LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 01 - The Taming of Sméagol

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

One of my favourite chapters! I always reach it with such glee after having been away from Sam and Frodo for too long. And at long last – Gollum!!

It’s Gollum who really dominates the chapter, and he does so in some interesting ways. There’s some fascinating foreshadowing of his treachery, and of the bond that he shares with the hobbits:

Sam looked and breathed sharply through his teeth. ‘Ssss!’ he said…Look at him! Like a nasty spider crawling on a wall.’

As [Gollum fell from the cliff], he curled his legs and arms up round him, like a spider whose descending thread is snapped.

That’s two descriptions of Gollum as being like a spider in the course of only a few pages, not just that, but right at the beginning of his introduction to the story. The reference to Shelob could not be more clear, and thus in the very moment that he arrives he comes bearing with him the mark of his treachery. At the same time, the way Sam reacts to him is telling: “Ssss!” he says “sharply through his teeth.” This is an extremely Gollum-like sound and gesture, and it hints at the affinity that these three figures will come to feel for one another. Frodo’s understanding of Gollum is forged here. He has borne the Ring long enough to know almost at first glance that he and Gollum are a lot a like – there is a meeting of minds, or even souls, that Sam doesn’t understand, and this recognition is what allows the Quest to be fulfilled for it convinces Frodo to accept Gollum as his guide.

But the link between Sam and Gollum looks even further ahead to the moment upon Mount Doom when Sam will show pity to Gollum and not kill him. Sam, by that point, will have been a Ringbearer and thus understand Gollum the way Frodo does now. So if this initial meeting with Gollum contains allusions to his treachery, it also looks ahead to the moments and the virtue (Pity) that will allow that treachery to be overcome and even made to serve the purpose of the Quest. It’s compelling that the rest of the Quest is contained in this single moment: Gollum’s treachery and evil will combine with the Pity of the hobbits, there will be some kind of understanding forged between these different characters, that will somehow allow the ‘miracle’ to occur that puts the Ring into the fire.

But it’s not all fate and providence. These three characters are not just tools to an overwhelming plan, and this is made clear when Frodo misremembers Gandalf’s words to him. In “The Shadow of the Past” Gandalf says:

“Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

But here, Frodo remembers it as:

“Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”

It’s on the basis of this that Frodo spares Gollum’s life. What I think is important about this is that while Frodo is responding to the words of Gandalf, he is not slavishly following them. He is not reacting to Gandalf’s precise words, but to those words as they apply to Frodo’s own particular circumstance. It’s the difference between remembering a lesson and actually having learned it. Gandalf told Frodo an important thing about Pity, and Frodo here is able to apply that lesson rather than just trot it out. In this moment, in this place, Frodo “fears for his own safety” and knows that he will be dealing out death not “in judgement” (which is, presumably, deserved) but “in the name of justice” (that is, using justice as a pretext to justify a selfish act).

So Frodo is being influenced by the memory of Gandalf, directed even, but he is not a passive tool – he is making a freely willed choice that is setting a series of events in motion in which Gollum’s evil will be in conflict with the understanding (love?) that he forges with the hobbits.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Tolkien was a very good writer.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

One of my favourite chapters! I always reach it with such glee after having been away from Sam and Frodo for too long. And at long last – Gollum!!

Originally Posted by Formendacil

As for the chapter in general, I often find it a letdown to go back to Frodo and Sam and more mundane, dirty, and less rewarding journey they face after all the light and glory of Edoras, Fangorn, the Battle of Helm's Deep, and the great powers of Orthanc and the Palantir. It generally takes me until the Black Gate or Ithilien to really get into the swing of their quest, consequently leaving me with an under-appreciation for this stage of Frodo's quest.

Originally Posted by Lathriel

I get really interested in the story line with Aragorn and co. when I'm suddenly reading about Frodo and Sam again. It takes me a few pages before I have grudgingly accepted that there's no going back to the other story (to exagerate a little)

I have hesitated to respond to this chapter in part because of the sentiments which are expressed here by Fordim, Formendacil, and Lathriel. I had asked the question in our discussion of the previous chapter, and no one really took up the point: Why did Tolkien choose to divide literally the journeys of the two groups of the Fellowship into two separate Books? Why did he not entertwine them? What has he gained by splitting the action this way?

