purgatory is a word Tolkien himself (more than once) uses to describe the occassion. However, it is not simply the Christian idea of purging one's sins (and that is the basic idea, not the more in depth one--I know), but a more broad use of the word (Tolkien knowing more about words than anybody freely used archaic definitions of everyday words that differ quite a bit). It is a purgatory, "but one of peace and healing" (letter 325), and "period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of 'Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil." (letter 246).
If anything, the purgatory is not a time (here before death) of omitting guilt, but of understanding, for Frodo, that he had not failed, a coming to peace of mind.
And I think that the Ringbearers go a bit further than Eressea for their final home. In Letter 154 Tolkien writes they "may pass with the Elves to Elvenhome." Elvenhome is typically applied strictly to Eldamar on Aman. And in Letter 325,he writes that they dwelt in Aman. Though in a text in Morgoth's Ring their passage to the West is given in a paragraph discussing the passage of the Elves to Eressea, without saying the mortals too went only to the island, but also without saying more.
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"He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure."
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06-30-2003, 08:21 PM
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