Department of English and American Studies

The second part deals with Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomyth and its relation to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, with occasional digressions to Jungian psycho

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Miluše Jedlinská

Mythical and Cultural Archetypes

in J.R.R Tolkien

Supervisor: Michael Matthew Kaylor, Ph D.

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

………

Author’s signature

I would like to thank Michael Matthew Kaylor, Ph.D., for his valuable advice.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 4

T HE DEFINITIONS OF ARCHETYPE

6 A RCHETYPAL APPROACH TO LITERATURE

9 T HE M ONOMYTH

13 T HE J UNGIAN ARCHETYPES

16 N ORTHROP F RYE ’ S TYPES OF HERO

19 2 The archetypal journeys of Tolkien’s heroes 21

T RAGIC HEROES , FAILED QUESTS

22 What is the role of fate? 22

Fëanor 25

Túrin Turambar 26

B EREN AND L ÚTHIEN

28 E ÄRENDIL

32 G ANDALF

35 B ILBO

41 A RAGORN

48 F RODO

53 The Monomyth pattern in Frodo’s journey 54

Frodo’s journey seen through Jungian perspective 62

The Christian perspective 63

Six stages of Frodo’s transformation: loosing consciousness 64

3 Two important archetypes in the work of J.R.R Tolkien 68

Water 69

Tree 70

4 Conclusion 72

A PPENDIX A - L IST OF CHARACTERS

75 W ORKS CITED AND CONSULTED

77 R ÉSUMÉ

79

1 Introduction

It has been perceived by some critics and readers that there are certain similarities between Tolkien’s fiction and various mythical (and other kinds of) stories For most critics the logical explanation is 1) either that Tolkien consciously used mythical elements as he was very well acquainted with them, or 2) that he used these elements unconsciously, not on purpose For these reasons, some people do not consider his fiction as being original This thesis suggests that there is another explanation: the

similarities between Tolkien’s stories and mythology are caused by mythical and

cultural archetypes This interpretation has an advantage of going deeper than

considering conscious usage of mythology in literature, and even deeper than the unconscious remembering of what one read or heard in the past: the archetypes

originate in the collective unconscious It is true that certain writers and film-makers now use archetypes consciously, drawing on the ‘manual’ that was provided by Joseph Campbell and other writers going in his steps (such as Christopher Vogler), but that was not the case at the time when Tolkien was writing his major works

Furthermore, the widespread success of Tolkien’s work can be accounted for by the archetypal structure of his stories Tolkien created his legendarium as a background for his invented languages (most importantly Quenya and Sindarin), because, according

to him, a language which does not have a mythological background is always deficient

in some respect Another reason for his success might be that after the rule of everymen and anti-heroes in literature (realism, modernism), there arose again a need for stories about heroes with divine qualities Northrop Frye’s scheme of literature had come full circle, back to superhuman heroes, only this time more modern and secular

Although the success was a surprise even for Tolkien himself, he concluded that there was an audience for this kind of literature: “But it remains an unfailing delight to me to find my own belief justified: that the ‘fairy-story’ is really an adult genre, and one for

which a starving audience exists” (Letters 209).

Although Tolkien did not want his stories to be dissected by scholars and become the subjects of research and theses, there is one thing at which he looked with more friendlyeyes:

I fear you might be right that the search for the sources of The Lord of the

Rings is going to occupy academics for a generation or two I wish this need

not be so To my mind it is the particular use in a particular situation of any motive, whether invented, deliberately borrowed, or unconsciously

remembered that is the most interesting thing to consider (Letters 418)

It is precisely these motives ‘unconsciously remembered’ that this thesis concentrates on

The first part deals with the numerous approaches to archetypes and provides a brief history of archetypal criticism in literature There are also reasons stated why it is better to choose this kind of approach for the analysis of Tolkien’s work over other types

of approaches The second part deals with Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomyth and

its relation to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, with occasional

digressions to Jungian psychology and archetypal criticism, as presented by Northrop Frye The main focus is on tracing the archetypal structure in the paths of the following heroes: Beren and Lúthien, Eärendil, Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and Bilbo

The most important reference works used are: The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell, The Archetypes of Collective Unconscious by C.G Jung, Anatomy

of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye, Tolkien in the Land of Heroes by Anne C

Petty and J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopedia by Michael D C Drout

The Lord of the Rigs is further on referred to as FOTR – The Fellowship of the Ring,

TTT – The Two Towers, and ROTK – The Return of the King.

