Shell-shocked Frodo .... or .... PTSD in LOTR

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

What would be the story purpose in presenting this terrible after-effect of battle? What I mean is, does the story exist to portray this horrible effect on soldiers, or does the story use this to characterise Frodo? If the latter, is it a way to garner sympathy amongst readers for Frodo?

Nothing so mercernary. The story that wrote Tolkien (yes I mean to say it that way) brought Frodo through the harrowing journey, and Tolkien, true writer that he was, gave the necessary results.

[Boromir88]

What would be the story purpose in presenting this terrible after-effect of battle?

How about letting the readers know how it was for soldiers after such a horrendous war?

Taking a step back for a second, World War I was just gruesome and awful. It was even called the War to end all Wars because of it's violence. In the beginning it was old fighting tactics against new technology and the result was deadly.

Also, for those who look at the period of World War I you realize it didn't solve any of the problems that caused the war. There really was no territory gained...they were fighting over feet and a few miles the whole time. The French and German lines were pretty a stalemate the entire duration of the war. Nobody had invaded Germany, yet it was Germany who went to England and France and said...let's stop this. There was nothing solved at all. It was pretty much an agreement to just end it since already enough people had died, and none of the countries could keep up with the cost to continue with the war. So, without solving any of the problems, everyone just agreed to stop since no one felt like they could continue on with the War.

There was a poem I came across written by a World War I soldier (I'll see if I can dig it up as it's absolutely amazing). It's a poem talking about integrating the soldiers from the war back into society and how difficult that is going to be. These were men with not only physical wounds but mental wounds as well, and bringing them back into a now 'peaceful' society...how is it going to work? It's an amazing poem and he uses sarcasm to hammer the point home with the reader. It's titled 'Does it Matter.'

I'll see if I can find the whole thing but pretty much the first couple stanzas were talking about the ending of the war and 'getting away from it all.' Then his last stanzas he uses sarcasm to talk about the problems of bringing soldiers back into society...For instance

Losing your legs - does it matter?
People won't look at you differently...

Losing your sight - does it matter?
there are good jobs for the blind...

And the last part I will never forget...

All the bad dreams - does it matter?
You can just drink them away and forget...

Eventhough PTSD wasn't coined back in World War I the effects were still around. And the problem arose of bringing these physically and mentally effected soldiers back into a society where there was no more war.

Perhaps, Tolkien was trying to effect the readers in the way that the soldier of World War I effected me when I read it? Eventhough if that author uses sarcasm to act like he's just shrugging everything off...that's the very reason why it's so effective! And it really hits home.

Some more things...

I think in both cases its the authors trying to get to the readers and show them how it was like...show them the experiences. Me, I've never come close to going out in a War...I don't know how many here have. I've had family members, but I have no personal experience. So, when I read something like Does it Matter or even in some cases Lord of the Rings it's a way to see how life was like for the soldiers in World War I. I can experience something and connect with events where I wasn't even born yet. And that is truly effective writing..when you can get across to your readers and have them, in a sense, at least understand how things really were.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Nothing so mercernary. The story that wrote Tolkien (yes I mean to say it that way) brought Frodo through the harrowing journey, and Tolkien, true writer that he was, gave the necessary results.

Yes. I think he wasn't trying to make any particular point about suffering after warfare nor was he trying to work in 'shellshock' to the story. I think Tolkien simply used his own experience of suffering, such as he comprehended and understood it, as the source for writing about his characters' suffering. In much the same way he has several characters who are effectively or literally orphans; I don't think he was making a 'point' about that, simply writing from experience.

[the.landlord]

i always wondered: when frodo pasted into the west... was that sort of suicide? a metaphor for suicide? because to me it seems to be like that.

[Raynor]

Frodo passed into the west by the express gift of Arwen, sanctioned by Gandalf as representative of the powers that be. This was done to redress his wounds and as a reward

Originally Posted by Letter #154

I have said nothing about it in this book, but the mythical idea underlying is that for mortals, since their 'kind' cannot be changed for ever, this is strictly only a temporary reward: a healing and redress of suffering. They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will 'die' – of free will, and leave the world.

Originally Posted by Letter #246

Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him – if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually to 'pass away': no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of 'Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by lmp

Nothing so mercernary. The story that wrote Tolkien (yes I mean to say it that way) brought Frodo through the harrowing journey, and Tolkien, true writer that he was, gave the necessary results.

