Nuru said:
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Perhaps the Elf eyes are good and bright, but Gollum, not being that, finds them fierce and terrible? Perhaps because he knows Light and his lack of it, he hates it more than he would otherwise?
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I think this is very interesting, and quite true. Gollum hates what he is, but he hates what he is not much more. Perhaps this hits even deeper with him, because not only is he not good and bright, but perhaps he cannot be these things. This is what makes Gollum so utterly wretched: he is so consumed by hate that, until he is shown mercy and pity, there really is no chance for him to escape that hatred. Martin Luther King Jr. said that "You cannot overcome darkness with darkness, only light can do that. You cannot overcome hate with hate, only love can do that." This is Gollum's problem. Until he was given prolonged contact with Frodo, he was not shown mercy or kindness that he could understand. Frodo was uniquely suited to the role of providing Gollum with mercy; though he was 'elvish' in his way, he shared the understanding of the burden of the Ring, resulting in that comprehension of each other's minds remarked upon in the chapter and earlier in the thread.
The other thing I noticed upon rereading the chapter that I had never noticed before was (yet another) one of Gollum's internal struggles: the one seemingly argued with Sauron himself, though I imagine that it must have been in recollection of Sauron's task for him than actually occurring at that moment. It is yet one more evil that Smeagol would have to overcome if he had ever been saved. Quite honestly, the odds that the good in Smeagol would ultimately triumph are extremely slim: he has been living in Darkness for half a millenium dwelling on the evil, and now he is battling not only himself and his own desire of the Ring, but also the will of Sauron. Not impossible, I think, as he came quite close just before he led them to Shelob, but extemely hard.
I think that the Sauron factor does not crop up again (if memory serves correctly) is that in this chapter, Gollum apparently renounces Sauron's will for him saying: "Smeagol will swear never, never, to let Him have it. Never!"