The reader is expected to be well acquainted with the listed works of Tolkien and their complexity

The definitions of archetype

In general, archetype is viewed as a recurring pattern, image, character or theme which appears in mythologies and literatures across different cultures and nations

However, each critic/scholar has his/her own definition, depending on his/her area of expertise (psychology versus literature), and clings to one of the many possible

explanations of the origin of archetypes

C.G Jung (1875 – 1961) explained the archetypes as contents of the collective unconscious (a deep layer of psyche not derived from personal experience), and

remarked that the first theories regarding archetypes were those of Plato and St

Augustine (although the term itself is of much later origin) The archetype as such is only a hypothetical model, similar to the ‘patterns of behaviour’ in biology (Jung 5) The archetype is the psychic content that has not been yet submitted to the conscious mind Most of the archetypes can be found everywhere and at all times However, the archetype is not an ‘unconscious idea’ for which it is often considered This is because its content is not determined, only its form “For Jung the archetypes taken as a whole represent the sum of the latent potentialities of the human psyche - a vast store of ancestral knowledge about the profound relations between God, man, and cosmos” (Jacobi 49) The archetype is changed when it becomes conscious and is perceived; it becomes coloured by the person in whose consciousness it appears Owing to his studies

of dreams, myths, fantasies and visions, Jung was able to trace certain types of figures and situations that were constantly repeating – these he termed as ‘motifs’ The human figures in dreams, mythology and literature can be embodiments of one of the series of archetypes, of which the main ones are: the shadow, the wise old man, the child, the mother, anima and animus

The approach of Northrop Frye (1912 – 1991) to the archetypes was very

different from Jung’s (owing to the fact that Frye was a literary critic, not a

psychologist) Frye intended to set a ‘conceptual framework’ for literature – to discover what were the organizing and containing forms of literature and to create a critical

approach which did not work only with sources external to literature (i.e biographies, historical facts), but also with internal structure of literature Frye considered the

archetypes as representations of conventional myths and metaphors and viewed

literature as the most important extension of mythology According to him, archetypes

were shaped by historical and social factors and were not a priori forms in the human

mind Nonetheless, they retained continuity of form in literature Primarily, they were communicable symbols, which accounted for the fact that the same archetypes can be

found across language and cultural barriers (Anatomy 121) The archetypes appear in

primitive and popular literature in particular – or in other words, this kind of literature provides an unobstructed view of archetypes However, Frye said that this quality can

be found on every level of literature – from myths, fairy tales, The Bible, to Shakespeare and beyond (and also in a large amount of what he termed ‘rubbish’) (Anatomy 130).

Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987) was largely influenced by Jung He saw the archetypes as universal themes and motifs of the human mind appearing in mythology, literature and dreams: “Dream is the personalized myth, myth is the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of

the psyche” (The Hero 18) Campbell focused mainly on the archetypal story of the

hero’s journey, for which he started to use the term ‘monomyth’ According to him, the standard mythological adventure follows the basic pattern of rites of passage (and vice versa), which is: departure, initiation and return In each stage Campbell identified typical sequence of events and typical motifs (certainly not all of them occur in all the myths and stories)

Archetypal approach to literature

According to Longman Glossary of Literary Terms, archetypal criticism is: “A

type of literary criticism that focuses on particular archetypes, narrative patterns,

themes, motifs, or characters that recur in a particular literary work or in literature in general”

The Archetypal criticism has its roots in anthropology (James Frazer, Claude Strauss), psychology (C.G Jung), formalism (Vladimir Propp) and its unique branch consists in the work of Northrop Frye

Lévi-Although archetypal criticism started to emerge only in the 1930s, some time after Jung began to publish his works, there were earlier attempts to apply this approach

to literature and mythology For example the Austrian psychologist Otto Rank (1884 –

1939) published in 1909 the book called The Myth of the Birth of Hero, which traces the

common aspects surrounding the birth of the hero in mythologies of different cultures (Greek, Persian, Indian, Celtic, Roman and so on) Rank clung to the theory that the common elements in myths are caused by the common traits of the human psyche Approximately at the same time, the Scottish anthropologist James Frazer was working

on his major book, The Golden Bough, which compared mythological and religious

beliefs in ancient cultures This book has been very influential among writers and literary critics Frazer was the first to include ‘Christian mythology’ in comparison with the other mythologies, showing that there were many common themes The readers at the time were scandalized, but not long afterwards such a comparison started to be accepted and used by other scholars Northrop Frye even wrote in 1950s that:

…there’s nothing in the bible that can’t be found in some form - or to which some analogy cannot be found - in some mythology folklore elsewhere But wecould reverse the axiom and say that there is nothing really essential in the

folklore or mythology of any civilization whatever that cannot be found in

some form in the Bible (Biblical Myths 43)

In 1934 Maud Bodkin published her Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, which is considered

to be the first real piece of archetypal criticism In this book, Bodkin applied the

theories of C.G Jung to literature and examined, for example, the archetypes of rebirth, heaven, hell, hero, etc

Since then there was an increasing interest in archetypal criticism up till the end of 1960s, when the interest started to decline

Nonetheless, the archetypal approach is a good choice for analysis of Tolkien’s work Tolkien himself wrote:

These tales [The Silmarillion] are ‘new’, they are not directly derived from

other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only

be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind

were discovered and must always reappear (Letters 147)

He also said: “My work is not a ‘novel’, but an ‘heroic romance’ a much older and quite

different variety of literature” (Letters 414).