We have a "three day gap" in Sam and Frodo's journey as well as a wrenching pull away from the heroic concerns of Aragorn and Co. I cannot now remember what it felt like to make this readerly jump when I first read the book, but now I find it very strange indeed.

I also wonderwhy, suddenly, we are in such a hostile terrain. Even with the physical travails of Merry and Pippin and of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, the land they covered was never this barren. Yes, yes, I know where Sam and Frodo are. I just wonder why, so suddenly, we are brought into the harshness of their struggle.

One answer, of course, is that the journey of Sam, Frodo and Gollem is not part of the 'realism' of LotR. It does not belong to the art of realistic narrative nor of mythology per se. It is a symbolic journey or act. It is action on a completely different plane.

Seen this way, I begin to think about this threesome, this triumvirate or trinity and I wonder if we cannot see them as the unconscious aspects of the individual soul. Well, rather than soul, perhaps I can use mind. Freud's tripartite theory of the unconscious mind might well be considered, with the recognition that what is absent here is what is so dominant in Freud, the tieing in of all aspects of human behaviour with sexuality.

So, leaving sex out of it, in some ways can we understand these three characters as reflecting a division somewhat similar to that of Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego?

Gollem in this model might be understood as the Id, that primitive, instinctual mass of urges, desires, aggressions and gratifications. The predominance of animalistic descriptions of Gollem, not just the dog and spider references, but the constant emphasis on his sensory responses, particularly his use of his sense of smell, reflects the most basic of human contacts with the world.

I was at first tempted to see Sam as the Superego and Frodo as the Ego, but then I took a closer look at how they react to each other, to events, and to Gollem in this chapter and I would not be inclined to reverse that. Sam is the character who represents the structured sense of identity and self, constantly referring back to the Gaffer and to Galadriel, his past experience, mixing both deliberate acts of behaviour and sudden impulses. Frodo, particularly with his remembrance of Gandalf's lesson on pity and mercy, reflects the moral agent or Superego. I realise one can argue that Frodo's moral sense is a consciously articulated one, but at the same time I think we can consider him as the character who respresents the moral aspect of the unconscious, particularly in the manner wherebye he accepts the Ring and then agrees to carry it to Mordor without really understanding why.

Of course there are elements of the behaviour of all three characters which do not fit neatly into this structure, but it seems to me that broadly we have these three aspects of the human mind brought into interplay with each other. "Behind" the heroic actions of the other members of the Fellowship lies this primitive or basic aspect of our existence: how we learn to become moral agents. Perhaps only by separating the journey of Sam, Frodo and Gollem from the more social or culture struggles of Aragorn and Co did Tolkien feel he could make symbolic this journey to destroy the Ring.

[davem]

I have wondered about the possibilities of a Freudian interpretation of these three characters. Of course, one could put forward an equally valid Jungian interpretation - Gollum as the Shadow, the complex of repressed & denied aspects of the personality, both positive & negative, Sam as the conscious personality & Frodo as the developing Self & see the whole sequence as an account of the Individuation process...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The latter (Jungian individuation interpretation) has been done in a very interesting article. You can find the link on this thread. I find both interpretations of the triumvirate highly fascinating! They are not applicable through and through, of course, but are definitely thought-provoking.

[Firefoot]

Hmm. Interesting how other people feel a let down after leaving the other story line - particularly on my first reading, I experienced a very different reaction. Upon my first reading, I was very much into Frodo (still my favorite character, but I appreciate others more as well now) - after leaving Frodo and Sam at Amon Hen, they were the only two characters I really wanted to know about. Admittedly, I did not get a whole lot out of Book 3 that first reading with the exception of a few notable passages. So eager was I to find out when I was getting on to Frodo that in name-scanning the proceding chapters I accidently found out Gandalf came back... oops. So, anyway, suffice it to say that I was thrilled to reach this chapter.

