Visible souls....

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Note: Bear with me, please, because this post is quite disorganized, and hopefully not entirely tangential; but I do have a point even if I haven't succeeded in making it clear.

I read this thread through the lens of a recent philosophy of mind class. The philosophical study of the mind/self/soul/what-have-you is concerned with basically pinning down the location of the self, whether that be internal (like in the modern psychological model) or external--although the word I'm looking for here may be something more like pervasive, because I don't think that the Anglo Saxons referenced below would have thought of themselves as existing like clothing on a body either.

Quite simply, the whole concept of the individual is a very recent invention. The idea that the “real me” is some kind of floating consciousness or conscience “inside” my mind is an alien thought to worlds like the ones from which Tolkien drew most of his inspiration. The idea that one’s “true” or “real” identity is internal and not external was anathema to the world view of the Anglo-Saxons. -Fordim Hedgethistle

Current philosophy is all in a twist because who knows how many centuries ago someone drew a hard and fast line between mind and body and now the concepts have been alienated from each other. In fiction it is no longer enough to portray the character through the minds and eyes of others, since they see only the body. In order to portray the locus of the self one has to describe the mind. Even the reductionist schools of thought that portray the mind as an offshoot of the body, or as identical to it are still thinking in terms of a mind and body dichotomy.

In Tolkien's characters this dichotomy and need to portray the inner self from the first person perspective is absent because the distinction between their internal and external selves simply does not exist.

At first I thought that the Lewis quote:

The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls.

Implied that Lewis was viewing only characters this way, with this lack of distinction, but when I looked more carefully at the quote in its entirety:

"Because, I take it... the real life of men is of that mystical and heroic quality... The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the Universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?"

I think there may be more to the sentiment than that characters are their souls. It seems to me that he is saying the same thing about the real life of man. We are the characters in the fairy story as well. When Lewis says the real life of men is of that mystical and heroic quality, the quality in reference is (and it's hard to tell exactly without having the whole context) something shared with the characters in the fairy story.

Tolkien and Lewis both consistently emphasize the similarities of life to fairy tale. Here is another example of this, where toward the end of the quote Lewis says (to paraphrase) "you haven't seen life until you recognize it for what it is: and this is it." I think it is more than likely that he would also say "you don't know yourself until you recognize yourself in this mirror." Perhaps we also are intended to be seen as visible souls.

Sophia

[Rumil]

Mmmmm nice thread,

I especialy liked Fordim's comment on the difference between scrutinising someone's thoughts (or words to some extent) and their actions.

As Child pointed out, there seem to be occasions where a character's soul is literally visible, I was reminded of a previous thread, see below-

The light in Frodo's face

[drigel]

As Child pointed out, there seem to be occasions where a character's soul is literally visible, I was reminded of a previous thread, see below-

ty Rumil! short and sweet..

I have been ineptly driving at that point for a while - but I am lazy.. sigh, I had to poke and prod for a while at this thread to get to that out.

[littlemanpoet]

Now Gollum I always think of as a 'special case'. Much more than a mere 'monster', he cannot be defined squarely as evil, nor can he be said to be good, and he is the one character we truly get into the head of, often distressingly so. - Lalwendë

This has been bugging me since I first read it. I don't think it's accurate. I don't ever remember reading any thoughts of Gollum or Sméagol that weren't actually spoken by him.

I'm close to being motivated to a re-read of LotR just to take special note of this one aspect! What characters does Tolkien "get into the head" of? We know this happens with Gandalf once, at Rivendell, as has been pointed out on this thread, but Gandalf's thinking about Frodo rather than revealing much about himself. The instance with Sam is similar. So do we actually "get into the head" of any character at all in LotR? I don't think so. I'd be happy to see some evidence to the contrary, if anybody has it handy.... - LMP

[Firefoot]

Some quick research has shown a couple places where we can get inside of the characters' heads. Not many, but not none, either.

In the chapter The Uruk-Hai:

'Now,' thought Pippin, 'if only it takes that ugly fellow a little while to get his troop under control, I've got a chance.'

In the chapter Minas Tirith:

Pippin looked at him [Beregond]: tall and proud and noble, as all the men that he had yet seen in that land; and with a glitter in his eye as he thought of the battle. 'Alas! my own hand feels as light as a feather,' he thought, but he said nothing. 'A pawn did Gandalf say? Perhaps; but on the wrong chessboard.'

At the start of the chapter The Houses of Healing:

Slowly the lights of the torches in front of him flickered and went out, and he was walking in a darkness; and he [Merry] thought, 'This is a tunnel leading to a tomb; there we shall stay forever.'

Same chapter:

'I'll never get him there,' thought Pippin. 'Is there no one to help me? I can't leave him here.'
...(Pippin talks to Bergil)...
'I'd better wait here,' thought Pippin.

