I almost hate to belabor this one, but the faces of the dead that Frodo sees in the water in the Dead Marshes, is strongly reminiscent, so I've read, of the memories of WWI veterans speaking of seeing their dead comrades lying at the bottom of trenches, under water.
Brrrrr!!
The shrieking of the Nazgul apparently bears a striking aural resemblance to incoming mortar rounds and their respective effects on soldiers.
The spouts of reek blasted into the sky by Orodruin, causing night when it is day mirrors the smoke covered killing fields of war.
Even the orcs' comments and dialogue. "Don't you know we're at war?" ..... "Don't you know there's a war on?"
From Shephard, Ben,
A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century Cambridge, 2001:
Quote:
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On the Somme, shell-shock and 'nervous disorders of war', hitherto a margianl medical problem, became a major drain on manpower. According to the British official history, 'In the first few weeks [of July 1916] several thousand soldiers were rapidly passed out of the battle zone on account of nervous disorders and many of them were evacuated to England'. The inadequate official figures show that the numbers of men returned as 'shellshock battle casualties' -- suffering from 'shell-shock' after actually being shelled [...] tripled in the last six months of 1916 [...]. These are the only surviving British figures and do not cover 'Shell-shock Sick'. They probably need to be multiplied by at least three to give a real sense of the scale of the problem.
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The cause of the condition, now known as PTSD, was the experience of a disturbing trauma that led to persisting recollections of that trauma over long periods of time. The "stressor" must meet two basic criteria: the situation must have mortal consequences, and the person's reaction to the situation must have been one of "intense fear, helplessness, or horror".
Does this fit Frodo? Consider the list that
Essex has kindly contributed.
Symptoms:
(1) the reliving of the event in the form of nightmares and, particularly, flashbacks;
(2) the persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness;
(3) the changing of persaonl demeanor and behavior.
Are these symptoms exhibited by Frodo?