The Character Development of Arwen

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

There are a couple of points here that could do with clearing up, and fortunately I can address them at once.

In Letter #181 (undated, probably 1956), Tolkien wrote:

Here I am only concerned with Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees. That is why I regard the tale of Arwen and Aragorn as the most important of the Appendices; it is part of the essential story, and is only placed so, because it could not be worked into the main narrative without destroying its structure: which is planned to be 'hobbito-centric', that is, primarily the study of the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble.

Tolkien's comments concerning Arwen and Aragorn's story stand alone, but I think that his use of 'hobbito-centric' sums up much better his approach to the story than the idea that he wrote it through the eyes of hobbits. Rather it is a story about hobbits in which hobbits are the central characters. His point concerning the sanctification of the humble is interesting, particularly since we can apply it to the tale of Aragorn and Arwen in an intriguing way. There is certainly a sense that Aragorn is ennobled by his love for Arwen, which seems to me a common theme in all of his marriages between Men and Elves (I notice that it is always men and not women who form the mortal half of such unions). When we first see Arwen and Aragorn together in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell it is also the first time that we see Aragorn dressed in anything other than his travel-stained old clothes. When he receives the brooch from her in Lothlórien it is the occasion on which he takes his destined title, and when he receives the standard that she has made it is as he is preparing to ride to Gondor and claim his birthright.

Arwen herself, though, remains something of a mystery. What we do know of her must be guessed from her words and actions, which are few, and whether this is intentional or a sign that Tolkien really didn't know what he was about must, I suppose, be left to the individual reader. Myself, I don't think that we are meant to know much about her (unlike, for example, Éowyn, whose motivations are essential to an understanding of the part she plays in the narrative). Those who claim that he was incapable of writing convincing romances have clearly not read Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife in Unfinished Tales, which explores many themes that are thought alien to his world (not least the failure of love and the collapse of marriage). The fact that he failed to publish or complete this story seems to imply to me that he was not really interested in the themes of erotic love, which would explain why he so often glosses over them.

I think that this is probably why Tolkien is so often criticised as a childish writer, but this probably says more about what we are taught to expect in a modern novel. There should be deep psychological characterisation; important characters' romances should be explored in detail, and if a character loves someone we should find out a lot about them. In quite often ignoring these conventions, Tolkien was harking back to others that are much older; those of, for example, Beowulf or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which would probably have come in for the same criticism had they been written in the 1950s. We do not, for example, know anything much about the Lady of the Castle's thoughts concerning Sir Gawain, only having her husband's words "I sende hir to asay Þe", despite the fact that her willing participation in this testing is central to the story being told. Tolkien was always very frank in stating that he had read very little modern literature, and I think that this shows through often in his work.

All of which is just really an apologia for Tolkien's treatment of Arwen. Her character is clearly not developed at all, and she appears to exist solely to love Aragorn and reunite the lines of the Half-elven. Why Tolkien was reluctant to give her the fuller treatment that he gave to Lúthien in the Lay of Leithian is a mystery to me as well, unless the reason was a simple lack of space or time. I think that we must accept that she is a minor character in The Lord of the Rings, but I believe that it should have been possible to flesh her out a little more without detriment to the plot. Why Tolkien felt it unnecessary to give her more depth is something that we will probably never know, although I have always been satisfied that he tells us enough to understand the story he was telling. More than that is sadly confined to the thick folder labelled 'Tolkien might-have-beens'.