Shell-shocked Frodo .... or .... PTSD in LOTR

[the.landlord]

i always wondered: when frodo pasted into the west... was that sort of suicide? a metaphor for suicide? because to me it seems to be like that.

[Raynor]

Frodo passed into the west by the express gift of Arwen, sanctioned by Gandalf as representative of the powers that be. This was done to redress his wounds and as a reward

Originally Posted by Letter #154

I have said nothing about it in this book, but the mythical idea underlying is that for mortals, since their 'kind' cannot be changed for ever, this is strictly only a temporary reward: a healing and redress of suffering. They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will 'die' – of free will, and leave the world.

Originally Posted by Letter #246

Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him – if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually to 'pass away': no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of 'Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by lmp

Nothing so mercernary. The story that wrote Tolkien (yes I mean to say it that way) brought Frodo through the harrowing journey, and Tolkien, true writer that he was, gave the necessary results.

Oh, it's hardly mercenary at all and my point was not to suggest it. Tolkien was a master storyteller and storytellers exist to beguile--in the best possible sense--their audience. In order to understand, to feel, to enjoy the story, readers need to connect with Frodo.

That was the idea behind my question, that the cauldron matters.

There are many writers who, like Tolkien, suffered the loss of a parent in childhood and that loss works its way into their writing. It's a fascinating topic that cannot be easily dismissed simply by saying the writers use their own personal experience. There's something about writing and recovery. And reading and recovery. And story.

[Formendacil]

The direct reason for Frodo's PTSD would, I agree, be simply cause and effect. If it is necessary to the plot to have someone stabbed, you logically have that someone feeling the effects of a blade in their body, blood leaking out, and the physical issues that follow. Similarly, if you put someone through what Frodo went through... you get someone turn out much like Frodo.

Which does not mean it cannot have been therapeutic for Tolkien to write it, in some form. To know what something is like, it generally helps to have either experienced or observed it. Whether Tolkien experienced PTSD, I have seen no evidence yet, but he would have had to have observed it firsthand. And if it had affected him, either personally or through those around him, which is likely, it's the sort of thing that would easily need some exorcising.

The importance of speaking of a trauma in order to recover from it is a generally acknowledged fact, I would say. How much actual talking about PTSD would have gone on in Tolkien's generation? Probably little enough, I'm guessing, that he would still feel, perhaps subconsciously, a relief in recounting it vicariously through Frodo.

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien did suffer from bouts of depression through his adult life, but I've not read anything to suggest that he had a major disorder as a result of being at war. He may not have experienced any trauma himself, we don't know...but he did experience extreme grief with the loss of his best friends Gilson and Smith.

I think that having been through the horror of that war Tolkien couldn't really write of suffering in anything other than an horrific way. His heroes don't come all home holding the head of their mortal enemy, rippling with muscles and with a girl in their arms like so many cliched fantasies of the later twentieth century. They come home quietened and chastened and even totally broken. Just like those who came home from the trenches. And they called WWI The War To End All Wars, but it wasn't, as the sons (and daughters) of these veterans were caught up in another 21 years later. The Long Defeat.

Anyway. You can see a similar writing of suffering and horror in work by others who had been to war. Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast has the ghosts of his experience entering the concentration camps during the liberation. I wonder what there might be in Narnia or Winnie The Pooh (Lewis and AA Milne were also caught up in war).

The other point to remember is that Tolkien was extremely proud of his war service, as was Lewis. He may have shown how heroes came home broken, but he does not denigrate them or exploit their suffering in the name of Art. Note how his fallen are given all due honour and respect, his bad guys given a chance to be forgiven. Nobody who dies seems to be there to be a cipher towards plot building.

Here's a quote from The Hobbit:

It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo's experiences, and the one which at the tune he hated most which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.

