they were in no way required meekly to accept that protection; indeed were required at times to defy it in the fulfillment of Eru's designs.

I'm prepared to accept that Tolkien was not entirely accurate in his portrayal of women (I, like him, can only guess at the accuracy of characters like Erendis) and that he avoided the subject as much as possible, but was it lack of confidence, or his (justifiable) imposition of his values onto the world he created?