Furthermore, he described in a letter to one of his friends, how The Lord of the Rings

came to be written, and this letter conveys a sense of ‘discovering’ the heroes and the plot on the journey, not of struggling to invent them (obviously, the ‘discovering’ does not apply to all the heroes because Tolkien did struggle with some parts of his books):

I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had

Frodo The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there…Fangorn Forest was an

unforeseen adventure I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the

Stewards of Gondor…I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf’s failure to

appear on September 22…I knew nothing of the Palantiri (Letters 216)

However, there are some critics, such as Tom Shippey, who dismiss most of the types of the archetypal approach to Tolkien’s works as useless Shippey, at one point theprofessor of English language and Medieval Literature in Leeds (being therefore in the same position in which Tolkien was), propagates the philological approach – he claims that because Tolkien himself was a scholar interested in ‘comprehension of wholes and classification of data under principles and categories’ (‘tough-mindedness’, according tothe distinction made by American psychologist William James), the same approach should be used to analyse his works The opposite mindset, ‘tender-mindedness’

(interest in abstract schemes) results in Shippey’s view in a “flattening, second-hand, language-less and usually wildly incorrect” books (Shippey 292) The books that he

condemns to this category are for example The Mythology of Middle-earth (Ruth S Noel), The Individuated Hobbit (Timothy O’Neill), One Ring to Bind them All (Anne C Petty) and Tolkien’s Art (Jane Chance) In Shippey’s view, these works reduce The Lord

of the Rings to solemn plots of departure, initiation, donor, trial and return and pick out

only banalities (Shippey 292) Shippey also says that there is a culture and temperamentgap between Tolkien and his critics-admirers (the American ones mainly)

It cannot be denied that Shippey’s own approach is very valuable: he comments

on the importance of language and the importance of Tolkien’s professional backgroundfor his legendarium What he does not say explicitly, but what can be understood implicitly is that the main hero is in fact the language Shippey notes that Tolkien

largely started to work out his plots (and his cartography and all the things that make hisimaginary world unique) from single words or cruxes that were interesting to him (a good example is the word ‘earendel’ from an Old English poem, which is the core of story about Eärendil, and which will be discussed later).

There certainly is an advantage to this kind of approach: the linguistic facts and

particulars can be traced and proved, whereas nobody has provided an unassailable proof of the existence of archetypes as yet The problem of archetypal approach is that it

is, for some people, too abstract The vagueness, though, does not apply so much to the theory of Frye because it does not rely on psychology and the theory of collective unconscious, but draws conclusions from the body of literature only This is probably

why Shippey uses Frye’s theory several times throughout his book The Road to Middle

Earth On the other hand, how can one dismiss the psychological theory of archetypes

when even Tolkien himself admitted that something beyond his comprehension was

happening when he was writing The Lord of the Rings 1 – see the above citation from one of Tolkien’s letters in which he writes about the discovery along the journey and of remembering, rather than inventing There is also the enthusiastic response of readers to

The Lord of the Rings: do they respond to the fact that Tolkien was a professional

linguist who fashioned his legendarium accordingly, or simply to the fact that he wrote stories which resonate with the old mythical stories? The question of the reception of

The Lord of the Rings is too large to be discussed in detail in this thesis, but as was

already suggested in the introduction, the reason may well be the archetypal structure ofhis stories and the offer of something else to read than the works of realism and

modernism On the other hand, The Silmarillion is rather the background of the

legendarium and of Tolkien’s invented languages That is why the response was not so

1 Let alone Tolkien’s recurring Atlantis-like dream which he developed into the story Akallabeth (the

enthusiastic and the readers who expected another Lord of the Rings were disappointed

However, there is one quality in both of them which certainly would not be present if it was not for Tolkien’s linguistic mastery: the impression that the invented languages are real, though foreign, languages And this is something that most of the fantasy books of other writers lack

Let us now go through he tools (theories) which will be used in this thesis to analyze the archetypal journeys of the main heroes

The Monomyth

As already said, Joseph Campbell focused mainly on tracing the archetypal hero’s journey in various mythologies and establishing what the common elements of the hero’s journey were The pattern that he found is cyclical: the hero leaves home, goes through a series of adventures and after achieving his goal returns home:

departureinitiationreturn Campbell acknowledged that not every heroic myth followed this pattern and many of them enlarge upon one or more of the typical

elements of the full cycle, or the characters or episodes can become mixed, or a single element can appear again and again in different shapes Yet Campbell’s critics accused him of too much simplification, vagueness and of focusing on similarities and not recognizing the differences His work, nonetheless, still attracts the readers, probably because of the very features for which it is criticized – finding unifying elements across many cultures and religions and presenting them with great skill and enthusiasm

Each stage of the hero’s journey consists of several (variable) parts

The Departure stage may contain the following parts:

The Call to Adventure – a sign that something out-of-the normal is going to happen It

can be a threat to the peace of hero’s village, or it can be a seemingly coincidental event

in his/her life In any case, something unusual starts to happen and the hero awakens to his self The herald of the call is often a dark loathly figure

Refusal of the Call – the hero may refuse to take any action and continues in his old way

of life, which is wrong because the hero does not become a hero, but a helpless victim who does not lead a full life

Supernatural Aid – if the hero accepts the call, he meets with a protective figure who

gives him magical artefacts and/or advice to help him on the journey

The Crossing of the First Threshold – passing from the known world to the world of

unknown and of danger Sometimes the threshold is watched by a guardian

The Belly of the Whale – this is a symbol for a dark place where the hero appears to

have died, but in reality he emerges on the other side alive, transformed, and ready for the adventure itself