Oh, it's hardly mercenary at all and my point was not to suggest it. Tolkien was a master storyteller and storytellers exist to beguile--in the best possible sense--their audience. In order to understand, to feel, to enjoy the story, readers need to connect with Frodo.

That was the idea behind my question, that the cauldron matters.

There are many writers who, like Tolkien, suffered the loss of a parent in childhood and that loss works its way into their writing. It's a fascinating topic that cannot be easily dismissed simply by saying the writers use their own personal experience. There's something about writing and recovery. And reading and recovery. And story.

[Formendacil]

The direct reason for Frodo's PTSD would, I agree, be simply cause and effect. If it is necessary to the plot to have someone stabbed, you logically have that someone feeling the effects of a blade in their body, blood leaking out, and the physical issues that follow. Similarly, if you put someone through what Frodo went through... you get someone turn out much like Frodo.

Which does not mean it cannot have been therapeutic for Tolkien to write it, in some form. To know what something is like, it generally helps to have either experienced or observed it. Whether Tolkien experienced PTSD, I have seen no evidence yet, but he would have had to have observed it firsthand. And if it had affected him, either personally or through those around him, which is likely, it's the sort of thing that would easily need some exorcising.

The importance of speaking of a trauma in order to recover from it is a generally acknowledged fact, I would say. How much actual talking about PTSD would have gone on in Tolkien's generation? Probably little enough, I'm guessing, that he would still feel, perhaps subconsciously, a relief in recounting it vicariously through Frodo.

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien did suffer from bouts of depression through his adult life, but I've not read anything to suggest that he had a major disorder as a result of being at war. He may not have experienced any trauma himself, we don't know...but he did experience extreme grief with the loss of his best friends Gilson and Smith.

I think that having been through the horror of that war Tolkien couldn't really write of suffering in anything other than an horrific way. His heroes don't come all home holding the head of their mortal enemy, rippling with muscles and with a girl in their arms like so many cliched fantasies of the later twentieth century. They come home quietened and chastened and even totally broken. Just like those who came home from the trenches. And they called WWI The War To End All Wars, but it wasn't, as the sons (and daughters) of these veterans were caught up in another 21 years later. The Long Defeat.

Anyway. You can see a similar writing of suffering and horror in work by others who had been to war. Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast has the ghosts of his experience entering the concentration camps during the liberation. I wonder what there might be in Narnia or Winnie The Pooh (Lewis and AA Milne were also caught up in war).

The other point to remember is that Tolkien was extremely proud of his war service, as was Lewis. He may have shown how heroes came home broken, but he does not denigrate them or exploit their suffering in the name of Art. Note how his fallen are given all due honour and respect, his bad guys given a chance to be forgiven. Nobody who dies seems to be there to be a cipher towards plot building.

Here's a quote from The Hobbit:

It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo's experiences, and the one which at the tune he hated most which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Oh, it's hardly mercenary at all and my point was not to suggest it. Tolkien was a master storyteller and storytellers exist to beguile--in the best possible sense--their audience. In order to understand, to feel, to enjoy the story, readers need to connect with Frodo.

That was the idea behind my question, that the cauldron matters.

There are many writers who, like Tolkien, suffered the loss of a parent in childhood and that loss works its way into their writing. It's a fascinating topic that cannot be easily dismissed simply by saying the writers use their own personal experience. There's something about writing and recovery. And reading and recovery. And story.

So to put it another way: "consciously shell-shocked Frodo in the revision?"
Probably. I'm at a loss for words, Bb, to pursue what you are suggesting. Care to explicate a little bit? Your implications are intriguing, but my first tendency is to go Jungian, and I'm not sure that's what you mean.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

So to put it another way: "consciously shell-shocked Frodo in the revision?"

It's been a while since I read Sauron Defeated, and I definitely am not as familiar with that volume of the HoME as I could be, but my memory would say "no, not really in the revision".

In Tolkien's original plot outlines, I think, there was a gaier, less shocked Frodo post-Mount Doom, but I'm fairly sure that from the original draft of the post-Mt. Doom chapters that he exhibited most of his PTSD traits.

Someone who has the book handy and/or actually remembers it in better detail may want to correct me, depending.