LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 02 - The Council of Elrond

[davem]

I suppose its a question of intent - why does Saruman want to know what the light is made of, & what makes him think that once he's broken it he can do anything with it?

Is he, & Morgoth really driven by a desire to create or simply a desire to manipulate, to 're-make the world in his own image'? Whatever, what all three of them do, Saruman, Morgoth & Sauron, is to break, divide, drive apart, & I do think its significant that its the females in the story who symbolise healing, unification, eros values generally. Its quite interesting that the Lamps were made by Aule, & are constructions, in a sense, machines, that the Trees are brought to life by Yavanna, & are living , growing things, & the Silmarils, & the Rings, are 'machines', as are the Palantiri, so we have a 'male' approach, manufacture of 'things', & a 'female' approach' of bringing into being living things. (Yes, I know we have Galadriel's phial & Aule's creation of the Dwarves, but we'll leave them on one side for the moment!).

The male approach seems to be to to break things into their component parts, from which new things can be made, according to the desire of the maker, & the female approach of 'giving birth', literally or symbolically, to living things.

(Too short, but I'm sneaking this on at work!)