Theme of heroism in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien's presentation of heroism in The Lord of the Rings is based on medieval tradition, but modifies it, as there is no single hero but a combination of heroes with contrasting attributes. Aragorn is the man born to be a hero, of a line of kings; he emerges from the wilds and is uniformly bold and restrained. Frodo is an unheroic, home-loving Hobbit who has heroism thrust upon him when he learns that the ring he has inherited from his cousin Bilbo is the One Ring that would enable the Dark Lord Sauron to dominate the whole of Middle-earth. His servant Sam sets out to take care of his beloved master, and rises through the privations of the quest to destroy the Ring to become heroic.
Scholars have seen the quest of the dissimilar heroes Aragorn and Frodo as a psychological journey of individuation, and from a mythic point of view of marking the end of the old—in Frodo's quest with its bitter ending, and the start of the new, in Aragorn's.
The heroic aspects of
Dwarves
.
Origins
Beowulf's heroic culture
Further information:
Beowulf in Middle-earth
Tolkien was a
Riders of Rohan, who resemble the Anglo-Saxons in everything including their Old English language, except for Rohan's widespread use of horses. Théoden's hall, Meduseld (the word means "mead hall" in Beowulf), is modelled on Beowulf'sHeorot, as is the way it is guarded, visitors being repeatedly but courteously challenged.[1] The warhorns of the Riders of Rohan exemplify, in Shippey's view, the "heroic Northern world", as in what he calls the nearest Beowulf has to a moment of Tolkien-like eucatastrophe, when Ongentheow's Geats, trapped all night, hear the horns of Hygelac's men coming to rescue them; the Riders blow their horns wildly as they finally arrive, turning the tide of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields at a climactic moment in The Lord of the Rings.[2][T 1]
Volsungasaga have named, magic swords, and that acquiring such a weapon is a key moment in becoming a hero. Frodo is given his sword by his "uncle", Bilbo – Flieger comments that the uncle-nephew relationship is also traditional for pairs of heroes, such as Cuchulainn and Conchobar, Tristan and Mark, Roland and Charlemagne, Gawain and Arthur, and Beowulf and Hygelac.[5]
Flieger notes however that while Sigmund's sword was broken, and it was reforged for Sigurd, Frodo already had a sword: it was broken by the
Sting, from his adventures long ago, as narrated in The Hobbit, casually thrusts it into a wooden beam in his room in Rivendell, and suggests that Frodo might like it. Frodo pulls it out without fuss, an unheroic hero, but "the torch has passed" and Frodo is "align[ed] with his epic forebears".[5]
Narsil, of his distant ancestor Elendil, who broke it defeating the Dark Lord Sauron by cutting the Ring from his hand, but dying in the process. Like Frodo, Aragorn arrives in Rivendell, and there he too receives a magic weapon: his sword is reforged, as Andúril, "Flame of the West". Unlike Frodo's acquisition of Sting, the transformation of Narsil to Andúril is directly heroic; but both weapons, like the magic swords of medieval legend, shine with their own light in the presence of enemies.[5]
Fairy tale
Tolkien's essay
Andrew Lang lecture in 1939[6] and published in different collections of his essays from 1947 onwards. In it, Tolkien makes clear that he considers fairy tales an important genre, which he explains and defends; the essence of a fairy story is the universal journey of the hero, the traveller through life, facing the dangers, seeking his desires including the "Escape from Death", and emerging victorious.[T 2][5]
Analysis
Diagram of Patrick Grant's Jungian view of The Lord of the Rings with hero, anima and other archetypes; the hero is composed both of the noble Aragorn and the small home-loving Frodo.[7]
anima is the Elf-queen Galadriel; the Hero is assisted by the Old Wise Man archetype in the shape of the Wizard Gandalf. Frodo's Shadow is the monstrous Gollum, appropriately in Grant's view, also a male Hobbit like Frodo. All of these, together with other characters in the book, create an image of the self.[7]
Contrasted heroes
Flieger contrasts the warrior-hero
Morte D'Arthur".[5] In other words, the two types of hero are not only contrasted, but combined, halves of their legends swapped over. Flieger comments that the two together mark the end of the old, with Frodo's bitter end and the disappearance of the Ring, the Elves, and much else that was beautiful; and the start of the new, with Aragorn's rise to the throne of Gondor and Arnor, and a world of Men.[5]
The Tolkien scholars Thomas Honegger and John D. Rateliff write that this "important" argument of Flieger's was so convincing that it remained unchallenged until in 2000 George Clark pointed to Sam as the "true hero".[8][9]
Unheroic hero
A third figure takes on the mantle of hero in the story,
batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself."[T 3] and elsewhere: "Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable – except in his service and loyalty to his master."[T 4] He ends up as mayor of the Shire for seven seven-year terms.[T 5] Tolkien admired heroism born of loyalty and love, but despised arrogance, pride and wilfulness, notes the scholar Elizabeth Solopova. The courage and loyalty that Sam displayed on his journey with Frodo, she adds, is the kind of northern courage that Tolkien praised in his essays on the Old English poem "The Battle of Maldon".[10]
Unchivalric heroes
Tolkien rejected the armoured nobility and courtly love of the chivalric knight (illustrated) in favour of small humble hobbits and half-wild, mistrusted rangers as his heroes.[11]
Ben Reinhard writes in
Dol Amroth come to Minas Tirith as "knights in full harness",[T 6] and their prince, Imrahil, wears "bright-burnished vambrace[s]".[T 7] All the same, Reinhard writes, knights are certainly played down in the narrative. He notes that this might seem surprising, and discusses why Tolkien decided on a heroism without chivalry. Tolkien disliked the connection of chivalric romance with French culture: he expressed distaste for both its food and its language. Further, he regretted that almost all of England's pre-Christian mythology had been lost; he set out to create a mythology for England. That meant that Tolkien could hardly introduce French-style chivalric knights, so he needed "a new kind of hero—or, better yet, two kinds of hero: the halfling and the ranger. In place of the powerful and noble knight errant, we have (on the one hand) the modern, bourgeois, and above all small hobbits or (on the other) the half-wild, mistrusted rangers."[11] Reinhard observes that this allows the Catholic Tolkien to express the Christian vision as described in the Magnificat of "put[ting] down the mighty from their seat, and exalt[ing] the humble and meek".[11]
Ben Reinhard's comparison of Tolkien's heroes and traditional chivalric knights[11]
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