‘The Workhouse’ – Tolkien’s Purgatory

[davem]

But isn't the point of the Niggle story the nature of the subcreator? In Niggle's Parish the Tree is a 'given', but the rest, the perfecting of the place comes about as a result of Niggle's stay in the Workhouse. In other words, Niggle's Parish only comes into being because Niggle went through that purgatorial experience. Say all you want about the 'gift' of the Messiah, but if the Messiah gave us everything then we would have nothing uniquely our own to give ourselves. God is the Creator, creating the primary world, we are subcreator's & we create, in His image, secondary worlds. Niggle is purged so that he can become a more accomplished subcreator. The skills he learns in the Workhouse enable him to make his vision of the Tree & the Lands surrounding it 'real'. For Tolkien, it seems to me, what lies beyond the Mountains is not 'eternal bliss' but eternal (sub) creativity. And that subcreativity will involve work, suffering of a kind, in order to bring new things into being. Tolkien's paradise is not a place of rest, but of work.

From this perspective, 'Grace' isn't the issue. Grace is another thing, for another purpose. Leaf by Niggle is about the nature of subcreation, not salvation. Grace plays a part: ''Its a gift' he said.', (& in the Shepherd's invitation), but subcreation is a different thing - it doesn't depend on grace, or on being 'saved' - Melkor is a subcreator in that he wants to rearrange the world, he dreams of the world being different, & that begins as a plan, a 'secondary world which only exists (at first) in his mind. Any storyteller, 'saved' or not, graced or not, is a subcreator. Subcreation, for Tolkien, is part of our nature, inherited from our 'Father' - it is neither blessed nor cursed, its simply what we do. 'Leaf by Niggle' is about how Niggle comes to understand the nature of subcreation, & how to best make use of the gift (or the 'Grace' if you will).

So, as I said, the Workhouse is not Purgatory in the strict sense - it doesn't work in the same way, because its not designed to achieve the same thing.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

mark/Helen, thanks for both excellent posts! Yes, your definitions of mercy, grace and redemption coincide quite closely with mine. The explanation of Tolkien's purgatory that you have found for yourself makes it more understandable for me, though I still have to brush up on the Catholic definition to see how it compares to the 'official' church theology. The quotes from 'Letters' reinforce that approach, and the idea that the Halls of Mandos are the Middle-earth equivalent, as davem suggests, would also show a more lenient concept on JRRT's part.

davem, you go on from the 'Workhouse' purgatory to 'Niggle's Parish' Paradise. You know, I've always thought that heaven would be a boring place the way many people envision it, just sitting around - a sub-creative eternity sounds fascinating! Though the Paradise aspect wasn't part of my original topic in this thread, I have no objection at all to including it in the discussion!

[Child of the 7th Age]

Interesting discussion, everyone. Just a very brief comment on something that was said in Davem’s previous post:

. Leaf by Niggle is about the nature of subcreation, not salvation.

Davem, I am not an expert, but I’m wondering if we are making our lines too rigid. Subcreation is definitely operating here, but I see glimmers of salvation as well. I’m wondering if we’re constructing an artificial wall beween these two concepts that Tolkien would not have seen.

For example, at one point in Leaf by Niggle, while Niggle is lying in darkness in the Workhouse, I recall that he mentions hearing a severe “First Voice” and a gentle “Second Voice”. When Parrish thanks Niggle for helping to hurry his release from the Workhouse, Niggle replies:

No. You owe it to the Second Voice…..We both do.

I’ve always thought the First Voice sounded like God the Father and the Second Voice like God the Son, and to me that holds echoes of salvation. It seems to me that Tolkien felt that the best subcreation, that which was true and pure, must have some spiritual content or value. I don’t mean that it has to be on an explicitly religious subject, but it must reflect the values that Tolkien saw as stemming from God’s creation plan. I cannot see Tolkien setting up an arbitrary line between salvation and subcreation. To him they were two reflections of the same fundamental truth. I do agree that a Paradise spent sitting around in eternal bliss sounds awfully boring and I would far prefer the sub-creation variety.

There is a lot of substance in Esty's first post. By focusing on Purgatory, grace, and salvation, I think we're only touching on part of it. Let me go away and hack at the computer and come back shortly.

[Kuruharan]

davem

And that subcreativity will involve work, suffering of a kind, in order to bring new things into being.

Why do you say that? Do you think the work itself is suffering?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Esty -

Here I am plop in the middle of a theological discussion, but I'd like to consider this topic from a slightly different angle and examine one point you raised in your first post:

Quote from Esty.....2. Unpleasant treatment – The environment is very unfriendly and devoid of human warmth and fellowship; here’s how it’s described:

Quote from book:
The medicine they gave him was bitter. The officials and attendants were unfriendly, silent, and strict; and he never saw anyone else, except a very severe doctor, who visited him occasionally. It was more like being in a prison than in a hospital. He had to work hard, at stated hours: at digging, carpentry, and painting bare boards all one plain colour. He was never allowed outside, and the windows all looked inwards. They kept him in the dark for hours at a stretch, ‘to do some thinking,’ they said.