The Initiation stage may contain the following parts:

The Road of Trials – the hero has to undergo a series of tests and trials in order to prove

worthy of the ultimate boon

Meeting with the Goddess – the hero meets with a powerful female figure (it does not

have to be a real ‘goddess’) with whom he creates a bond of some kind (love, respect, support…)

Woman as Temptress – the hero is tempted by a woman (or by something/someone else)

to give up the journey

Atonement with the Father – the hero has to confront and reconcile with the

person/thing which has the ultimate power in his life (which most of often is the father

or a father-figure) and to come to terms with the male principle in life

Apotheosis – transcendence to a higher plane of existence where a greater understanding

and new knowledge is achieved The hero becomes ready for the final part of the adventure During this stage his physical appearance may be changed The original meaning of ‘apotheosis’ is divinization

The Ultimate Boon – achievement of the goal of the journey.

The Return stage may contain the following parts:

Refusal of the Return – the hero might be so emerged in the newly-found bliss that he

may refuse to return to the ordinary world with his life-changing trophy

The Magic Flight – the hero has to hurry home because he is pursued by the enemies or

because speed is needed to deliver the trophy or return it to its designated place

Rescue from without – the hero may need to be aided in his return.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold – just as the hero had to cross the first threshold

to enter the unknown world, he has to cross the return threshold on the way back to the ordinary world

Master of Two Worlds – having conquered his fears and doubts, the hero becomes

master of inner (spiritual) world as well as the outer (material) world and can pass between them without hindrance

Freedom to Live – the hero is free to choose which path to follow in life.

The details can be found in Campbell’s book called The Hero with a Thousand

Faces (1949) Although the above classification of the stages of the hero’s journey is the

most popular and most quoted part of Campbell’s work, there is much more to the book.For example, Campbell points out how often does the idea of cosmogonic cycles appear

in mythology and religion – the world goes through periodic cycles of destruction and renewal This is precisely what happens in Tolkien’s legendarium Another very

important common aspect of mythologies is the concept of axis mundi/world tree Axis

mundi is the spiritual centre of the world, most often in a shape of a tree (e.g Yggdrasil

in Norse mythology) or a mountain (e.g Mount Olympus)

Owing to his lifetime study of mythology, Campbell came to believe that

mythical stories are important for the individuals and the society because they provide spiritual instruction and wisdom for life “I would even go so far as to say, the soul

needs stories” (The Hero xx) In the contemporary western society in which mythology

and/or religion are not important parts of life any longer, this desire for stories is

directed into other areas, like fantasy literature and films Tolkien himself claimed that the fairy stories (this was the term under which he would include what is now called fantasy literature) are fit to be read and studied by adults, because adults can make a greater sense of them than children

What Campbell proposed as a motto for life was “follow your bliss” This however, has nothing to do with hedonism, but with leading the life which one ought to live – a meaningful life The hero’s journey does not have to consist of outward deeds, but it can be a way of inner transformation, the goal of which is the individuation

The Jungian archetypes

Jung considered the archetypes as the content of the collective unconscious of humankind He studied the dreams and fantasies of people who did not know anything about mythology, but whose dreams contained the typical ‘mythologems’ (mythical themes), which led Jung to conclude “that myth-forming structural elements must be present in the unconscious psyche” (Jung 152) He characterized the major types of archetypal situations (sometimes he uses term ‘motif’ for these constantly repeating situations) and archetypal figures For the purpose of this thesis the following Jungian archetypes are important:

The Self is the centre of one’s identity: “I have elected to call it the “self,” by

which I understand a psychic totality and at the same time a centre, neither of which coincides with the ego but includes it” (Jung 142) However, the Self is not a ready-made thing; its full development requires the process of individuation The

individuation was one of the most important topics for Jung: “The goal of the

individuation process is the synthesis of the self” (Jung 164) To be individuated is to become the person one is intended to be, to discover the higher purpose (the ‘personal myth’) with which one is born, and to reconcile with one’s Shadow What is more, the concept of individuation is in fact the ultimate boon of the hero’s journey

The shadow is the sum of each person’s negative qualities which he/she would

like to hide or about which he/she does not even know: “…it personifies everything thatthe subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly – for instance, inferior traits of character and other

incompatible tendencies” (Jung 285)

In reality the Shadow evidently does not have any physical manifestation, but in myths,

dreams and fairy-tales it very often does In The Lord of the Rings there are some very

manifest cases of the Shadow:

Gollum – the Shadow of Frodo (and in a broader sense, the collective hobbit shadow); Boromir – the shadow of Aragorn; Saruman – the shadow of Gandalf; Shelob – the shadow of Galadriel

The Mother has positive features (being the protection, the source of new life,

things representing the goal of our longing for redemption), but also the negative features (displayed in the witch, the dragon, or any devouring and entwining animal, thedeath, the grave, the deep water, and anything that devours, seduces and poisons…)

The place of magic transformation and rebirth, together with the underworld and its inhabitants are presided over by the mother (Jung 82).

