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Originally Posted by davem
Actually, she's seriously ill - soul sick if you will - & seriously in need of healing herself. And anyone who's been really sick & comes through it to health & happiness knows exactly why Eowyn wishes to become a healer herself.
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I quite agree. However, I think it would be a mistake, both over-simplistic and tending toward sexism, to see her words to Aragorn and her going into battle as completely wrong or mistaken, nothing but the symptoms of a sick soul. Yes, her hopelessness and desire for a swift death are in a sense 'sick'. But this does not deprive her words of their force or even their rightness. There is sexism in Rohan, as there is everywhere, and Eowyn is right to call it out. Indeed, it is in part the male-centric nature of Rohirric society that fuels her hopelessness in the first place. The Rohirric culture is one in which the honour and glory of battle are prized above just about all else, and of course women are not permitted to have those things. In dire times such as the War of the Ring, the men are permitted to go and face death themselves and by their own skills to overcome it or succumb to it; the women are forced to wait at home in uncertainty and compelled to entrust their lives to the deeds of others. That system is cruel to the women, and Eowyn's hopelessness is a natural result. She is perfectly justified in railing against her situation, just as Merry is.
Let's also not forget the result of Eowyn's 'sick' actions. Undoubtedly, the slaying of the Witch-king was a very good thing. Had Eowyn not gone into battle, it seems very likely that the outcome of the battle might have been different. A grim and hopeless desire for death or glory is in itself not good; but in war few things are. Eowyn's sickness ultimately helped to defeat Sauron.
That's why I don't see Eowyn's transformation in the Houses of Healing as anti-feminist. If you ask me, her personal healing has little to do with the fact that she is a woman and everything to do with the fact that she was a warrior. A man who was as desirous of a glorious death in battle would be in need of exactly the same kind of healing. I think, then, that Eowyn's sickness says something about what war does to people, and her recovery about the need to reclaim one's life, to forsake killing and destroying and take up healing and creating, after war.