LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 5 - The Steward and the King

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Fordim

I find this most distressing with Eowyn, insofar as what she gives up is the very character and dynamic presence that has made her so interesting in the story. I think it's safe to say that Eowyn is a favourite with most of the book's readers, and I daresay that what they -- like I -- like about her is her tragic and impassioned outcry against the constraints that are thrown about women in her world...and yet here at the end she gives up that tragic and impassioned outcry and happily adopts that constrained identity. It is just too jarring.

I think the aspect of this moment that I find the most difficult to accept is Eowyn's clear belief that to give up on her desire to be a queen is the equivalent of forsaking any desire to have power other than a very traditionally 'feminine' sort (healing, etc). It's almost as though she is saying that her desire for 'masculine' modes of power and action (agency) are as innappropriate as her desire to become queen -- that her desire to move in a male realm of action is a kind of usurpation of a role that is not hers by rights.

Looking at the text from a feminist perspective this is exactly what you would see, but there are different things to see. I never get the feeling that Eowyn has in any way 'sold out' when she agrees to living a quieter life, partly because I saw her episode as a warrior as somewhat symbolic.

Eowyn could be viewed as representative of Tolkien's view of what war did to a certain type of person. She is a person without purpose before Aragorn comes along, she is also trapped, and very much told what to do with her life. Along comes Aragorn, a man stepped right out of myth and legend as Eomer sees him, and quite likely this is how Eowyn too views him. He walks in to Edoras as an inspiring figure, and she is most definitely inspired. She becomes an Ara-fan.

Eowyn loves Aragorn, but in what way does she love him? If Eowyn had been a youth she might well have fallen in love with Aragorn all the same, and just the same, she might have yearned to go off and fight with him, or at the very least, for him. When Aragorn is through with inspiring the Men of Rohan, off he goes, but he will not allow Eowyn to come along - she has another role to fulfill as he sees it. Likewise, her Uncle has given her the important job of looking after Rohan in his absence. In this respect, Eowyn is like the younger son of a king, the one who is the 'spare' to the 'heir'; she could also be seen as a page, told to stay behind and look after the tents when battle looms.

Nevertheles she goes off to fight, and in the battle with the Witch King she is hurt. She revelas she is a woman on the battlefield as if to underline her difference to the seasoned soldiers, and in the Houses of Healing, again Tolkien underlines her beauty and her fragility.

What this all reminds me of is a message about war. Eowyn is a figure to represent the young who race off to war, fervent and keen, but not necessarily understanding that death really is final; it might be glorious, but it is also grim and dirty. In WWI there were many youths who lied about their age so they could fight. In WW2, young men fresh from their grammar schools were recruited to be RAF crew, the more 'glamorous' end of the British armed forces; many of them died on their first mission, few lived through a whole campaign. I'm sure there are stories like this from every war.

Rather than being a miraculous virago/amazon figure, instead I find that Eowyn represents more the young man with his passion to fight, to do his bit, stirred by inspiring tales or leaders to sign up. Then she is shown to play her part, but to be hurt in the process.

Pairing her with Faramir is even more interesting, as he seems to represent the experienced soldier who has 'seen it all'. He has seen the fervent youths join up and be killed. To him, war is something which must be got through in one piece, something to be survived. When he meets Eowyn, on a symbolic level it is like the meeting of the older soldier with the younger one, and his greater experience of war, of the grim realities of war, brings into focus the experiences the other has just gone through.