In the BBC documentary 'Tolkien in Oxford' there's a moment where Tolkien discusses the meaning of death (just dug this up on another website)
Quote:
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'When it comes down to any large story, that interests people and holds their interest for any considerable length of time, they're all human stories and are only about one thing, aren't they? Death! (pauses for effect) the ineventability of death. There was a quotation from Simonne de Beauvoir in the paper the other day - about the death in 1939 of a musical composer whom I am very fond of; Carl Maria Weber. The biographer quoted this by Simonne Beauvoir; I'll read it if I may: "There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to Man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die; but for each man, his death is an accident, and and even if he knows it, an unjustifiable violation". Now, you may agree with those words or not: but they are the keyspring of The Lord of the Rings'.
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Here, he seems to be going against the idea that Death is a 'Gift'. Here he says (in agreement with de Beuvoir) that Death is an 'accident & an unjustifiable violation.' Of course, it could be argued that this was his personal feeling & that things were different in LotR - yet he says that those words are the
keyspring of LotR. Does this mean that, while the idea of Death being a gift runs through the Legendarium, Tolkien himself didn't believe it?
He seems to be denying that Men's freedom begins after death (the 'accident', the 'unjustifiable violation'). The Elves may call Death the Gift of Eru to Men, but Men don't see it that way - & neither, it seems, did Tolkien. More significantly, he says these words are the 'keyspring' to LotR - which means what? That LotR is concerned with life (& I suppose with death) in
this world, & not with events post mortem. So, I would say, if freedom for Men is to have any meaning or relevance in the Legendarium, it must be freedom in this world, before the 'unjustifiable violation'.