Examples: Galadriel, Varda (Elbereth), Shelob

The Wise Old Man is a personification of the spiritual principle He can appear in

a variety of forms (magician, prophet) and he represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help “Often the old man in fairytales asks questions like who? why? whence? whither? For the purpose of inducing self-reflection and mobilizing the moral forces, and more often still he gives the necessary magical

talisman, the unexpected and improbable power to succeed …” (Jung 222)

Furthermore, he is able to help the hero on the journey by means of various animals, birds in particular

Examples: Gandalf

The Trickster is somebody who does tricks, lies, cheats, swindles and has no

regard for rules, norms and boundaries Nothing is too holy for him However, he crosses the forbidden lines in order to bring light to humankind (and in some

mythologies he is also the creator of the world) The Trickster “mirrors an ancient psychic structure, an undifferentiated consciousness, close to the animal kingdom” (Skogemann 83)

Examples: Tom Bombadil and Gandalf (to some extent)

According to Jung, “Archetypes speak the language of high rhetoric, even of

bombast” (Jung 79) If you read The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion in

particular, it cannot be left unnoticed that Tolkien uses on many occasions this kind of

high rhetoric and archaic style As has often been remarked by the critics, The

Silmarillion stylistically resembles The Bible.

Northrop Frye’s types of hero

In his Anatomy of Criticism, Frye categorized the literary heroes according to their

power to act and affect the story rather than according to their moral perfection

The Hero of Myth has powers far beyond those of ordinary men In the myth

there are grand themes in myth such as the creation of the universe or salvation of the world The accepted laws of nature and physics do not apply here

The examples are Ilúvatar and the Valar in The Silmarillion, and Gandalf (to some

extent)

The Hero of Romance seems human, but with a greater physical and/or mental

strength than humans The laws of nature may occasionally be suspended when the actions and attributes of this hero surpass ordinary reality Typical settings of romance are forests and natural, pastoral environments, where magical creatures from legends and fairy tales can be found The hero is larger than life, but not a god Usually, he has abond with the natural world, which may be the cause of his greater than normal abilities.The examples are Beren, Eärendil and Aragorn

The High Mimetic Hero is a human, but of elevated character and station in life

Such heroes do not have magical powers (they cannot change the laws of nature); instead this type of hero is characterized by outstanding leadership abilities It can be a king, a knight or other character of high social rank and esteem He commands by his nobility and charisma

The examples are Aragorn (at the beginning of his journey), Faramir and Frodo (at the end of his journey)

The Low Mimetic Hero is an ordinary person whose typical problem is trying to

figure out how to fit into society The battles of these heroes are not fought with swords

to slay the dragons, but they struggle for status in their own local society The Low Mimetic Hero is sometimes known as the ‘everyman’ figure - he represents ordinary people and their small, unassuming lives

The examples are Bilbo, Frodo (at the beginning of his journey), Sam, Merry or Pippin

The Ironic (absurd) Hero: many post-modern characters fit into this category

Their outlook is ironic and satirical These characters are the very opposite of heroic characters, thus the term anti-hero is used for them The anti-hero is often a looser or has fallen into a kind of sub-human state These characters are often presented as ambiguous, possessing a combination of positive and negative attributes

An example is Gollum

According to Petty, another type of hero can be added – the tragic hero This

concept is cutting across the categories of Frye and Campbell (Petty 254) The tragic hero falls from a high and respected state to death or defeat because of some kind of character flaw that causes him/her to choose wrongly (knowingly or not) in a fatal situation The most common flaw that produces the tragic situation is pride The

examples are Fëanor and Túrin Turambar

In Frye’s view, the literary modes, from myth to irony, form a cycle As mentioned in the introduction, at present, there is a need for heroes with supernatural qualities:

In comprehending the universal appeal of his [Tolkien’s] seemingly archaic hero figures, we need to take a moment to notice some interesting recent developments…After revelling in the hopelessness of the literary anti-hero, where else can you go? There’s nothing lower The truth, though, is not that readers must be taken lower Actually, the scheme comes full circle, back to the

concept of the Divine Hero, only this time the heroes with supernatural powers are thoroughly modern and secular (Petty 254)

2 The archetypal journeys of Tolkien’s heroes

This section deals with the archetypal journeys of Tolkien’s main heroes, one by one, as they appear in the chronology of Tolkien’s legendarium This arrangement was chosen because there are often parallels between the earlier and the later characters

As mentioned in the introduction, The Lord of the Rings, let alone The

Silmarillion, is not a traditional novel, but a ‘heroic romance’.

The essential difference between novel and romance lies in the conception of characterization The romancer does not attempt to create "real people" so much as stylized figures which expand into psychological archetypes It is in the romance that we find Jung's libido, anima, and shadow reflected in the hero, heroine, and villain respectively That is why the romance so often radiates a glow of subjective intensity that the novel lacks, and why a

suggestion of allegory is constantly creeping in around its fringes (Anatomy

318)

