[The Saucepan Man]

Aiwendil, it seems to me that there is little between us. But just to pick up on some of the points that you have made:

You suggest that a distinction be made between "psychological depth" and "characterization".

I think that a distinction must be made, since characterisation involves so much more than a character's psychological state. It includes such things as a character's appearance and attire. Tom Bomdadil, for example, is characterised by his beard, hat, blue coat and yellow boots. He is characterised in other ways too, but those are definately important aspects of his characterisation.

That's a matter of definition and, since all definitions are arbitrary, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I wouldn't say arbitrary. The word "psychology" must be given a meaning. And it seems to me that the "psychological" aspects of a character must, taking a traditional definition of the word, equate to the internal workings of that character's mind. What are their inner thoughts, feelings, motivations, conflicts etc? So, a character who has "psychological depth" is one in whom these aspects of his or her character are richly drawn. And a character who lacks "psychological depth" need not be lacking in other forms of characterisation. We might be told volumes about their appearance, history and deeds, but very little about their inner thoughts.

But I agree that there will frequently be a degree of overlap. As you say, a character's inner thoughts can be implied from the other aspects of a his or her overall characterisation.

In Tolkiens' works, we do have some characters whose inner thoughts we are privy to. With others, we must rely on external aspects of their characterisation to draw conclusions about the inner workings of their minds. But, either way, I would still say that there are very few characters in Tolkien's works who have real psychological depth, by which I mean characters whose psychological make-up is richly drawn.

And that is most definately not a criticism. With LotR, the events portrayed are the main drivers and so we are told only what we need to know about the characters' internal thoughts, feelings, conflicts, struggles and motivations as is necessary for us to understand those events. And, when those events require us to have a greater understanding of a character's inner mind, that character is drawn with greater psychological depth. As I said in my previous post, I believe that it is internal conflicts and struggles which makes a character more psychologically interesting. And this, I believe, is why it is characters such as Gollum, Denethor and (when he takes the Ring) Sam, who end up being portrayed with greater psychological depth.

... how useful or interesting is this definition?

I think that it is both, for the way in which an author portrays his characters can give us a greater understanding of what he is trying to achieve. It is, to my mind, interesting to examine how an author uses characterisation to get across the story he is trying to tell.

Moreover, I think that readers do not sharply distinguish between the psychological aspect of characterization and the other aspects.

Maybe not consciously. But I think that the way in which an author chooses to use characteristion will affect the way in which the reader sees and reacts to those characters and it will therefore affect the reader's overall appreciation of the story.

It is a feature of Tolkien's world that there are really, unambiguously good people, really, unambiguously evil people, and people in between. One may well question whether this is true of the real world. But one cannot question whether it is true of Tolkien's world. That's simply the way it is.

Yes, I can see what you are saying. And I do agree. But I think that this only goes to reinforce my view that many of Tolkien's characters lack psychological depth. Characters who are unambiguously good or unambiguously evil will be less psychologically interesting than those who are more ambiguous in this regard, or who are flawed in some way. The wholly good/wholly evil characters may be interesting and richly characterised in other ways, and have important roles to play in the story, but they will lack any real psychological depth.

And this, I think, takes us back to the question of what the author is trying to acheive. One of the themes of Tolkien's work is the fight between good and evil. And so it is necessary that he has characters who represent the two extremes. Within that context, they are, as you say, believable, and so their lack of psychological depth does not represent any failure on Tolkien's part in terms of the story that he was trying to tell.

Edit: Thank you, Theron Bugtussle. And welcome to the thread. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Indeed, it certainly does require a measure of effort, and some investment of time, to keep up with all the ideas expressed on this thread. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

I disagree with (perhaps my understanding of) your definition of psychological depth, if by it you mean a character has to wallow in temptation to sin, indecision, or some other angst in order that the reader find the character interesting, or to assure that the character be perceived as deep or having something of great value to contribute to today's reader.

I am most certainly not saying that the characters who lack any internal struggle are not interesting, or do not have something valuable to contribute to the story, and therefore the reader. I am simply saying that they are psychologically less interesting. We are less concerned with the workings of their mind and more concerned with their deeds. But, given that Tolkien was not setting out to write a psychological study, his characters do not need to be psychologically interesting. They are interesting in other ways. And so we can, of course, still find characters such as Aragorn and Faramir interesting, appreciate their importance to the story, and draw inspiration from them.

[ November 17, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]