LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 1 - The Tower of Cirith Ungol

[davem]

The love that dare not speak its name???

'I can hardly believe it,' said Frodo, clutching him. 'There was an orc with a whip, and then it turns into Sam! Then I wasn't dreaming after all when I heard that singing down below, and I tried to answer? Was it you?'
'It was indeed, Mr. Frodo. I'd given up hope, almost. I couldn't find you.'
'Well, you have now, Sam, dear Sam,' said Frodo, and he lay back in Sam's gentle arms, closing his eyes, like a child at rest when night-fears are driven away by some loved voice or hand.
Sam felt that he could sit like that in endless happiness; but it was not allowed

This is an interesting phrasing on Tolkien’s part: ‘not allowed.’ Not ‘But there was no time.’ or ‘But it was not safe'. Sam is is sitting, holding the naked Frodo & wishing he could stay like that forever, ‘in endless happiness.’

But it was not allowed.

Who can guess where I’m going with this? Sorry - not quiite right.

There’s an interesting essay, ‘And in the Closet bind them’ in the One Ring.net’s book ‘The People’s Guide to JRR Tolkien’. I’ll begin with a few quotes:

Those stories are about the passion of men, the devotion between Iflen in tlmes of struggle. Though not always in a sexual equation, the -passion is still the same. We recognize it as fraternal love and the bond of loyalty and closeness. So if Tolkien put this passion in there, exploring this theme between his characters, then so be it. You can trust that it is part of his work for a reason, and just maybe it pushed as many buttons back in 1954 as it does today.

The writer then goes on to talk about the way he has seen (hetrosexual) young men in Europe kissing & holding hands as they walked.

You certainly can't find that here, in a country where generations of us have been raised feeling very uncomfortable expressing ourselves with our own bodies and the prevailing sense of machismo has taken its toll. Americans are so emotionally constipated that they can't accept one snple idea: that people can touch each other, with nothing but innocencece and caring, a simple dose of humanity that implies nothmg I else. Be American psyche, such as it is, just can't sit still with ; men or two women touching each other. "Don't go there! Too uncomfortablel" Our minds are filtered through so much cultural detritus that anytime we encounter same-sex affection, without granting it any merit, we are distressed and offended beyond means. I think that's a shame.
Can you imagine yourself crossing the endless volcanic desert going untold days with no food and only a sip of water? Would you and your traveling companion not be beaten with misery and despair, to the extreme end of your own endurance, just as Frodo and Sam were? Would you not then crave the smallest sign of care, support, and love from the only other human being near you who is carrying you on his back, while you toil with your own madness? You cannot deny it. The simplest touch, the kiss of your loving brother, would do more miracles to keep you alive and sane than anything else would. Yes, a miracle of hope is what we're talking about here, and it breathes power into Tolkien's work like nothing else.

In short, the writer does descern an ‘homoerotic’ element to Frodo & Sam’s relationship, but without any sexualised dimension. Now, one could accuse him of wanting to have his cake & eat it. He does claim that Tolkien deliberately introduced this element into the relationship between the two Hobbits, but whether or no it does seem present - on Sam’s part at least. So, what was going on?

My oown feeling is that Frodo is by this time in the story (if not, like Galahad, from birth) not simply physically, but psychologically & spiritually celebate. Sam is not - but neither is he ‘gay’. In short, Sam does not, at this point or at any other point in their relationship, want to have sex with Frodo (sorry all you writers of ‘slash’!) but Sam loves Frodo. He always has & always will. His love for Frodo is equal to his love for Rose - he declares himself ‘torn in two’ between the two of them. He is also a very ‘physical’ as well as emotional person. He needs physical contact & the harder, more desperate, more hopeless things become, the more he feels that need.

Yet is it as simple as that? Probably not. Certainly, as the essay writer points out, there is a ‘class’ division between Frodo & Sam. Sam is of a lower class than his ‘master’, & the kind of physical closeness he increasingly comes to share with Frodo would have been unusual in the Shire. Also, in such terrible circumstances as the Hobbits find themselves in its not simply the social conventions which would break down, but all kinds of ‘rules’, of concepts of acceptible/unnacceptible would be called into question too. When does physical closeness become too close? At what point does the need of two desperate ‘human beings’ for ‘the simplest touch, the kiss of your loving brother,’ cross some kind of line & become unnacceptable - in other words, when is it no longer ‘allowed’?

