Now Frodo, Sam, and Gollum travel up the valley of the Ringwraiths, past Minas Morgul as the storm bursts and the chief Nazgul leads his legions against Gondor, and up and up the side of a mountain in the Ephel Duath, until they reach a point just before the tunnel that leads to the top of the pass of Cirith Ungol. They are on the verge of entering Mordor.
And right at the end of this Chapter occurs one of the scenes that I find most people remember with the most fondness in all of LOTR: the scene in which Sam and Frodo imagine themselves in the middle of a great tale; and then, in utter love and trust, go to sleep in the middle of danger and ruin with Frodo cradled in Sam’s arms like a baby. And then Gollum finds them, and for one fleeting second becomes human again, with a human capacity for love.
And I hate to break the spell, but I want to talk about why I view this as Great Writing, not merely a great tearjerker.
When I was a consultant to computer industry marketers, I was sometimes asked to do what’s called a “total cost of ownership” study. In order to gather the statistics specifying how much software and hardware users spent on which aspects of ownership, I would need to do phone interviews of the users, because the data I sought were not kept by the users; rather, they would have to be deduced from the users’ experiences. And I chose to have them relate those experiences in terms of a story, a story of their experiences with the product in question, from beginning to end of a project.
What I found, somewhat to my surprise, was that I and my clients were getting insights well beyond what we would have gotten via the usual statistical survey. For example, in the case of database software used by small businesses, we found out that what users really cared about was not the cost of the software, but the time it took to run administrative tasks, because there simply were not people available and affordable in a small business to run those tasks on top of everything else they had to do. And this kind of thing kept happening in survey after survey – and is now a whole movement in statistics-gathering in the social sciences. What I was finding out was not only that we tell stories about parts of our lives and our lives as a whole, not only that these stories give our lives meaning so that we can fulfil the meaning of our lives, but also that casting events of one’s life as stories give meaning to others, give understanding, give empathy. It is “book learning”, yes; but it is also “story learning.”
And Tolkien, in the conversation between Frodo and Sam, takes this one step further. What Sam realizes, in the course of the conversation, is that his story, grand as it is, is part of a “great tale”, one that spans peoples, reaches back into myth, and never ends. A tale of the struggle for freedom and dignity of African-Americans and others reaching back into history. A tale of the quest for God in the deeps of time, never-ending. Remember what Frodo says to Sam at the very end of LOTR? “As long as your part of the story goes on.” Not: “as long as your story goes on.”
So a “great tale” is like the Road: it goes ever on and on, with many branching paths. It is, in fact, a story of humanity, from the start to the unknowable future. It is a human tapestry, with multicolored threads that are peoples and generations. And simply knowing such a story makes us more “high”. It makes us more likely to be able to take part in, to fit our own story into, a “great tale.” And it’s a cracking good yarn, too. Pun intended.
But all this is not, still, why I view this as Great Writing. Rather, I think the Great Writing lies in the device Tolkien uses in this passage. That is, in the middle of what seems like it may be the climax of the Quest and of the whole book, he has his characters ask themselves, is this a great story? Is this a story that will fulfil the meaning of my life? Will it blend well with a greater story? And they do so without assuming the answers.
And this enables us to see the deeper meaning of the Quest, LOTR, or of our own lives if we so choose, without the author didactically laying it out for us, or even pre-determining the outcome. Do, or do not. Be, or be not. There is no “must.”
In other words, in the typical Great Writing, the author lays out characters, and trusts that their universality and his or her insights will make what he or she says Great. In this passage, Tolkien has his characters themselves try to see if this is true, want it to be true – in the form of a story. In the form of the Red Book of Westmarch. In the form of all the stories ever told by authors in books that Tolkien has read, that we have read. Tolkien is inviting us to be equal readers with him in a story that his characters love, that he loves. A story that he sees as being about simple things, and also highness, deep passion, and deep love. A story of humanity small and deep.
I could close here; but I want to also consider the more minor point earlier in the Chapter where Frodo, I think, defines altruism. I have run into many people in my life, some ordinary folks, some Freudians, some genetic nerds, some business leaders and free marketers, who are cynical about the existence of altruism. Scratch the noble pose, they say, and in most and maybe all cases you’ll find a self-interested motive. And how do you disprove a negative?
So here we have the point where Frodo sees the Morgul army march forth, and decides that what he is doing is in some sense too late. That no matter how quickly he can get to Mount Doom right now, destruction of Gondor will happen and no one will ever know if he succeeds. And then he decides that none of that matters. It doesn’t matter if he dies. It doesn’t matter if no one ever appreciates what he does. The betterment of the world is its own reward. For Frodo at that moment, altruism is self-interest: interest in fulfilling the meaning of his life, the story of his life. Frodo is anticipating the moment when he says, the Shire was saved – but not for me. He has accepted that possibility.
And that concept – virtue is its own reward – shown in action in this scene, to me makes nonsense of the idea of there being no such thing as altruism. If selflessness is seen as selfishness merely because it provides a reward to the ego, that not only confuses effect with motivation, but fails to realize that a truly altruistic person should sense and seek that internal reward. And we are all familiar with stories or instances in which a good-doer does not seek or actively discourages tangible rewards. Certainly the concept of “pay it forward” offers an obvious example.
Anyway, whatever you may think of my analysis, in this case I think Tolkien has presented an extreme, unusual situation in which it is clear that altruism is happening. That when Frodo has eliminated all other motives, altruism, no matter how unlikely, is what is occurring.
And he has travelled a long road to get here. Progressively, his hopes for tangible rewards for himself – future life in the Shire, memory and appreciation by friends, have now been stripped away under the ruthless gaze of his “high” analysis. He faces the future naked of those hopes. But that is a thought for another time.
Instead, I would just like to assert my view that whatever else Frodo may do of good or evil, this one decision is an act of altruism beyond that of even the other “good” characters in this book. In no other character is the belief so strong that he will not come back, and that he will not be remembered. The story of his life will never be shared.
And for that reason alone, I say, the story of Frodo’s life is a Great Story in a Great Tale.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Like You’ve Never Heard It:
- The First of a Series of Ramblings About JRR Tolkien
- Part II. Pre-Psychology Writing, Poetry, and a New Hero
- Part III. Torture, Enlightenment
- Part IV. Weather, Mushrooms, Leaders
- Part V. In the Moment, Sam the Obscure
- Part VI. Folk Songs, Master, First, Fair
- Part VII. Hiking, Curses, Noble Language
- Part VIII. The Hiker’s Extrasensory Writing
- Part IX. Torture, Elves, Endings
- Part X. Your Highness
- Part XI. Business Meetings, Dwarves
- Part XII. Horns of Wild Memory
- Part XIII. Ecstasies of the Dwarves
- Part XIV. Valaraukar, the Third Touch of God
- Part XV. Memory, Nature, Passion
- Part XVI. The Gift of Enchantment
- Part XVII. Frontier Maturity
- Part XVIII. Pity, Decisions, Endings
- Part XIX. Into the Shadow, Kings, Names, Winds
- Part XX. People of the Morning, Child Soldiers
- Part XXI. Herdsmen and High Trees
- Part XXII. The Faith of God
- Part XXIII. Theoden’s Law
- Part XXIV. Helm’s Deep, Zangra, and A Life Worthy of Song
- Part XXV. Book of Marvels, Book of Friendship
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