[Raynor]

Tolkien experienced a good deal of the horrors of the war, as noted in his biography, such as decaying bodies, horribly torn, with dreadful eyes with other delicacies, such as rats, on top. I was surprised to see the extent to which he suffered from disease and disability during the war. According to the Hammond and Scull Chronology, on 27th of October 1916, in Beauval, her reports sick with a temperature of 39 degrees. Up until 16th of November he goes through 5 hospitals, and afterwards, up to 15th of July 1919, when he is discharged, he goes through (as I counted) no less than 20 medical check ups. Over the course of almost three years, he has experienced trench fever, repeated attacks of high fever, headaches, debility and pain in the arms and legs, weakness, poor appetite, "20 to 100 percent unfit", gastritis, etc. In 11th of November he is informed by the Ministry of Pensions that he eligible for the maximum disabled rate. This long torture of diseases, combined with loss of friends to the shrapnells or influenza must have affected him deeply during this period, when he starts writing poems, The fall of Gondolin, essays on elvish language, Of Turin or Ainulindale, which represent some of the most important pillars of Silmarillion, the one work that will defines his creations and permeates even LotR. Though, like Lal, I haven't found direct evidence of ptsd, he did experience a lot of traumas, phisical or otherwise, which have affected his sensibility and art.

[Boromir88]

Though, like Lal, I haven't found direct evidence of ptsd, he did experience a lot of traumas, phisical or otherwise, which have affected his sensibility and art.~Raynor

It doesn't seem like he had PTSD, but you provide excellent reasoning to show that no one was unscarred, or unaffected who went through that war. Which echoes what Tolkien said in the Foreward...An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience...
Then the problem came taking these soldiers who went through horrors and bringing them back into a society where there was no more war, and just trying to find jobs and ways to integrate them back into society. Soon Europe was spun into a huge economic depression, far greater than the one experienced in the U.S. Eventhough if it doesn't appear like Tolkien suffered from PTSD, I completely agree that one cannot go unaffected by their experience and trials of World War 1...and that did have an effect that shows in their stories.

I was discussing a bit about this in another thread, when someone was wondering why Lord of the Rings doesn't have the 'true idea' of 'the hero.' In which case I argued that it does have the 'true hero.' The true hero is not the cliched stuff lal talks about that you see in Hollywood movies...but the true hero are ordinary people, who make their mistakes, but try and accomplish extraordinary deeds. Whether they do fail or succeed the trials and experieces they went through; they don't come back as Lal puts it:
His heroes don't come all home holding the head of their mortal enemy, rippling with muscles and with a girl in their arms like so many cliched fantasies of the later twentieth century.
They come back changed, altered, scarred, and even in extreme cases...broken.

I think that is where the true greatness (at least to me) shines through in Tolkien's story. He took a story that is fantasy and he made up, yet employed a great sense of realism and believability. He makes his 'fantasy heroes' entirely identifiable and connectable to the readers...and that is what makes his stories so enjoyable to read; for me.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Oh, it's hardly mercenary at all and my point was not to suggest it. Tolkien was a master storyteller and storytellers exist to beguile--in the best possible sense--their audience. In order to understand, to feel, to enjoy the story, readers need to connect with Frodo.

That was the idea behind my question, that the cauldron matters.

There are many writers who, like Tolkien, suffered the loss of a parent in childhood and that loss works its way into their writing. It's a fascinating topic that cannot be easily dismissed simply by saying the writers use their own personal experience. There's something about writing and recovery. And reading and recovery. And story.

So to put it another way: "consciously shell-shocked Frodo in the revision?"
Probably. I'm at a loss for words, Bb, to pursue what you are suggesting. Care to explicate a little bit? Your implications are intriguing, but my first tendency is to go Jungian, and I'm not sure that's what you mean.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

So to put it another way: "consciously shell-shocked Frodo in the revision?"

It's been a while since I read Sauron Defeated, and I definitely am not as familiar with that volume of the HoME as I could be, but my memory would say "no, not really in the revision".

In Tolkien's original plot outlines, I think, there was a gaier, less shocked Frodo post-Mount Doom, but I'm fairly sure that from the original draft of the post-Mt. Doom chapters that he exhibited most of his PTSD traits.

