[Child of the 7th Age]

Formendacil -

That's an interesting point you've made: that in real life we don't get inside anyone's head. Rather, we get to know people and make our judgments by observing and talking with them. Tolkien's narrative essentially gives us a chance to do that in the context of Middle-earth, since we rarely know what a particular character is thinking. Instead, we have to use our brains and native instincts to try and figure out what really lies behind a particular action or the words that come out of a character's mouth.

There is, I think, one other device Tolkien uses to reveal the souls of his characters without actual stating what is going on inside their heads. We're frequently given the chance to look through the eyes of another character in the book and share his observations. This particularly seems the case in regard to Frodo. There are two passages that are among my favorites. In both scenes, the reader gains a moving glimpse of Frodo through the eyes of a companion. It is essentially a glimpse of some unseen battles being fought there.

The first occurs in Rivendell where Frodo is recovering from his wound. Frodo wakes up and finds Gandalf sitting in his room. The two begin to talk. But in the middle of the conversation we are told that Gandalf came closer to the bed to observe the hobbit and noted "a hint of as it were of transparency" about Frodo, "and especially about the left hand that lay outside the coverlet." Gandalf suddenly begins speaking not to Frodo, but to himself.

Still that must be expected. He is not half through yet , and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.

The second incident is in the chapter "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit." This time, Samwise is the observer and Frodo is asleep. Sam remembers seeing Frodo asleep in Rivendell when he had watched over him as he lay in bed gravely wounded:

Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that wayto himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmurred, "I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no."

In both passages, we learn something about the narrator--in one case Gandalf and in the other Samwise. But we are given even more insights into Frodo. The final sentence in Gandalf's quotation is, in effect, comparing Frodo with the Phial of Galadriel: "a glass filled with a clear light". In the second, what is striking uis that Frodo's face looked fine and old and etched with wrinkles. By all reckoning, this should not be happening to Frodo: the power of the Ring is such as to make one unnaturally young, taut, and stretched. But apparently there are other things going on underneath that Sam and Gandalf describe for us.

This isn't just a case of discerning psychological motives; it literally gives us a glimpse of Frodo's soul.

Drigel - I certainly agree that Lewis was referring to a moral or spiritual state when he uses a term like "visible souls". And I think the two passages mentioned above are clear instances of that. These are not the only ones that could be cited, just two of my favorites. A lot of Aragorn's characterization is also accomplished this way.

I do think both avenues are worthy of attention. By searching out and studying a "literary device", we have an idea how Tolkien technically achieved what he wanted to do. By looking at what is actually contained in those passages, we invariably run into the element that you describe as a "spritual state".


Firefoot - The whole idea of blank spaces is fascinating. Tolkien seems to have been strangely attracted to blank spaces as a way to encourage readers to use their imaginations!

We've been told time and time again that perhaps one of the reasons JRRT didn't finish Silm is that he couldn't bear to fill in all those mysterious blank spaces that existed in the LotR narrative. In the Letters, Tolkien talks about the reader's joy in seeing a distant mountain where you can only make out the barest of outlines. It is grand and mysterious, and only half understood. By publishing Silm, he would be dispelling some of that mystery: the half-understood vistas would be filled in.

LotR is full of stories and allusions that the reader will only half comprehend unless he/she has read and understood the wider Legendarium. Apparently, part of Tolkien wanted to leave it that way. That's quite an extraordinary sentiment to express when so much of his earlier energies had been devoted to trying to get the thing finished and published!

What your own statement suggests is that JRRT's love of mysterious blanks went beyond history to the characters themselves. By drawing down a discreet veil over inner thoughts, he in effect created internal "blanks" over which the reader could ponder at length. It was essentially the same technique that he used to lay bare tiny slivers of history, but never the whole thing. I've never heard it expressed quite this way before...