Gollum and Pleasure

[littlemanpoet]

A negative example: in the passage of the marshes, after seeing the faces in the pools:

"Poor Smeagol smells it, but good Smeagol bears it. Helps nce master. But that's no matter. The air's moving, change is coming. Smeagol wonders; he's not happy."

I am not referring to the sense of smell, but to the last sentence: he's not happy. If Smeagol is aware of being "not happy", this means that he still has within his capabilities, happiness, which is an emotional pleasure.

Mind you, the pleasure in food is twisted, perhaps by the Ring, perhaps by his isolation: he hates cooked food, must have it raw. He has become a cannibal at need, if one considers orcs and goblins some form of human(oid).

Also: "Smeagol always helps, if they asks - asks nicely." There is a self respect going on here, a felt pleasure at being dealt with in a 'nice' manner.

But a more malevolent pleasure must be acknowledged, if I remember aright - cannot seem to find the reference right now: in the self-debate between Smeagol and Gollum, there is the pleasure of relief, on Smeagol's part, that the time is not yet upon him to betray Frodo; but the pleasure Gollum feels in the 'tricksiness' of his plan to bring them to Shelob.

Then there is the saddest pleasure, what can only be called the spark of love Smeagol expresses just before Sam wakes up and accuses him of sneaking.

There is also the twisted pleasure of the absence of light.

Quite a range!

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

But a more malevolent pleasure must be acknowledged, if I remember aright - cannot seem to find the reference right now: in the self-debate between Smeagol and Gollum, there is the pleasure of relief, on Smeagol's part, that the time is not yet upon him to betray Frodo; but the pleasure Gollum feels in the 'tricksiness' of his plan to bring them to Shelob.

I think you hit the nail in the head here by introducing the difference between Smeagol and Gollum.

For it seems to me clear (more or less) that there are two different persons or two sides of one person here - and two different ideas of pleasure at stake. And with those you could say "Tolkien is saying something about this to his reader".


But it wouldn't be Tolkien if it would be that simple.

Now the antagonism between Smeagol who wants to be loved and cared for and who likes to bind with others and Gollum who rejoices in vengeance, or the suffering of others if they advance his aims - or alternatively fill the void left by losing of the "drug" or help to get it back (one of the few strong interpretations of PJ and his team I kind of like; making Gollum like a heroin-addict is, I think, a good idea), but that kind of leaves your initial examples unanswered.


So how to fit the enjoyment of food?

First of all it is not sexual pleasure Gollun values. Tolkien's universe is very a-sexual of course, but with the kind of hedonism Gollum seems to represent it is worth noting it's not of sexual nature. Although physical pleasure - like being comfortable - isn't a strange idea to him either.

I could see both Smeagol and Gollum to enjoy good food. It's just that their "mutual" history has taught them to enjoy the raw meat instead of stewed rabbit with taters...


One way of seeing it is looking at Gollum as a child I think. The kind of instant gratification -problem all addicts have.

Another way of going at it would be looking at the "quality" of pleasures - going a bit biographical here then - and reading it as a mature person's view of the world where food is the pleasure number one when talking about physical pleasures.


A more profound (and possibly a bit far-reaching) interpretation would be that if you take Gollum as a symbol of (a fallen) humanity you find that beneath Good and Evil - the eating of the apple from the tree - you have only an animal state "beyond good and evil" (as Nietzsche said) which is just the limbo Gollum has slowly entered into- but with his two personalities is still fighting against, from both sides.

And there's a nice twist there: sometimes it feels Gollum is the happiest when just catching fish aka. not when he is doing his evil-plotting or trying to be a goodie.

The longing for paradise is a theme in Catholicism and has been interpreted in many ways... one of the enlightenment ways of looking at it was talking about the "noble savages" who were uncorrupted by "civilization".


Blah... this seems to be kind of associative ramble rather than well thought posting and I'll end here for the time being (and go to sleep).

But there should be ideas to agree and disagree with enough...

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

And there's a nice twist there: sometimes it feels Gollum is the happiest when just catching fish aka. not when he is doing his evil-plotting or trying to be a goodie.

The contrasting thought that immediately comes to mind at reading this very good point is that the Smeagol side was essentially dormant for hundreds of years - until he starts spending time with Frodo and Sam.

