Suicide in Middle Earth

[LúthienTinúviel]

Very interesting question. I will do my best, although I am currently in the middle of the Silmarilion and so don't have as much background...

First of all, it's important to remember that Tolkien himself was a devout Roman Catholic. In fact, he was instrumental in the conversion of C. S. Lewis. So with that information, I am going to operate on the basis that he does not condone it, and try to come up with an explanation there.

I think he does have a double standard for elves and men. I don't think he approves of suicide in men (and therefore that takes care of modern humanity), but it is a little different with elves. It seems to me that this difference would be due to their longevity. Elves are immortal basically and therefore do not have the gift of death that Men have (I think Tolkien said something about death being a gift in the Silmarilion...I will find the quote later if I can), so perhaps Tolkien sees the suicide of the immortal or more than mortal (Dunedain) as simply a seizng of a gift that was denied them by Illuvatar..

BUt then that gets weird because Iluvatar didn't give them death, they took it... Oh well. I'm perplexed. I must muse on this further and bust out my copy of The Silmarilion.

I hope I made some sense.

Namárië,
Lúthien