Mister Underhill, your argumentation is so excellent that I hesitate to point out a flaw in your logic. However, Gimli's "gobbling" of the lembas cannot denote the fertility of his race, which is in fact dwindling as well and is characterized by an imbalance of female to male population very unfavorable to reproduction. Moreover, he himself cuts off any connection to the females of his own race by adopting an unrealistic passion for an unreachable object (a married woman of another race = no possibility for real consummation and therefore barren), leaving him without any genuine female relationship. Instead, he chooses the friendship of a male of that race to enable himself to keep up the illusion and not have to face reality. In the light of these facts, I would interpret (and we are of course speaking of applicability, not allegory!) Gimli's gobbling of the lembas as a destructive act, an avoidance of ever having to place the lembas in his pocket in the first place!
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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09-17-2002, 01:06 AM
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