This confinement does not sound pleasant, yet in its humble way Leaf by Niggle almost seems like a tiny reflection of grander themes that are splashed in much larger type through the Legendarium as a whole. Specifically, this includes such concepts as how difficult it is bring about change in human history and to eradicate evil from the world, and how such things can only be done (if at all) through great pain and sacrifice. This tiny little prison cell in Leaf by Niggle with all its forced limitations and hardships was a tiny piece of the bigger picture. Its purpose was not to mold history, but, a task just as difficult, to effect change in a single human soul. And Tolkien never saw that as easy.

Tolkien consistently shows us characters who must go through extremely painful experiences in order to grow and change. The one person most changed by the Ring quest is Frodo Baggins, and his path was the most unpleasant of all. Yet, all the other characters, especially the light-hearted hobbits, had to go through a certain amount of hardship in order to mature.

Perhaps, one reason for this is that Tolkien felt Man, even those who are labeled as “good”, stubbornly resisted change (perhaps something he saw in himself?) The best known example is the Elves who were, on some level, intended to exemplify certain aspects of our own race. But equally striking were the Men of Gondor who, in a manner similar to the Elves, simply wanted to restore the glories of the past. For them it was the glories of Numenor, and they are described as “a withering people whose only ‘hallows’ were their tombs" (letter 154).

It took a cataclysm – that of the Ring War— to finally prod the Elves into giving up their failed dreams and to push the Men of Gondor towards the Fourth Age instead of always dwelling on the past. So too, in Tolkien’s eyes, it takes a set of painful circumstances to get the individual to change. And I think that is one of the reasons he describes the confinement in such harsh terms (in addition to the theological questions that have already been discussed.)

In other words, those who have authority are not remiss if they are stern and strict and set up unpleasant rules and limitations to prod us into reflection and change for our own benefit. This is actually the feeling I got when Sam disciplined his children for complaining that they had to go to bed:

“But that won’t be fair,” said both Merry and Pippin, who were not in their teens. “We shall have to go directly to bed.”

“Don’t talk like that to me,” said Sam sternly. “If it ain’t fair for Ellie and Fro to sit up after supper it ain’t fair for them to be born sooner, and it ain’t fair that I am your dad and you’re not mine. So no more of that, take your turn and what’s due in your time, or I’ll tell the King.”

In other words, rules are rules – whether in Middle-earth or in purgatory—even if unpleasant, and those above have the right to enforce them. This is not a particularly popular stance in much of modern culture.

And since Tolkien was a humble man, and was probably envisioning his own possible experience in describing Niggle, he assumed the worst: that he would need the very strictest of discipline. And that the First and Second Voice were simply setting up this confinement for his own benefit.

[Encaitare]

Many thanks to Estelyn for starting this thread -- I just read Leaf by Niggle and loved it, and I knew that there was something deeper in it but not being Catholic I wasn't sure what. This discussion is very thought-provoking!

From the idea of purgatory as I have come to understand it, I think it makes perfect sense for this to be what Niggle is going through.

First he has the long journey, which he is quite reluctant to make.

He did not want to go, indeed the whole idea was distasteful to him; but he could not get out of it. He knew he would have to start some time, but he did not hurry with his preparations.

This journey seems like a symbolic death, which Niggle knows is coming but doesn't want to face anytime soon. Since he has this great painting which is like his life's work, he fears that he will have to leave on his journey, or 'die,' before his work in life is complete. (This, indeed, happened to Tolkien, as he left so much of his great works unfinished.) But he is forced to go on this journey anyway, leaving everything behind (truly a statement that you "can't take it with you"!).

He was never allowed outside, and the windows all looked inwards. They kept him in the dark for hours at a stretch, ‘to do some thinking,’ they said.

Basically all he is allowed to do is do dull, menial work that requires little to no thought, and then he's left for hours to just think. What else would he think about than his past, and all the things he's done wrong? He is not comfortable, but he is not maltreated either; however all the people are harsh and cold, which would make him think even less of himself and probably make him feel guilty even for bad thoughts he has had. Once he recognizes his 'sins' and comes to understand that he has done wrong in the past, the two Voices agree to at last release him into his paradise of his own creation, where his work has actually manifested into something tangible and perfect -- his own version of Heaven.

[davem]

Well, I'm not trying to set up a 'conflict' between salvation & subcreation generally, merely in the context of Niggle. I think a lot can be learned from Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia:

The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

...Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate,
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bare, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.

...In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day-illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they no more look awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.

The whole poem can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/domachowski/mythopoeia.html & is really worth reading in conjunction with On Fairy Stories, if we want to understand Tolkien's idea of subcreation.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Why do you say that? Do you think the work itself is suffering?

Yes, in that it involves effort, struggle, application, but that's not necesarily 'bad'.