Someone who has the book handy and/or actually remembers it in better detail may want to correct me, depending.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I've always had a strong interest in trying to understand how and why Frodo left the Shire for the West. There were a number of early discussions on this topic on the Downs. Lal has provided links to some of these, but there were others, even earlier, like Frodo's Sacrifice.

First, I have to admit I have a bias that stems from the way I look at history. And, on some level—perhaps in some alternate universe of my own making, I see the Legendarium not merely as a faerie story, but as an early history of our own world. It’s become very popular among some historians to interpret particular individuals in psychological terms. That approach can be helpful, but if applied too indiscriminately merely "reduces" an individual's accomplishments down to the lowest common denominator: minimizing personal volition and the ideas that lie behind a particular action and instead representing the accomplishments as merely a knee jerk reaction generated by a specific psychological disorder or bent. (Certain studies of Martin Luther, for example, are guilty of this.)

With Frodo, we’re not talking about questioning his overall accomplishments. Most readers would agree that Frodo made a “free” choice to bear the Ring. Whatever elements may have played a role in this decision (and there are certain providential and/or psychological elements suggested at the Council of Elrond), few readers would question Frodo’s personal determination to destroy the Ring so it could not hurt his beloved Shire. The real question of psychological motive comes in when trying to assess his reasons for departing from the Havens.

Certainly, many of Frodo’s reactions after he came home to the Shire were similar to those described in classic PTSD. And it’s hard not to think that Tolkien’s experiences in the war and/or what he went through as an orphan had something to do with this ability to portray loss and grieving. Like Lal, I’ve had a personal loss that made me empathize with Frodo. Way back in the eighties, our seven month old daughter died of SIDS. In the year that followed that loss, I strongly identified with the grieving and guilt that characterized Frodo in the final pages of LotR: the feeling that nothing could ever be the same again and that things were totally out of control.

Still, even from that perspective, I am not comfortable saying psychological factors were the only, or even the chief reason, why Frodo chose to leave the Shire and sail West. Frodo’s “hurting” was one element driving him West, as well as his need to be near Bilbo. But his basic nature and the entire journey he’d been through also played a part. In one real sense, he had simply gone beyond what the Shire had to offer.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence in this regard is what CT records in Sauron Defeated. According to CT, long before Tolkien decided to portray Frodo as a “broken” survivor, he had already made two critical decisions about the ending of the story, which he recorded in several different outlines and drafts. Frodo would not be able to destroy the Ring, and Frodo would sail West:

[JRRT] had known from far back that when Frodo (still called “Bingo”) came to the Crack of Doom, he would be unable to cast away the Ring, and that Gollum would take it and fall into that chasm…… (Sauron Defeated, 37)

….Many years before, he had written that when ‘Bingo’ returned to the Shire he would make peace, and would then ‘settle down in a little hut on the high green ridge—until one day he goes with the Elves west beyond the towers.(Sauron Defeated, 53)

Island in Sea. Take Frodo there in the end…. (Ibid.)

But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Gray Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea (linking with the vision he had of a far green country in the house of Tom Bombadil). Letter of 29 November 1944

The interesting thing is that all these quotes, including the reference to the vision in Bombadil’s house, were recorded long before Tolkien began to darken Frodo’s fate. The symptoms of PTSD (or whatever you care to call them) lent an extra poignancy to Frodo’s departure, but PTSD was not the original reason why Tolkien thought it important to lead the hobbit to the Blessed Lands. Other elements were equally important: Frodo’s personality, his longing for Elvish ways as exemplified by the light that Sam saw in his eyes, Gandalf’s comparison of Frodo with the Phial of Galadriel in Rivendell, and the lure of the white shores that the hobbit experienced while staying with Bombadil. All this suggests that what happened on the journey itself as well as the events of Mt. Doom, played a role in sending Frodo to the West.

Formendacil makes one interesting comment in response to Littlemanpoet's reference to the "consciously shell-shocked Frodo in the revision". :

In Tolkien's original plot outlines, I think, there was a gaier, less shocked Frodo post-Mount Doom, but I'm fairly sure that from the original draft of the post-Mt. Doom chapters that he exhibited most of his PTSD traits.