It is true that the heroes of The Silmarillion are somehow flat, certainly not truly

realistic, but it was not Tolkien’s intention to create novel-like characters Most of them

are not humans anyway On the other hand, some of the heroes of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (the hobbits in particular) are somewhere between romance and novel

type because they have a depth of character which cannot be denied, and yet, the

archetypes are ‘creeping around the fringes’.“As we have seen, all of Tolkien’s heroes

are flawed or conflicted in some way, ensuring that they are not cardboard cutouts Theymay be archetypes, but they are not stereotypes” (Petty 286) Consider the inner

struggles of Túrin, Frodo, Gollum, Boromir or Denethor

Tolkien wrote in his Letters: “As the high Legends of the beginning [The Silmarillion] are supposed to look at things through Elvish minds, so the middle tale of The Hobbit takes a virtually human point of view-and the last tale blends them” (Letters 145) The

problem is that Tolkien’s fiction is not written only from the human point of view (or at least as far as the human mind can produce something that has a non-human

perspective) It is therefore necessary to analyse these tales in their own terms and not merely say that they are inferior to the so called ‘serious’ literature just because the characters are somewhat less developed than the characters in novel

There is one further problem with Tolkien’s heroes: they are very often driven by fate

or a curse It is difficult to reconcile this fact with their supposedly free will

Tragic heroes, failed quests

What is the role of fate?

Fate is pervasive in The Lord of the Rings and particularly in The Silmarillion

Eärendil is fated to undertake the quest to Valinor: “Ulmo said: ‘For this he was born

into the world’ ” (Silmarillion 299); Beren was born to marry an elf-maiden: “It seemed

to Thingol that this Man was unlike all other mortal Men…and he perceived that their

doom might not be withstood by any power in the world” (Silmarillion 218); Bilbo and

Frodo are ‘meant’ to be the Ring-bearers: “Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not byits maker In which case you also were meant to have it” (FOTR 77); and Aragorn also

has his own fate: “A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into the darkness with all that is left of your kin” (ROTK 416)

There are also allusions made by Gandalf to ‘chance’ meetings and to a ‘higher purpose’behind certain events

It might not be clear whether each hero has to act in accordance with his fate, or, whether he is free to refuse it (be it a good or a bad one) Free will is necessary if there

is to be any meaning in the heroes’ journeys Without free will, the heroes could not be held responsible (either praised or condemned) for their actions

To determine the role of fate in Tolkien’s legendarium, the reader has to start at

the beginning, in the Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur) Ainulindalë says that the

world and its history were created, as an idea (or the ‘music’ as Tolkien calls it) by the one god, Eru The music is the will of Eru: “…no theme may be played that hath not its

uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite” (Silmarillion 6) Eru

transforms the music into a vision with unfolding history, so that the Valar “know much

of what was, and is, and is to come, and few things are unseen by them”, but “in every

age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling…” (Silmarillion 6)

The complete knowledge of what was, is and will be is reserved to Eru The problem with this conception is that if Eru knows in advance what is going to happen, how can his ‘children’ (Elves and Men) act freely? Furthermore, Eru gave to Men ‘strange gifts’:

“…he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world…they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music

of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else…” (Silmarillion 36) Verlyn Flieger suggested in her book called Splintered Light that Tolkien’s conception of fate and free

will resembles that of Boethius: the God dwells out of time, therefore his sight and

knowledge of ‘future’ does not change the nature and properties of things and the free will of people In Tolkien’s legendarium there is a difference between Elves and Men: the fate of the Elves is already foretold in the Music and thus their free will is limited bytheir past and by the Music; they cannot become different persons; whereas Men can actbeyond the fate of the Music (but not against the will of Eru, as seen in the story of the drowning of Númenor): “…acts of free will can cause cataclysmic disasters in the temporal and incarnate world, but the One’s ultimate purpose remains eternal and inviolable” (Drout 257) It can be suggested that the free will of both Men and Elves is embodied in the ability to do things which express their true selves, and which thus fulfil the secret plan of Eru Therefore, the journey and individuation – expression of thetrue self – contributes to the glory of creation.

For example, Elrond says to Frodo: ‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will I do not lay it [the burden] on you But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right…’ ” (FOTR 352) Therefore, Frodo

is not forced to answer this call and embrace his fate, but he does and he succeeds

Whereas the successful fulfilment of a quest is the fulfilment of fate, (although itrequires a considerable effort and the heroes may still fall at any point), what about a failed quest? Is the failure inevitable or is there a possibility of a different fate for the hero? In the case of Fëanor, there does not seem to be any other possible outcome, but

in the case of Túrin his unhappy fate is the result not only of a curse (an external

power), but also of his choices (internal power), therefore Túrin is and at the same time

is not controlled by his fate

The stories of Fëanor and Túrin do not develop according to the monomyth pattern, as they are failed quests, but they are not untypical for mythology, for which reason they are included in this thesis as well

Fëanor is the most gifted and talented of all the Elves, the creator of a great work

of art – the Silmarils He is also the proudest and fiercest of the Elves Fëanor fits into the category of a tragic hero very well: he is the hero who falls from a high and

respected state to defeat and death; one of the reasons for this being his pride To

comprehend the tale and the role of fate in it, one has to pay attention to the lineage of his family and to the relationship between the three Elven kins (Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri) Fëanor’s mother was of the Noldor, whereas the mother of his two half-brothers was of the Vanyar, which was the reason of Fëanor’s mistrust to them (undeserved, though)