At the end of the chapter The Black Gate Opens:

Blackness and stench and crushing pain came upon Pippin, and his mind fell away into a great darkness.
'So it ends as I guessed it would,' his thought said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off at last all doubt and care and fear. And then even as it winged away into forgetfulness it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above:
'The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming!'
For one mormnt more Pippin's thought hovered. 'Bilbo!' it said. 'But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it is ended now. Good-bye!' And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.

Interesting how most of these are Pippin, the exception being one of Merry. Also, most of them come from Book 5. There are places where Sam is talking to himself, at the end of Book 4 and the beginning of Book 6, but I don't know that you could call that getting inside of his head - he is revealing his thought processes, but vocally.

[davem]

Lalwende has already pointed out that we do get inside the heads of various characters - principally Frodo - through their dreams. Yet these 'dreams' seem mostly not to be the workings of their unconscious mind's, working through old memories of the day, or due to the hopes & fears the individual characters may have, but almost to be 'communications' from another 'reality', or because of some 'echo' of past or present events the individual is tapping into. Faramir & Boromir's dream is an example of the first kind, Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house of the second. Of curse, there are examples of what we could call 'normal' dreams - Sam dreaming of the overgrown garden of Bag End & looking for his pipe for instance

It does seem as though the characters have very 'undeveloped' subconsciouses though. Its as if their conscious minds merely 'float above' the depths of what Jung called the Collective Unconscious, the realm of the Archetypes or 'gods. Yet the character's waking consciousness seems a seperate thing from the spiritual dimension in Tolkien's world. Tolkien clearly doesn't think of the Valar as having only psychological reality.

Perhaps this is one reason why their souls are so 'visible' - this is pre-Freudian psychology - closer to Jung but closest of all to Catholic theology. The Saints & Angel are not 'Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious', but living beings present & active within their own dimension.

This is not so much a 'fairy tale' view of the human mind as a medieval (& pre-medieval one. And perhaps its due to the fact that up to recent times we lived in greater harmony with our environment, & therefore knew who & what we are in our essential nature. The 'sub-conscious' with its mass of 'complexes, 'drives', hidden motives, etc, may be simply the result of the loss of our ability to live in harmony with nature. In fact, perhaps the existence of a subconscious of any kind is a symbol of what's wrong with us.

I suspect that the reason the characters in Middle earth have 'visible souls' is due to simple fact that there was nothing within them to obscure their souls.

Originally Posted by Fordim

The characters who think in terms of self-determination, or even self-improvement, are people like Saruman, Boromir and – most disturbingly – Sauron (with his obsession over the Eye/I). These are the real individuals in the text, in the modern sense, insofar as their identity is defined by what they want, what they desire, what they think of themselves, what they want others to think of themselves. The heroes of the book are just not individuals in the sense we think of individuality. They are not defined by their inner core, by what they are but by what they do.

I'm not sure I'd include Boromir in this, but Sauron & Saruman I wonder if these characters (& perhaps Gollum & Ted Sandyman as well) are victims of this new 'mental illness' of developing a 'sub conscious' because of their seperating of themselves from nature....

[Lalwendë]

'Tis time I explained myself!

Originally Posted by Me

Now Gollum I always think of as a 'special case'. Much more than a mere 'monster', he cannot be defined squarely as evil, nor can he be said to be good, and he is the one character we truly get into the head of, often distressingly so.

Originally Posted by lmp

This has been bugging me since I first read it. I don't think it's accurate. I don't ever remember reading any thoughts of Gollum or Sméagol that weren't actually spoken by him.

Originally Posted by lmp

What do you mean by intangible?

Firstly, I don't think we actually have to see a character's thoughts represented as they might appear in their own mind; we don't have to see "X thought that...." or "Y was thinking...". In the case of Gollum, we see through his behaviour how his mind works. If we are talking about characters with 'visible souls', then he above all other characters really does have a visible soul; his actions speak volumes about what is happening within his head/heads. Perhaps this is something to do with the tormented soul that he is, in that he cannot help but act on what his mind tells him to do, but we certainly get a deep insight into his mind and motivation.

By "intangible" I mean that we cannot quite 'touch' on the essence of his being, his purpose if you like. He is at once a monster but also ultimately (and unwittingly) acts as a hero; and by turns we see his potential for good and then are suddenly shown how this might not be the case. I think we are encouraged to question him, whether intentionally or not is another matter. Other characters do seem to have a clearly defined role or purpose, even where they exist in a morally 'grey' area, while the purpose of Gollum's existence is not as clear. Sometimes to me he seems to be a character 'apart', pursuing his own psychological needs while the rest of Middle Earth goes on about him.