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Old 10-06-2002, 08:03 PM   #44
littlemanpoet
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littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
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I think one aspect of what makes Tom and Goldberry - and Old Man Willow so beautiful - special - fascinating to me, is that they seem to hark back to Arda unmarred, to borrow a phrase.

Steering clear of allegory, Tom and Goldberry remind me of C.S. Lewis's Perelandra AFTER the story is over; only Tom and Goldberry are better because Tolkien doesn't have the screwed up notion still stuck in Lewis at this time that men are creationally superior to women.

I think this is why I see the House of Tom and Goldberry, and their haunts of the Old Forest and the Downs and the Withywindle as a kind of Eden (as applicatory, still steering clear of allegory). Tom and Goldberry, Tolkien has reflected, are the spirit of the vanishing Oxfordshire countryside. I think it is at least as true that T & G are epitome's of what an unfallen humanity would look like, in harmony with nature and each other, having a house full of music, safe and cozy, and familiar and comfortable and packed full of archetype. It has been discussed elsewhere on this board that Frodo's attraction to Goldberry is hobbit man to lovely woman. I'd like to suggest that whereas this element may be there, it is at least, and maybe more so, that Frodo instinctively recognizes Goldberry's "mother of all"-ness. Yes, Tolkien calls her "river-daughter" over and over again, which might be construed as evidence against my assertion, but that title could speak simply to where Tom found her, which is itself tantamount to legend the way JRRT writes it. So I guess I'm saying that Frodo's attraction to Goldberry is akin to her being an Eve of Middle Earth, and Tom a kind of Adam.

I am NOT trying to draw one to one relationshps and fall into the trap of allegorizing, but I do see the applicability.

I hope I'm not just talking to myself here.

[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: littlemanpoet ]
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