I think I agree with the writer of the essay. Tolkien di know exactly what he was doing. He was exploring a very complex question, a very real ‘fact’ - what happens to men in inhuman situations, where fear & despair have become the daily facts of life; where the need for a touch, a kiss, for someone to hold you is all that can keep you functioning?

This moment in the story, where Sam breaks down after all his struggles, all his suffering - his fight with Shelob to save Frodo, his hopeless despair when he believes him dead. his struggle against all the odds to reach him in the tower & finally his finding of him broken & beaten was enough to make Sam for a moment forget what was ‘allowed’. But it doesn’t last long:

It was not enough for him to find his master, he had still to try and save him. He kissed Frodo's forehead. 'Come! Wake up, Mr. Frodo!' he said, trying to sound as cheerful as he had when he drew back the curtains at Bag End on a summer's morning.

It is not simply Sam’s selfless, ‘Platonic’ love for Frodo that drives him on. It is also (admittedly to a lesser extent) his own need for companionship, for the touch of a brother in arms, a fellow soul in torment. Someone to hold.

Its interesting that this moment of extreme tenderness follows not just his terrible struggle to get into the tower, but also his temptation by the Ring. He has been tempted to claim the Ring for his own & become a ‘Lord’, a commander & Master of others. Simply, he rejects this offer of mastery because he already has a ‘Master’ of his own - Mr Frodo. He has no desire to be other than he is, a ‘simple’ gardener.

But its also interesting that what follows this shared moment of tenderness between Sam & his Master is Frodo’s selfish lashing out:

If it's too hard a job, I could share it with you, maybe?'
'No, no!' cried Frodo, snatching the Ring and chain from Sam's hands. 'No you won't, you thief!' He panted, staring at Sam with eyes wide with fear and enmity. Then suddenly, clasping the Ring in one clenched fist, he stood aghast. A mist seemed to clear from his eyes, and he passed a hand over his aching brow. The hideous vision had seemed so real to him, half bemused as he was still with wound and fear. Sam had changed before his very eyes into an orc again, leering and pawing at his treasure, a foul little creature with greedy eyes and slobbering mouth. But now the vision had passed. There was Sam kneeling before him, his face wrung with pain, as if he had been stabbed in the heart; tears welled from his eyes.

This is almost a repeat of the Sam/Gollum interchange on the stairs, where Sam accused Gollum of ‘sneaking’. A moment of tenderness & vulnerability is shattered by a cruel accusation. But Sam’s devotion to & love of Frodo is deeper & more abiding than Gollum’s.

Incidentally, Frodo’s ‘vision’ of Sam is also virtually a repeat of his ‘vision’ of Bilbo in Rivendell:

To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him.

We see Frodo increasingly turning in on himself, lashing out at Sam, obsessing over the Ring while at the same time Sam reaching out more & more desperately to Frodo for companionship. Frodo becomes more selfish, Sam more selfless. That’s understandable, given the part Frodo has been given to play. Yet in the end it is Sam who attains his desire, not Frodo. Sam settles down with his Rose, Frodo sails into exile - but then, there are some wounds which cannot be wholly healed.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien di know exactly what he was doing. He was exploring a very complex question, a very real ‘fact’ - what happens to men in inhuman situations, where fear & despair have become the daily facts of life; where the need for a touch, a kiss, for someone to hold you is all that can keep you functioning?

This makes an effective contrast with the behaviour of the Orcs towards one another in this chapter. Both Orcs and Hobbits have been brutalised by their experiences, but the essential difference between the two races is shown in the contrast of Sam's love with Shagrat's hatred.

The Ring is the catalyst for all of this. It causes the Orcs to kill one another in the fight to get at some unknown prize which Sauron desires, it causes Frodo to lash out at Sam, but it also causes Sam to react with a display of love for his master. He has experienced a little of what Frodo has experienced as a ring bearer, and this I think only serves to magnify his sense of relief when he finally finds Frodo alive.

I like this point in the book. We have seen many of the characters in truly desperate situations and driven to extreme measures, but at this point we get to see two opposites in behaviour, yet both Hobbit and Orc have been driven to this by the same means, by Sauron.

[Essex]

the final two lines of Sam's poem sum up the whole of the Lord of the Rings for me

I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.

i.e. the forces for 'good' have a hopeless cause, but will not give in to this. they will battle on regardless......