Did Smeagol come "undormant" because of the oath of the Ring, or because of the human contact? Maygbe there's a mix here, I don't know.

Still, that dormancy of Smeagol speaks loudly to me that the higher pleasures - other than food - appear to be associated with Smeagol and not Gollum.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Did Smeagol come "undormant" because of the oath of the Ring, or because of the human contact? Maygbe there's a mix here, I don't know.

I would say both were behind Sméagol's new-found friendliness.
On the one hand, the oath he had sworn by the Ring brought him into a very close psychological relationship with the Ring-bearer, which forced him to "open up" emotionally.

On the other, I think the fact that his new companions were of his own kind was significant. It's said different times in the books that Hobbits generally preferred the company of other Hobbits, and Gollum wasn't nearly as friendly, it seems, with those noble Mirkwood Elves with whom he was a guest.

[Mister Underhill]

Eh, I always thought the films way overplayed the idea that Gollum and Sméagol were actually distinct personalities. That scene where Gollum and Sméagol argue and S tells G to "Leave, and never come back!" is a great bit of performance by Serkis and is pretty wonderfully executed, but I think it takes Gollum's debate in the Marshes a step too far. To me, Gollum's internal debate is the debate of an integrated character, and the scene that Sam overhears is really just an extension of his long habit of talking to himself, Sam's assessment of "two halves", Slinker and Stinker, notwithstanding.

"Poor Sméagol" is how he thinks of himself; Gollum is the name that the world has given him.

But whether a split or a single personality, I'm not sure why we should be surprised that Gollum would have his pleasures, mean as they are. Among the Ringbearers, we don't see a loss of pleasure as an effect of the Ring, do we?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

But whether a split or a single personality, I'm not sure why we should be surprised that Gollum would have his pleasures, mean as they are. Among the Ringbearers, we don't see a loss of pleasure as an effect of the Ring, do we?

But we do see the de-valuing of life. Most of the Fellowship members haven't held the Ring close enough or long enough to really feel the long-term effect. But you see Bilbo feeling all stretched and unsatisfied with living (but he doesn't attribute it to the Ring, of course). And Frodo starts forgetting both physical and emotional pleasures:

...I know that such things have happened, but I cannot see them. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. ~Frodo, Mount Doom, ROTR

Then there are the Ringwraiths, and, while we know neither their thoughts nor their exact relationship with nature / the physical world, I think it's safe to say that pleasure is not something they experience.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Among the Ringbearers, we don't see a loss of pleasure as an effect of the Ring, do we?

Actually, we do. As Frodo sinks deeper into the Rings power in Mordor he seems to lose his capacity for pleasure. In particular there is that part when Sam asks if Frodo remembers the rabbits Gollum caught and Frodo says no, that while he knows such things do happen, he no longer has any memory of them. Something along the lines of "No taste of Food, no cool of water, no warmth of sun, no blue of sky) (or am I just remembering a bit from the radio version). In any case Gandalf says when describing the effects of the ring that the ring extends life until all ones days are weariness (or something like that) which seems to indicate a loss of pleasure in living.

[Pervinca Took]

True, but that's the extreme potency of the Ring as it reaches its point of maximum power, very near the fire where it was made.

Gollum's "bless us and splash us, my precious!" pleasure in fish and the prospect of raw goblin/Baggins is possible because the Ring is so far from Mordor.

Also Frodo is still resisting the Ring, and that is why it is torturing him to the degree it is at the point of the "wheel of fire" speech.

Whether Frodo's ability to experience emotional and physical pleasure is permanently damaged is an interesting point. Like Celebrian, he loses delight in Middle-earth, and exposure to the Ring (and the things this led to, such as his inability to renounce it in the end) is a huge part of this. The wounds he received along the way were more due to the fact of his being the Bearer, and his mission throwing him constantly into the line of fire, and they contributed too.

But I wonder how far the sensory and emotional pleasures returned once the Ring was destroyed. I would think that he was able to sense them again, but maybe some kind of detachment remained. For one thing, he deputised as Mayor once because Will Whitfoot "needed a lot of feeding up" before he could go back to presiding at banquets. Could just refer to the fact that Will was in a pretty bad way and Frodo had recovered from his physical privations, but he'd hardly be psychologically capable of attending a banquet if no sense of such pleasures had returned.