The key moment comes when the Two Trees of Valinor are destroyed by Melkor and their light survives hence only in the Silmarils Yavanna, the creator of the Two Trees asks Fëanor to give her the Silmarils so that she may revive the Trees Fëanor refuses, only to find a moment later that the Silmarils were in the meantime stolen by Morgoth

“…yet had he [Fëanor] said yea at the first, before the tidings [about the stealth] came, it

may be that his after deeds would have been other than they were” (Silmarillion 84)

This seems to suggest that he was capable of saying ‘yes’, but his fate was to say ‘no’ and to initiate a whole sequence of events both tragic and glorious This refusal can be also viewed as a refusal of the call to adventure – adventure of pursuit of Morgoth in cooperation with the Valar in order to restore the light of the Trees Instead, Fëanor and his seven sons make an oath to gain back the Silmarils at every cost and leave Valinor against the will of the Valar, going on a quest without blessing So, instead of trying to find the earthly paradise, they are leaving it

Fëanor dies after fighting one of the balrogs, and in the end, following a lot of bloodshed and many betrayals, there are only two of his sons left And symbolically, there are only two Silmarils left after the Valar defeated Morgoth and took his iron crown in which they2 were set The two remaining sons decided to act against the Valar once again and steal the Silmarils However, only those pure of heart could touch the holy jewels, which the sons of Fëanor were not, therefore the Silmarils burnt their handsand drove them into madness One of them cast himself into the sea and the other one into a chasm of fire

In Fëanor’s quest there is a departure, but there is no return He leaves without a blessing and without help As the greatest of the Elves, his fall ultimately resembles the fall of the greatest of the Valar – Melkor And yet, from both falls originates good, unexpected by all, except for Eru the creator

Túrin Turambar

The tale of Túrin and his sister Nienor is also of a tragic sort Tolkien himself said that it is based on the story of the Finnish hero Kullervo Túrin’s fate is ruled by a curse; he means to do well, but in the end, all his deeds prove ill, as it happens to the typical tragic heroes

Túrin is a mortal, the son of the great leader and warrior Húrin Húrin opposed Morgoth and managed to thwart some of his designs, for which reason Morgoth cursed Húrin’s family “Morgoth cursed Húrin and Morwen and their offspring, and set a doom

upon them of darkness and sorrow…” (Silmarillion 233) After a battle in which all the

men of his father’s army were killed and their land taken by the enemy, Túrin is sent by his mother Morwen to Doriath to be kept safe – there is a motif of the hero being brought up by foster-parents He becomes a very proud and strong man and it is his

pride that forces him to abandon Doriath and start to live as an outlaw As Túrin is hidden from Morgoth’s eyes in Doriath, his actions of this time cannot be ascribed to thecurse of Morgoth, but to his own mind only Then unfolds a series of unfortunate

accidents: Túrin kills his best friend not recognizing him in the darkness; he has an unintentional share in the destruction of elven kingdom of Nargothrond; he does not know that Finduilas, the princess Nargothrond, loves him, which is the only thing that could have saved him from his fate Instead, he begins to search for his long-lost motherand sister When he finally finds his sister Nienor, she has lost her memory and neither

of them knows that they are brother and sister They get married and Nienor becomes pregnant However, before the child is born, Túrin and Nienor find out who they are andboth commit a suicide Thus the curse of Morgoth comes to its fulfilment

The story is very complex and not all the circumstances can be mentioned here, but what is important is that Túrin tries to escape his doom most of the time and renounces his origin by constantly assuming new identity, but in doing so he facilitates the

working of the curse3 A similar mechanism can be seen in the myth of Oedipus, in which Oedipus’s parents receive a prophecy saying that their son shall kill his father andmarry his mother In trying to prevent this outcome, they ‘expose’ the child in the wild, but he survives, returns much later and fulfils the prophecy, which would not have happened if Oedipus’s parents kept him

The working of the curse is also helped by dragon Glaurung – Túrin is bewitched into believing that to search his mother and sister is the best chance to break the curse, while

in fact it is the worst one “Glaurung spoke behind him …’Haste thee now … to lómin! And if thou tarry for Finduilas, then never shalt thou see Morwen … and

Dor-3 For example Túrin uses two times his ancient heirloom, the dragon-helm of Dor-lómin, according to

Nienor … and they will curse thee.’… Glaurung laughed once more, for he had

accomplished the errand of his Master” (Silmarillion 256).4

At one moment in the story Túrin names himself ‘Turambar’, which means ‘Master of Doom’, thinking that he finally escaped the curse, however it is only another act of his pride because he never is the master of his doom, but rather its victim

Beren and Lúthien

The Lay of Leithian is a story of love between a mortal men and an immortal woman;

a story which Tolkien considered as the cornerstone of his legendarium It is also one of his earliest stories, though he was constantly revising and rewriting it The plot is highlycomplex and, as Shippey says, repeats itself several times (Shippey 229)

Beren receives a call to adventure after all the members of the outlaw group of his father are killed, he is left alone in the fight against the enemy and makes an oath to avenge his father’s death When his situation becomes desperate, he decides to go towards the elven kingdom of Doriath, as “…it was put into his heart that he would go

down into the Hidden Kingdom, where no mortal foot had yet trodden” (Silmarillion

