LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 05 - The Window on the West

[davem]

And so to Faramir....

Well, I suppose you either love him or hate him. Or rather you’re convinced by him or you’re not. Obviously the movie makers weren’t, so they decided this ‘goody-goody’ had to be made more ‘realistic’. I’ve never found him not to be ‘realistic’. He is wise, compassionate & concerned to do the right thing, even if he loses all in the process. As Anne C Petty has pointed out Tolkien’s Faramir is the perfect Steward for Aragorn, & clearly that was Tolkien’s intent. The incoming age of Men will need men like Aragorn & Faramir if it is to have any chance of both retaining the best of the past & of building a future which the inhabitants of Middle-earth (& we the readers) can have hope in.

Yet many readers seem to have a problem with Faramir - how can anyone simply walk away from the Ring, feeling no temptation?

Alas for Boromir! It was too sore a trial!" he said. "How you have increased my sorrow, you two strange wanderers from a far country, bearing the peril of Men! But you are less judges of Men than I of Halflings. We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt.Not if I found it on the highway would I take it I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

But that’s the point - he doesn’t simply walk away from it:

.

"But I am not such a man. Or I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee. Sit at peace! And be comforted, Samwise. If you seem to have stumbled, think that it was fated to be so. Your heart is shrewd as well as faithful, and saw clearer than your eyes. For strange though it may seem, it was safe to declare this to me. It may even help the master that you love. It shall turn to his good, if it is in my power. So be comforted. But do not even name this thing again aloud. Once is enough."

Faramir knows the power of the Ring. He also well knows what it offers. And that’s the point - he knows what it offers, but he doesn’t want that.

"For myself," said Faramir, "I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens: not a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Numenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.

He knows, perhaps, that he could be tempted by it, in the right (or wrong) circumstances, so he turns away from it, rejects it before it can take a hold of him, & he finds the strength to to do this in his idealism. Its the very thing that some readers find makes Faramir unbelievable that enables him to turn from what the Ring offers. Without such high ideals he too would have fallen to its lure.

Two slightly contradictory statements are made by Faramir in this chapter. The first:

"For so we reckon Men in our lore, calling them the High, or Men of the West, which were Numenoreans; and the Middle Peoples, Men of the Twilight, such as are the Rohirrim and their kin that dwell still far in the North; and the Wild, the Men of Darkness.
'Yet now, if the Rohirrim are grown in some ways more like to us, enhanced in arts and gentleness, we too have become more like to them, and can scarce claim any longer the title High. We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days.

So, Faramir’s idealism is rooted in the past. He looks back to what was, to the heights from which Men have fallen, & he wishes for the old days to come again. Nostalgia? Of course, but again, it is this nostalgic idealisation of the past which gives him the strength to reject the Ring & what it (seems to) offer.

Yet in this passage we see also, perhaps, a slightly less admirable side to Faramir - a side which perhaps Eowyn will play some part in redeeming him of - his classification of Men into three ‘classes’ (with his own people in the ‘top’ class). He judges other men as being ‘high’, ‘middle’ & ‘lower’ - the Class system we know so well in all its glory!. Yet Faramir, through his love of Eowyn, will marry one of a ‘lower’ class & so learn the error of his ways. Don’t tell me there’s no character development in Faramir!

But there is also something else going on in this classification of Men into three kinds - it is the same classification that we find in the Elves of the First Age - the ‘High’ Elves who went to Valinor, the ‘Middle’ Elves, the Elves of the Twighlight, the Sindar, who began the journey but left off part way, & the Avari, the Unwilling, Elves of the Darkness, who refused the Light. Faramir is projecting the history (& the choices) of the Elder Children upon the Younger. Again an idealisation of the past to the detriment of the present. Even the ‘Blessing’ he proclaims before meat looks backwards:

"So we always do," he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. "

But as I said, there is another statement of his which seems to contradict what he is saying here:

'Yet there are among us still some who have dealings with the Elves when they may, and ever and anon one will go in secret to Lorien, seldom to return. Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man wilfully to seek out the Elder People. Yet I envy you that have spoken with the White Lady."

He idealises the past, to the extent that he has prejudices based upon his interpretation & understanding of it, yet he ‘deems it perilous’ to seek out the living embodiment of that past. Mortal men must leave the past behind & move forward. Perhaps he knows in his heart that too much contact with the past is fatal - those who have willfully sought it out have been lost in it, never to return. He is at the point of ‘waking up’ & moving forward, leaving behind his old prejudices. Frodo & the Ring will be one catalyst, Eowyn another. He has the makings of a truly great Steward, a man of the future, not of the past.