As for why Tolkien decided to split it up, I will voice a few conjectures. Certainly in doing it this way he built up a great deal of suspense as far as wondering what was happening on the other side. Frodo and Sam are left heading toward Mordor. Then those characters west of Anduin are left off 'at the deep breath before the plunge,' to steal Gandalf's words. Then we leave Frodo and Sam again - and at an even worse spot than before (for me, anyway)! And, once again, we are left wondering just what is happening at the Black Gate. But why for so long? My guess is that because, just as the plots are divided in a literary sense, so also are the plots separate, with the only bridges being Faramir and (sort of) the Mouth of Sauron. Frodo and Sam especially have no idea what is going on with the remainder of the Fellowship. It also helps establish a flow in the two threads (though they are broken off rather abruptly).

Perhaps it could have worked just as well or better, maybe, if he had alternated every few chapters or so. However, I rather like the way he did it, and I think it does establish a real divide between the two sides, just as at the plot level.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

The question of the narrative splits -- ruptures, really -- is a good one. For my money, I've always just assumed that the primary reason was for suspense. It's a great way to keep the reader going: Gandalf and Pippin riding to war in Minas Tirith *whap* back in time by a few days and with Sam and Frodo. Of course, the worst one is still coming: "Frodo had been taken by the enemy" *wap* back to Gandalf and Pippin -- AAAAAGGH!!

But Bb points out a very interesting possibility with the thematic apposition of these two stories: the action-packed group-communal effort of societies against evil on the one hand, and the quieter suspenseful individual-private struggle between good and evil within each individual's heart and mind. It's not so much a back and forth movement as an in and out: history (Aragorn/Ganalf et al) and biography (Frodo, Sam, Gollum); societal and individual.

I'm really not happy, though, with any kind of Freudian approach to the current tale, if for no other reason than Freud was pretty much wrong about everything other than the fact that childhood experiences leave a mark on the developed adult. That, and the absence of a sexualised dynamic between Frodo, Sam and Gollum, makes Freud rather a red herring. Ditto for Jung, who would have us looking at these three -- who are among the most well-developed of Tolkien's characters -- as archetypes.

I suppose if I were to say anything about this division of the tale in the language of psychobabble, I would say that the story in the west is the "conscious" tale of history: it's composed of the events that everyone knows about and that everyone would expect to be a part of the tale of the End of the Third Age. Frodo, Sam and Gollum are history's "unconsious" part: unseen and unknown by almost everyone, quietly working away at a deeply personal level where the battles are moral and spiritual not physical (although there is physical trial).

Is this a way of looking at Sauron? He is so totally committed to the "conscious" face of history that he ignores the "unconscious" part until it is too late. Frodo's arrival at Mount Doom as the return of the repressed?????

Herm. . . .

[Lalwendë]

I like the way the stories have been divided in this way, and possibly one of the reasons why is that the division serves to underline the true nature of the peril all our heroes are in. Aragorn and the others have absolutely no idea what Frodo and Sam are up to and vice versa. Yet Aragorn and co. get on with the tasks which come their way just as do Frodo and Sam, despite never knowing if the risks they are taking will all turn out in vain.

If Frodo fails, then they might as well not have bothered with the Battle of Helm's Deep, and if Sauron succeeds in annihilating Gondor then Frodo's mission will not save it. Yet there is a message in this, and I think it is that despite what we know or do not know, there are always things which must be done in order to do the right thing. The division of the two main story threads only underlines the fact that each group knows nothing of the other yet still has the courage to continue and not lose faith.

Another reason that I like the division is that in Book 3 we see the more epic side to the struggle and learn of the great deeds of nation states and various races within the war, while in Book 4 we learn of the great deeds of individuals. Of course, it is not as quite as clearly cut as that, but the broad approach of each book follows this pattern; Book 3 is epic and Book 4 is intimate.