Boromir, Gollum and Eowyn

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lyta -

It is indeed good to hear your ideas again!

Fordim-

I do agree that Frodo's plight and place in the narrative is so unique that he works best as a "foil" to this group or, perhaps more properly speaking, they work best as a foil to him, since he bears the central and pivotal role. Moreover, it seems clear that, as far as Frodo goes, the central figure in this triad opposing him would have to be Gollum, with the other two flanking off to the side. Yet, I do not think you can look at these three characters in isolation, without considering how Frodo fits into this equation and determining how his position is both similar and different.

In this wider context, your comment on oath breakers was interesting. Yes, I think there is a contrast. I would say Frodo stands in a unique situation when compared with the others in your triad:

(This is where, incidentally, Child's point about Frodo is extremely interesting. When the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell, Elrond is very clear that on Frodo alone "is any charge laid: neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy". Technically, when he does claim the Ring for his own he does not break this oath, but then he also is not really living up to the spirit of that oath either?)

Whatever the other three characters may have done, Frodo did not actually swear an oath when he spoke before the Council of Elrond. "I will take the Ring,....though I do not know the way." A traditional oath of fealty must be sworn to a particular person or body and that person or body must directly accept the sworn fealty. If we look at the wording of Elrond's response, we see that he did not actually accept Frodo's words as an oath. Instead, he falls back on the "pregnant passive". He even modifies his response further by adding the words "I think" to the beginning of the sentence.

I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo, and that if you do not find a way, no one will.

It is not Elrond who imposes the duty. He is merely recognizing something that has been imposed from elsewhere (an elsewhere that is not specified in the text but which the reader can conjecture).

What Frodo is doing is much closer to what a modern reader would call a "promise". Unlike the other characters we're discussing --Eowyn, Boromir, and even the "archaic" Gollum who comes from a much older world, Frodo is from the Shire.....hardly a place of oaths. He is the mediator between the modern reader and the other characters in the story who are indeed oath-givers from oath-swearing cultures. (Interestingly, Frodo's two Hobbit friends are later to be swept up into swearing oaths but only because they become intimately involved with the "older" cultures of Rohan and Gondor.)

The word "charge" that you cite in your quotation above is also very interesting. In a modern sense, this word can mean a requirement or an obligation. This would be a natural component of an oath. But there is another, much older meaning of this term, and I think it is what Tolkien meant when he had Elrond utter the word. An obsolete meaning of the word is "a material load or weight". Surely Tolkien was aware of that, and I think his choice of words was intentional. I can not think of anything more suitable than charge or weight to describe the task that Frodo has taken on.

Finally, I do not think we can understand the full meaning of oaths by confining our consideration to only these three individuals, or even to the comment that Elrond gave to Gimli. You would certainly have to consider the later Hobbit oaths as well.