[Mithalwen]

[QUOTE=davem
Yet in this passage we see also, perhaps, a slightly less admirable side to Faramir - a side which perhaps Eowyn will play some part in redeeming him of - his classification of Men into three ‘classes’ (with his own people in the ‘top’ class). He judges other men as being ‘high’, ‘middle’ & ‘lower’ - the Class system we know so well in all its glory!. Yet Faramir, through his love of Eowyn, will marry one of a ‘lower’ class & so learn the error of his ways. [/QUOTE]


I think that this is too harsh. Stating the division made in lore is not condoning it - in fact he points out how meaningless it has become. And he is hardly slumming it by marrying Eowyn since they are cousin to some degree through Morwen of Lossarnach - not close kin, but close enough for the relationship to have been acknowledged by Imrahil, another "true" Numenorean type....

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Stating the division made in lore is not condoning it - in fact he points out how meaningless it has become.

He does, but he points it out with regret - men have fallen from their height & have become less than they were. I bow to no-one in my admiration of Faramir, but my point is he is not without faults - I don't think Tolkien wouold have written a 'saint'. Numenor, by its end, had descended into what we might term 'fascism' (whether its a coincidence that Tolkien came up with the story of Numenor at the time of the rise of Fascism is another question), & Faramir speaks of the way even the decendants of the 'Faithful' in Middle earth fell into the ways of their 'Unfaithful' forefathers. For all his kinship with Eowyn he doesn't speak too highly of the Rohirrim, & sees Gondor's tendency to emulate their warlike ways as a failing of his own people.

Basically, Faramir is an idealist. As I said, his idealism is what enables him to reject what the Ring offers - he will not have Gondor Mistress of even willing slaves - but he has the faults of those virtues. Principal among those faults is a pessimism - 'It is long since we had any hope.' - about Mankind. All have fallen from grace. There is no hope even in the decendants of Numenor. So, he needs a lesson or two, not in humility as his brother did, but in hope. He too will fall under the spell of the Black Breath. He has lost hope & immersed himself in long lost ideals of the way things were.

I think seeing the desperate struggles & sacrifices of Frodo, Sam & later Eowyn enables him to redsicover his lost hope, which ultimately manifests in the Figure of Aragorn.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by davem

Basically, Faramir is an idealist. As I said, his idealism is what enables him to reject what the Ring offers - he will not have Gondor Mistress of even willing slaves - but he has the faults of those virtues. Principal among those faults is a pessimism - 'It is long since we had any hope.' - about Mankind. All have fallen from grace. There is no hope even in the decendants of Numenor. So, he needs a lesson or two, not in humility as his brother did, but in hope. He too will fall under the spell of the Black Breath. He has lost hope & immersed himself in long lost ideals of the way things were.

I think seeing the desperate struggles & sacrifices of Frodo, Sam & later Eowyn enables him to rediscover his lost hope, which ultimately manifests in the Figure of Aragorn.

These thoughts on Faramir's nature bring me to a very fascinating question - are the virtues and faults attributed to him by Tolkien JRRT's own virtues and faults? We do know this from the Letters (Footnote to Letter 180):

As far as any character is 'like me' it is Faramir - except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage.

What autobiographical elements do we detect in Faramir? I would definitely see the author as an idealist, as davem describes Faramir, and his biography tells us that he had a strongly pessimistic strain to his character. What about the humility, the truthfulness, the connection with a high, mythological past? I think those elements are all visible in JRRT. What others do you notice?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Esty

What autobiographical elements do we detect in Faramir? I would definitely see the author as an idealist, as davem describes Faramir, and his biography tells us that he had a strongly pessimistic strain to his character. What about the humility, the truthfulness, the connection with a high, mythological past? I think those elements are all visible in JRRT. What others do you notice?

I think Farmir certainly seems to have adopted an 'Elvish' approach to the past. He seems to desire Gondor to become not what Numenor actually [I]was[/I, but rather what Numenor should have been. He holds up the ideal of Numenor, & wishes to make it real - almost as the Elves hold up their ideal past & seek to manifest it in the world in places like Lorien & Rivendell. In other words they are seeking to make the world what they feel it ought to be.

Yet, like Tolkien himself, they believe that there is an ideal which should be striven for: 'A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?' The strange thing is that while Tolkien himself seemed to hold this belief he also seemed to believe that it was an impossible ideal - all his characters & races fail to live up to the standards they set themselves, perhaps because they are fallen beings. Yet they never forsake the ideal. They never reach a point where they decide, 'Right, we've tried & failed, so we may as well give up now.' They 'fight the Long Defeat', but its as if they are not fighting an external enemy, but rather their own fallen natures. I wonder if this is the cause of their pessimism & lack of hope - they will not shrug their shoulders & walk away from the ideal, but keep on striving to live up to it.

If we take Sam for instance - Sam rises in the 'hierarchy' of society, not just the hierarchy of the Shire, but also within the hierarchy of the greater society of Middle-earth under the returned King. There is no 'revolution' within Middle-earth, no casting away of the old ideals, merely a continued striving to live up to them. The social structures remain but it becomes possible to rise above what one had been. Middle-earth becomes a meritocracy.

This makes me wonder about Tolkien's own life experiences & how they shaped his thinking. The old ways will not just magically re-establish themselves, they will have to be built up by struggle & sacrifice. But the old ideals will not themselves be sacrificed, they will remain like a light on the mountaintop, something to guide the struggling traveller. Novelty for its own sake, new ideaologies, will not be considered, because they are (in Middle-earth at least) not 'right'.

