Frodo's Sacrifice

[Child of the 7th Age]

This is Sharon, back from struggling with broken down machinery which isn't as much fun as posting.

I'm afraid this may be long. I have a couple of ideas I want to try out.

Also, I found a wonderful book which was extremely perceptive about Frodo--Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light, Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. It's really one of the better pieces of Tolkien criticism I've seen. It's older --from 1983. Some of my ideas in this post are drawn from there, so I wanted to give credit.

First, about Birdland's comments on the younger Frodo. To me, it's initially less clear which direction he will go. Frodo seems pulled two different ways. On the one hand, it takes Frodo months to leave the Shire, despite Gandalf's warnings. He spent the summer saying long goodbyes to favorite spots. This is very different from Bilbo who had very short notice, then walked out of his house the next morning to start his adventure.

At the same time, however, Frodo is already stretching far beyond the Shire. He takes evening walks to find Elves and is longing for the Sea. Look at his dream in Buckland at Crickhollow when he first started on the quest:

Then he heard a noise in the distance. At first he thought it was a great wind coming over the leaves of the forest. Then he knew it was not leaves, but the sound of the Sea far-off; a sound he hd never heard in waking life, though it had often troubled his dreams.

Note that, since it is the very beginning of his quest, these troubling dreams of the Sea had to have occurred in the Shire itself.

Frodo continues to look at a dark heath "with a strange salt smell in the air." He sees a tall white tower on a high ridge. (This is actually a reference to something in Silm, I believe.)

A great desire came over him to climb the tower and see the Sea. He started to struggle up the ridge towards the tower: but suddenly, a light came in the sky and there was the noise of thunder.

At this very early point, he wishes "to ascend" in order to look out at the Sea, a symbol for the unknown and the infinite. Remember, too, what the Silm says about the Sea:

...in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Chidren of Iluvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. (LotR, I, 154)

So, even at this early point, Frodo is responding to the Music of creation. His attempt to seek the Sea, however, is interrupted by large outside forces in the dream (light and thunder), just as his actual efforts to define himself were to be diverted by the quest.

In Tolkien, the concepts of the Sea and the West and the Light seem intertwined. Frodo is not the first man who is drawn "West" (as a generic term). In the Silm, Beor, one of the earliest men, says to the Elf Finrod. "Westward our hearts have turned, and we believe that there we shall find Light." (Silm 141) Tuor, who will be the first man to wed an Elf, also travels west. The Elf Gelmir assures him of the rightness of his way and offers some initial guidance (this really reminded me of Galadriel and Frodo both in what was offered and the limitations imposed as well!)

Though darkness you shall come to the light. We (the Elves) will set your feet on the road, but we cannot guide you far... (UT, 21)

So Frodo was not totally unique in wanting to seek the light and the West or to get help from Elves. What was unusual is that it was his doom to travel East, to go against all the impulses in his body which longed for the Sea. In the words of Verlyn Flieger, Frodo had to go against the Light in order to save it!

Just as Belin's earlier post suggests, as the Ring is unmade, Frodo is also unmade. His nature is split in two: light and dark. He begins to fade.

But remember the earlier quote by the Elf to Tuor? "Through darkness you shall come to the light." Many religions hold that, to be truly purified, you must first be broken or unmade. So again, it could be argued that what happened to Frodo is not totally unique.

What is unique or at least unusual is that Tolkien's tale only goes half way. We see Frodo sick and unhappy, and we aren't sure what will happen to him. The resolution, if there is a resolution for Frodo, is not in the book! We never see Frodo remade which is what should happen in such a spiritual cycle.

Now, why is this? There are many reasons. The earlier essay focused on the psychological elements which held Frodo back. But there are other, more important factors I believe.

Tolkien was described by his biographer as a man of opposites. One moment he could be full of life and energy, and the next moment in deep despair. Carpenter attributes this innate pessimism to the loss of his mother as well as his perception of the Christian world.

In his heart of hearts, Tolkien believed that as a Christian there would be no sustained victory in this world. He descrbes history as a "long defeat" with only small victories. He believed that the fall of man meant severence from God, at least on this earth. This pessimistic frame was further reinforced by the sense of doom and stoicism present in most ancient legends and epics which Tolkien so loved.

All of this had to have an impact on how he portrayed Frodo in the final pages. To tell the truth, I don't think the author knew any more than we do what was going to happen to Frodo in the West. The West may have been a blessed land, but it still lay within the circles of the world. Frodo would not have release from the world till he died.

The outcome for Frodo must have seemed uncertain, at least when Tolkien was in a pessimistic frame of mind.

Flieger suggests there are two possible scenarios for Frodo. The pessimistic one is that envisioned in The Sea Bell, or "Frodo's Dreme" (from the Adventures of Tom Bombadil). This is a poem which portrays a man unable to feel at home on earth or in the land of Faerie. He takes a trip to Faerie but is unable to communicate with anyone there. Nor can he speak with men back home; they do not believe him. It is a true nightmare of haunting sadness.

But there is another possible outcome suggested by the book, one which Belin put his finger on earlier. Remember Gandalf's statement (LotR, I 295)after Frodo is wounded and is just beginning to show a hint of transparency:

Still that must be expected...He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.

What do you think of when you read this? I immediately thought of the Phial of Galadriel, which is a splinter of the light of the Silmarils. Notice that Gandalf uses "may", not "will", suggesting the uncertainty of the outcome. But what the Maia seems to be suggesting is that Frodo may be reborn or remade after the initial tearing down.

What makes this seems most likely is the haunting vision that we discussed earlier that Frodo experienced in Tom's house. This is repeated at the very end of the book as Frodo's first sight of the blessed lands--the grey rain curtain turned to silver glass and the glimpse of the distant green country.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Tolkien uses the word "glass" here. Perhaps it is an indirect reference not just to the dream in Bombadil's house, but also the statements made earlier by Gandalf about what Frodo "may" become which also included the term "glass."

The more I look at this, the more important the Phial of Galadriel becomes in my mind. Remember, too, that Frodo brings this with him to the ship so that it will be returned to the West.

If so, that is very good news.

Of course, we'll never know whether the optomistic Tolkien or the pessimistic Tolkien won out in this conflict. So, in the end, we are left with "estel", that hope which is based on trust rather than on the perceived realities of our situation.

One last point --Belin mentioned the relation of Sam and Frodo to the "spiritual." This is how I see them.

Every religion postulates two ways to approach the sacred: the path of affirmation and the path of negation. Some stress one more than the other, and, of course, there is some mixing as well.

The more common is the path of affirmation. Most of us learn human love first, and it is these lessons that make us want to reach out towards a possible "higher" love. This, to me, is Sam. His love for Frodo and later Rosie makes him able to serve and see beyond himself. He is so good at this that he can see the "light" already burning in Frodo which many others can not see. But, as of yet, the visible light does not shine from Sam himself. (By the way, another man with a path of affirmation would be Beren!)

There are a few rare souls, however, who chose a different path of ascent. This is the path of negation: a stripping away of nonessentials, the unmaking of the soul so it can be born again. And this, I think, is Frodo's path, and why he shines with light.

So both Frodo and Sam make it to the West, but they get there by different means.


sharon, the 7th age hobbit