Lord of the Rings and Philosophy @ Concordia University Wisconsin

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

To posit this Jungian psychological perspective as that which Tolkien really was talking about, is erroneous at best because one would be saying that Tolkien was most concerned about a particular psychological process, whereas his mythopoeia is far richer than that. I am not, however, saying that one cannot find parallels in Tolkien's works from Jungian psychological perspectives.

I could offer my own opinion, but I prefer not to speculate.

We can't know exactly what Tolkien was talking about. The most we can hope to do is to understand what the text gives us by reading it closely and the analysis given does exactly that. I suppose it's a bit of a shame that Jungian analysis so often does get to the root of the issue at hand; just because it gives us the right answer is no need to reject it out of hand.

And it does in this case. Melkor is created by Eru and as such can only possess what Eru gives to him. So if he is not true to himself then he is indeed not being true to Eru, who made him.

Who knows if Tolkien, by creating a set of Gods who were bestowed with their skills and personalities by an omnipotent creator God, and who therefore we must expect were created with the intention of being true to their/their creator's self, did not intend anything psychological by it. It so happens that this is just how things are in the cosmology he created and by happy accident that seems to fit with something Jungian.