LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 01 - A Long-Expected Party

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by mark 12:30

Frodo is the only one of the three who actually DID receive it as a Birthday Present! He could honestly call it that! (And wouldn't it be eerie...) Not just birthday, but Coming-Of-Age birthday present... and an inheritance... what a way to recieve your Life-Changing Doom...

Well noticed

But I think there is a bit more to it. Frodo's person is quite a composite and contains a load of hints to load of things

First, let me retain my Norse mythology connotations to his name (I'm glad to accept the 'wise by experience' explanation by Fordim Hedgethistle too and incorporate it into)

But, remembering Tolkien's famous 'consciously so in the revision' quotation, let me be so bold to mark that Frodo at the same time is Christ-like figure (so is Aragorn, per instance, but that is to be seen later on)

Note one of the similarities - to be revealed in the very first chapter, and heavily stressed upon - Frodo receives the Ring (may I say, his cross?) when he is 33 years old. Having in mind that he is to become the saviour of whole ME later on in the story, it certainly rings certain bells.

It seems to me that in Frodo Tolkien tries to unite Christian myth with those of the pagan mythologies of the north-west of Europe. He certainly employes what C.S.Lewis was referring to as the reflections of True Myth (True Myth referring to incarnation of Christ) scattered across pagan myths (dying god of corn to bring new life). Frodo is to do exactly this - he is to die (in a sense, his departure from ME by the end of the book is death, and, if another sense of death is to loose this world, than Frodo certainly looses it), but than, Frodo does let the world live on by it.

And with all this in mind, Frodo's Ring (very strikingly referred to as 'burden' throughout the narration) comes to him as he reaches 33 years of age.