The "Fair" Sex in LotR

[Child of the 7th Age]

Yes, I have the Time article and shudder to read parts of it. The part in italics makes me cringe:

Where are the women? Peter Jackson filled out Liv Tyler's role for the movies (it's much less prominent in Tolkien's version), but the Fellowship is still as much of a boys' club as Augusta National.

"Tolkien's version"? .....Grr!! I enjoyed the movie, and will happily scamper to the threater on December 18, but I do know the difference between THE ORIGINAL BOOK, and the film adaption made by PJ. This writer apparently does not! I'm sorry, but as good as the film is, it is not in the same class as the book.

Want to lay odds that the people who wrote these articles--Jess Cagle and Lev Grossman-- never even read LotR in full? And I somehow doubt they are familiar with any of the numerous strong female characters in Silm. That is, if they've even heard of the Silmarillion.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

One has to be careful with Freudian symbolism, lest one begin to see everything as a phallic symbol (trees, chairs, pipes and so forth). This is a trap into which pretentious pseudo-intellectuals often fall, as in the case above. Why such a weak analysis should trouble us here is a mystery to me.

I've already gone into a lot of detail on my ideas about the portrayal of women in The Lord of the Rings, so I shall be brief here: this is all about point of view. LoTR is entirely written using the four hobbits as points of reference: we see what they see; hear what they hear, and when we see someone's thoughts it's theirs that we are shown. This is why characters such as Arwen and Galadriel are ethereal beauties; this is why we scarcely see a female character but she's noble and beautiful (to a hobbit, who wouldn't be?) and this is why Éowyn gets so much attention: she spends a hugely disproportionate amount of time with one of the main protagonists, enabling us to gain a deeper insight into her motivation and character. This, I would argue, is no coincidence, since her defeat of the Witch-king is such a pivotal event in the War of the Ring. The same goes for Ioreth, whose comments are noted by the protagonists because they have such significance.

That obviously doesn't explain why women feature so lightly in the parts of the narrative with which the author is mainly concerned. Simply put, whatever might have been going on in the world around him (and we have all seen how much notice he took of that), Tolkien's view of a hero did not encompass men who allowed women to enter danger. When the women do this, as in the cases of Lúthien, Aredhel and Éowyn, for example it is without the knowledge or at least without the consent of those men whom the Victorian gender value system would cast as their protectors. This absolves Thingol, Turgon and Théoden of their respective responsibilities under that system to keep the women safe.

The fact that Tolkien shows us both the possible positive (Éowyn and Lúthien) and negative (Aredhel) results of defying this system of gender roles encompasses for me the point that, whilst Tolkien felt that it was a man's duty to do all in his power to protect women, they were in no way required meekly to accept that protection; indeed were required at times to defy it in the fulfillment of Eru's designs.

I'm prepared to accept that Tolkien was not entirely accurate in his portrayal of women (I, like him, can only guess at the accuracy of characters like Erendis) and that he avoided the subject as much as possible, but was it lack of confidence, or his (justifiable) imposition of his values onto the world he created?

[Lush]

but was it lack of confidence, or his (justifiable) imposition of his values onto the world he created?

A little bit of both, I believe. That, and his goal to create a traditional fairy-tale, where the Lady is mostly an emotionally-inaccessible object of desire and/or admiratin. In his letters he, himself, admits that women's reality is a much, much different game (not that we're any less fun, of course).

[TolkienGurl]

You see, the problem is that all these ignorant Hollywood people are writing things about LotR that are absolutely not true, which give people negative feelings towards the books. Maybe I am going a little to far off the wall here, but some of the things mentioned in that article and other places are just so wrong!

I'm pretty certain Tolkien would be offended if he read that article. Come on, they describe Elijah Wood [as Frodo] as "Talented, blue-eyed, and impossibly cute..." How Hollywood!

~TolkienGurl [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Elora]

The Squatter of Amon Rûdh raised a wonderfully relevant point to consider when discussing the portrayal of women or anything else within Lord of the Rings.

It is from the point of view of hobbits - male hobbits.

I contend also that the concept of the female characters being better at deception within the tale is more a feature of the perspective of the story teller (hobbits) than Tolkien's personal perceptions of women.

For Hobbits on their first venture into the wider world and the attendant large scale events of politics and power, many things would appear otherwise than say we of the "Big Folk" see it. Tolkien was a gifted author who had a distinct talent for encapsulating a world view from the perspective of his main characters. It's a big stretch to say his own personal views mirrored those of his characters.

It is for this reason, that I find the question of gender when applied to Lord of the Rings a tricksome one. For in order to make a substantive case you must be able to say the perspective of the story teller is the same as that of the writer.

This is a difficult basis upon which to form your argument, no matter what you may wish to put forward as your position.

For example, the style of perspective of writing varies markedly between Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit... which of the three actually reflects Tolkien's personal perspective?

I suspect each of them did, but to what degree and how exactly few could ever clearly discern, if any could at all.

Discussions about Tolkien's view [points on gender or race or politics as judged from his fictional works is a little too much based on inference and interpretation to produce a decisive and authoritative conclusion being ever reached. To commence, we must first put some opinion on such things in his mouth, using passages from his fictional works. That ground is too thin to stand on (such is my belief at any rate).

Whilst this is no criticism of the debate here, which I notice is a refreshingly intelligent discussion of gender issues in Tolkien, I think it necessary to point out that in holding this debate we are ascribing a view point on gender to the author with little factual basis to justify that. For example, have we a statement from Tolkien on his actual thoughts on gender, the roles of men and women and how Lord of Rings reflects or differs from that personal view?

We do not, such that I have seen mentioned here. Instead we are deriving his viewpoint from his novel, a risky venture in my opinion.

[ May 30, 2003: Message edited by: Elora ]

[Finwe]

Since the story is from the perspective of four Hobbits, and taking into consideration the androgynous beauty of the Elves, for all we know, they could have assumed that all the Elves they dealt with were male! That is a possibility. And especially if there are any tomboy female Elves (like my poor, delusioned grand-daughter Aredhel), they could have easily mistaken them, in male garb, for male Elves.

Lord of the rings, like the middle ages of England, of course had many famous women. But did you here or learn half as much about them as you did say, their brothers/husbands/sons etc.

I think, since they're is no use denying it, that since men ruled the world, women were truly less important to it's history. Of course they were very important, bearing the children that did great deeds and some were heroes and healers and people of high liniage, but really, they were not as important in the shaping of the world today. That is, at least, what the history books want us to believe.

In my opinion, women were just as important, but they were not portrayed to be. That's the important part right there. Because the stories and the scrolls and the wall carvings held men in higher status, that's how we remember things. It can't be changed and it can't be helped.

Tolkien, who wanted to be very realistic(as much as possible) I think was obligated to depict women exactly as they did hundreds of years ago, nessesary, but not as important. There were the warrior women in tales, but that's what Eowen represents. Arwen represents the beautiful damsil left behind which in most cases was most accurate, and Galadriel was kind of like the queens back in the renessance, queen Victoria for example. She was so powerful, that no one seemed to think anything of the fact she was a woman.

But now our history is changed, and if Tolkien had written books about the present time, he would have put in more female power. He was just following the average real stories of of past with LORT. And he did in flawlessly.