As I've said before, the Gondorians, & Gondorians like Faramir in particular, are not simply fighting against evil in the person of 'He whom we do not name', they are fighting for their ideals. So we seem to have a 'tension' - the ideals of the past provide them with a reason to fight (even if they are fighting a 'long defeat'), but they must face reality - the reality that the past was not itself ideal. Life is an eternal struggle for an ideal which will never be attained (not in this world) but that does not justify ceasing to struggle, still less changing the goal.

So, the more I consider it, the more Tolkien does seem like Faramir. So, my answer to Mithalwen's question:

The second point may belong elsewhere, but I have just reread the biography,I came across the extract from Tolkien's diary on Faramir's arrival, ‘I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking through the woods of Ithilien’. So who did?

would be, Tolkien didn't 'invent' Faramir - anymore than he 'invented' himself. He had something to say, experiences & realisations to communicate, & in Faramir he discovered a 'spokesman', wandering in the woods of Ithilien...

[Lathriel]

Originally posted by Davem
they are fighting for their ideals

This is a major theme of the book. They fight against evil not only because it will destroy everything they hold dear. But also because what evil stands for goes against what they believe in. The people of west believe in freedom,are against slavery,treachery etc.
If evil won it would destroy all their ideals.
This is why every character is willing to endanger themselves. They want their believes to live on and don't want them to be destroyed by Sauron. Of course Faramir is a good example of this. He stays in Ithillien, even though it is almost certain that he will be defeated,because he doesn't want evil to come any closer to the city of Gondor. The city of Gondor is very dear to him because it represents the greatness of the older days which he admires so much. Why is he so fascinated with events that happened so long ago? I think its because he admired his ancestors for what they did and accomplished. Plus, getting back to the idea of guarding you believes,his ancestors certainly did just that and were able to keep their believes safe and alive for many years.He respects them because he knows that if they hadn't fought as fiercely and unrelentlessley for their believes he would not have the freedom he has now.

Anyway I'm beginning to ramble. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien didn't 'invent' Faramir - anymore than he 'invented' himself. He had something to say, experiences & realisations to communicate, & in Faramir he discovered a 'spokesman', wandering in the woods of Ithilien...

It is entirely possible that Faramir represents something of Tolkien's own personality, and maybe he was aware of the similarities. By saying that he did not know who Faramir was or where he had come from, Tolkien may have been attempting to add an air of mystery about the origins of the character. Yet there is also much of Tolkien in other characters such as Bilbo, so it would be a mistake to think Faramir is the only one. Maybe he represents Tolkien's 'depths' while a character such as Bilbo simply shows similar behaviour - if that makes sense!

One question has occurred to me, and that is whether Faramir is the only example of a Gondorian who is like this? The other prominent Gondorians, Denethor and Boromir, we know to be different in their outlook, though in his own way, Boromir is also something of a dreamer. We do not really see enough of Imrahil to discern if he is like this, and Aragorn does not seem to pontificate on the nature of war. If Faramir is the only example of such a Gondorian then how far could it be said that his yearnings/thoughts are in any way typical?

Faramir does have an opposite force, and that is Eowyn, who is seemingly different in every way; together they make a 'whole' and complement one another perfectly, and it could be argued that Faramir and Eowyn are anima/animus figures, an argument I shall leave to greater experts on Jung .

[Lathriel]

Ah, Faramir...sigh. That's enough silliness.

One thing I immediatly noticed was the difference between Faramir and Boromir. Now that we get to know Faramir better we see that he doesn't want the ring at all. Boromir however, had to struggle with himself because of his lust for the ring.
Therefore, Faramir seems more confident then his brother. He didn't have to struggle with lust for power and Boromir did. Doubtlessly this struggle made Boromir very unsure of himself. But upon meeting Faramir I get the impression of a man who is confident about himself and what he has to do. He knows what to do with the task that is given to him,which is to keep Osgiliath of being overrun. He also knows that eventually there is nothing that can be done. This of course causes conflict between him and his father. (but that is later in ROTK)
One of the most obvious differences is the fact that Faramir is more learned then Boromir and that his blood seems to go back to the Numenoreans. That is another reason why I like Faramir so much. He is far from ordinary and as has been said earlier he would be a great steward for Aragorn.
In this chapter Frodo and Sam have to cope with the news that Boromir is dead. Of all the members in the fellowship they are the most ignorant of the goings on because they are cut off from the rest of the world. In Ithillien they are also able to come in touch with the rest of the world before they enter Mordor. It must be agrivating when you don't know what is going on. This is yet another thing Sam and Frodo have to deal with.
I like the fact that Tolkien gives the reader some time to learn more about ME. It just adds so much more depth to the world. Plus its a chance to show off as to how deep he(Tolkien) went into creating this world. These aspects make some people think of LOTR as a historical novel rather than just a fantasy novel.