LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 01 - The Taming of Sméagol

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

One of my favourite chapters! I always reach it with such glee after having been away from Sam and Frodo for too long. And at long last – Gollum!!

Originally Posted by Formendacil

As for the chapter in general, I often find it a letdown to go back to Frodo and Sam and more mundane, dirty, and less rewarding journey they face after all the light and glory of Edoras, Fangorn, the Battle of Helm's Deep, and the great powers of Orthanc and the Palantir. It generally takes me until the Black Gate or Ithilien to really get into the swing of their quest, consequently leaving me with an under-appreciation for this stage of Frodo's quest.

Originally Posted by Lathriel

I get really interested in the story line with Aragorn and co. when I'm suddenly reading about Frodo and Sam again. It takes me a few pages before I have grudgingly accepted that there's no going back to the other story (to exagerate a little)

I have hesitated to respond to this chapter in part because of the sentiments which are expressed here by Fordim, Formendacil, and Lathriel. I had asked the question in our discussion of the previous chapter, and no one really took up the point: Why did Tolkien choose to divide literally the journeys of the two groups of the Fellowship into two separate Books? Why did he not entertwine them? What has he gained by splitting the action this way?

We have a "three day gap" in Sam and Frodo's journey as well as a wrenching pull away from the heroic concerns of Aragorn and Co. I cannot now remember what it felt like to make this readerly jump when I first read the book, but now I find it very strange indeed.

I also wonderwhy, suddenly, we are in such a hostile terrain. Even with the physical travails of Merry and Pippin and of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, the land they covered was never this barren. Yes, yes, I know where Sam and Frodo are. I just wonder why, so suddenly, we are brought into the harshness of their struggle.

One answer, of course, is that the journey of Sam, Frodo and Gollem is not part of the 'realism' of LotR. It does not belong to the art of realistic narrative nor of mythology per se. It is a symbolic journey or act. It is action on a completely different plane.

Seen this way, I begin to think about this threesome, this triumvirate or trinity and I wonder if we cannot see them as the unconscious aspects of the individual soul. Well, rather than soul, perhaps I can use mind. Freud's tripartite theory of the unconscious mind might well be considered, with the recognition that what is absent here is what is so dominant in Freud, the tieing in of all aspects of human behaviour with sexuality.

So, leaving sex out of it, in some ways can we understand these three characters as reflecting a division somewhat similar to that of Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego?

Gollem in this model might be understood as the Id, that primitive, instinctual mass of urges, desires, aggressions and gratifications. The predominance of animalistic descriptions of Gollem, not just the dog and spider references, but the constant emphasis on his sensory responses, particularly his use of his sense of smell, reflects the most basic of human contacts with the world.

I was at first tempted to see Sam as the Superego and Frodo as the Ego, but then I took a closer look at how they react to each other, to events, and to Gollem in this chapter and I would not be inclined to reverse that. Sam is the character who represents the structured sense of identity and self, constantly referring back to the Gaffer and to Galadriel, his past experience, mixing both deliberate acts of behaviour and sudden impulses. Frodo, particularly with his remembrance of Gandalf's lesson on pity and mercy, reflects the moral agent or Superego. I realise one can argue that Frodo's moral sense is a consciously articulated one, but at the same time I think we can consider him as the character who respresents the moral aspect of the unconscious, particularly in the manner wherebye he accepts the Ring and then agrees to carry it to Mordor without really understanding why.

Of course there are elements of the behaviour of all three characters which do not fit neatly into this structure, but it seems to me that broadly we have these three aspects of the human mind brought into interplay with each other. "Behind" the heroic actions of the other members of the Fellowship lies this primitive or basic aspect of our existence: how we learn to become moral agents. Perhaps only by separating the journey of Sam, Frodo and Gollem from the more social or culture struggles of Aragorn and Co did Tolkien feel he could make symbolic this journey to destroy the Ring.