I would not agree with this. I think there is a drastic difference between the first two drafts (A and early B) when compared with the final product. Sauron Defeated does suggest a gradual darkening of Frodo's fate. For example, the original draft of these later chapters, what CT calls “A”, includes a discussion between Gandalf and Frodo on the road home where the hobbit states: “My wound aches…and the memory of darkness is heavy on me (75). It also contains one statement by Frodo in which he says “I do not think it is my part to strike any blow again (80).” Yet, other than these two statements, the reader of Draft A is struck by how active Frodo is in terms of the Scouring and how comparatively healthy. He laughs, he leads the other hobbits and speaks for them, and is an active fighter. CT comments on this several times: “It will be seen in what follows that in this original version of the story Frodo played a far more aggressive and masterful part in events than he does in RK, even to the slaying of more than one of the ruffians at Bywater and their leader at Bag-end….”

Even in the initial draft “B”, Frodo’s active role is little changed. It’s only in the final revisions of that draft that we get a very different picture:

At a late stage of work on the B text…., my father perceived that Frodo’s experience had so changed him , so withdrawn him, as to render him incapable of playing any such role in the Scouring of the Shire….The text, as it stood, required no large recasting; the entirely different pictures of Frodo’s part in the events was brought about by many small alterations…and a few brief additions.

We see a similar change in later chapters between Draft A and subsequent drafts. For example, draft A contains no references to Frodo’s illnesses in March 1420 or 1421, though there is a reference to the October illness. Draft A also includes a statement about Frodo's fame in the Shire, which leaves a very different impression than the way the chapter was eventually written:

And so the year drew to its end. Even Sam could find no fault with Frodo’s fame and honour in his own country. The Tooks were too secure in their traditional position—and after all their folkland was the only one that had never given in to the ruffians—and also too generous to be really jealous; yet it was plain that the name of Baggins would become the most famous in Hobbit-history.

I think that somewhere in the middle of Draft B, Tolkien became far more aware of what was going on in terms of Frodo and his suffering. How and why this awareness grew on him, I do not know. But one thing is definite. Even at the beginning of Draft A, the Grey Havens scene was fairly intact. According to Draft A, Frodo was an active leader in the Scouring, received acclaim in the Shire, and had relatively few bouts of illness or suffering, but Tolkien was still very certain that he had to leave the Shire and go West. Sailing west remains the constant. The emphasis on personal suffering in later drafts did not determine or change Frodo's destination. It merely added another compelling reason for him to go.

[littlemanpoet]

Two additional perspectives have come to mind on this. Excellent, post, Child, by the way.

First, there is a paradigm of mythic legend such that the hero of the story moves from isolation to community by means of the hero's adventures. The fascinating thing about this is that Frodo, who at the beginning of the story is described as being used to isolation, (an orphan, and then only adopted heir to an isolated old hobbit), does not achieve community at the end of the story. The Ring's effects on him exacerbate his isolation. In terms of this thread, the Ring, and the features of shell-shock or PTSD, keep him from being able to go back to the Shire and be part of it. What strikes me is that Tolkien has prepared us for this at many points throughout the story. Frodo tells Sam that the Shire may be saved, but not for him.

But running counter to that persepective is the Elvishness of Frodo. As Child has implied in her post just before this one, Frodo does not fit with hobbits for he has graduated, after a fashion, from hobbit-hood. He has become a sort of Elf; not literally, of course, but his emotional, psychic, and spiritual natures tend toward Elvishness instead of hobbitishness.

So he is isolated from fellow hobbits, by and large, but those same isolating factors seem to bring him into community with Elves; and his final companions are a fellow Ring-bearer hobbit who has experienced just as much isolation and Elven community, an Istari, and some of the greatest Elves ever to walk the shores of Arda.

Thus, it almost .... almost, mind you .... appears that those things that seem to grind him down and make his Middle Earth life insufferable, are the very things that make it possible for him to join a higher community that lives at a level that hobbits can't even imagine. Just so, 'the pain that he feels and the suffering he has endured, becomes the very stuff of his healing', as it were....