192) Campbell says that the call to adventure transfers hero’s spiritual centre from the boundaries of his society into a zone unknown This zone may be represented as a

distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, etc (The Hero 52) – in this case it is both

forest and a kingdom underground [the caves of Menegroth] To reach Doriath, Beren has to cross a land where no man or elf dares to go because of its inhabitants - giant

4 The same mistake is not repeated much later, when Sam is looking in the mirror of Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: the mistake of trying to prevent what he sees in a vision and thus contribute to the fulfilment of what he sees “Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them” (FOTR 468).

spiders and other such creatures The motif of giant spiders has quite a high importance

in Tolkien’s legendarium and it will be discussed in greater detail in the section about Frodo Because Beren emerges on the other side only half-alive, this can be considered

as one of the ‘belly of the whale’ places – places of transformation of the hero Then follows the crossing of the first threshold: Beren is able to enter Doriath even though it

is protected by a magical border There he first sees Lúthien, the immortal elven

princess, and falls in love with her When king Thingol, Lúthien’s father, finds out abouttheir love, he considers Beren unworthy of Lúthien and sets for him a task impossible toachieve, during which he is likely to die – to bring a Silmaril5 from Morgoth’s crown as

a price for Lúthien’s hand As Campbell says, this is a very common motif: the task is difficult beyond measure, nonetheless, when the right candidate appears, nothing in the world is impossible:

…destiny itself (the maiden) lends a hand and betrays a weak spot in the parental system Barriers, fetters, chasms, fronts of every kind dissolve before the authoritative presence of the hero They eye of the ordained victor

immediately perceives the chink in every fortress of circumstance, and his

blow can cleave it wide (The Hero 318)

Beren also meets with Lúthien’s mother, queen Melian, who is one of the Maiar – beings of higher order than Elves and Men Melian recognizes that Beren is led by destiny and warns Thingol to be careful This is the symbolic meeting with a goddess After that Beren sets of for the Silmaril, but is captured and imprisoned by Morgoth’s right hand, Sauron In the meantime Lúthien is confined by her father in a house high in

a tree6 so that she cannot go after Beren Nonetheless, she escapes by magically growing

5 The three Silmarils were holy jewels made by elven craftsman Fëanor and stolen by the dark lord, Morgoth.

6 This is, as Shippey says, a motif borrowed from Rapunzel, from the collection of fairy-tales of Brothers

her hair and making a rope out of it She descends into the depths of Sauron’s prison andsaves Beren in the last moment (aided by Huan, the hound of the Valar): a rescue from without According to Campbell, in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian mythology, there

is a very common theme of a goddess searching and rescuing her lost spouse or lover:

“the Goddess who goes in quest of her lost spouse or lover and, through loyalty and a

descent into the realm of death, becomes his redeemer” (The Hero 221), examples being

the goddesses Isis or Inanna Afterwards, Beren sets of again, leaving Lúthien behind, but in a repetition of the previous part of the story, she overtakes him again, and

together they achieve something that whole armies before them failed to do - wrest a Silmaril from Morgoth’s iron crown However, when they emerge from his stronghold, Morgoth’s biggest wolf bites off Beren’s hand holding the Silmaril Although this might

be a motif borrowed from Prose Edda (god Tyr versus the wolf Fenris) (Shippey 230),

which was one of Tolkien’s favourite sagas, it can equally be considered as a mark of the process of individuation according to Jung (see section about Frodo) Mutilation is

often the price for unusual wisdom or power (Anatomy 207) Besides, the marking7 of the hero is necessary so that his sacrifice is recognized by the others

Then, when all seems lost, a second rescue from without takes place: Beren and Lúthien are flown away by the Eagles of Manwë Beren and Thingol then reconciles because Thingol acknowledges that Beren can be counted as great not only among Men,but also among Elves Although Thingol is not Beren’s father, this reconciliation can be viewed as atonement with the father-figure Thingol also finally assents to marriage of Beren and Lúthien Thus, for Beren, the ultimate boon is achieved, even though he did not bring the Silmaril physically as it was still in his hand in the belly of the wolf

7 Even Merry in The Lord of the Rings is marked, having a scar on his forehead that he gained while

Later on, Beren is mortally wounded, Lúthien cannot bear his death, so her spiritleaves Middle-earth and she pledges before the Valar to return life to Beren An

exception is granted (it never was before and never after), Beren and Lúthien return from death8 (apotheosis) and are permitted to live as mortals in Middle-earth However, they do not mingle in the society of Elves or Men, but live separately They have a freedom to live and as many of the heroes of myths or fairy-tales, they are too much changed by the adventure to go back to their previous lives However, the story does notend there because Beren and Lúthien have two children, owing to whom a strand of the elven blood was introduced into mankind and continues in Tolkien’s legendarium for

thousands of years until it is renewed in the Fourth Age (The Lord of the Rings) This

shows to be as an equally important boon as the Silmaril

The story of Beren and Lúthien certainly has a great power to it In fact it is the

only Tolkien’s story which focuses so much on love The plot recalls that of Orpheus

and Eurydice, in which Orpheus descends into the underworld to pledge before Hades

to release Eurydice back into the world of the living And yet, in the Lay of Leithian the roles are reversed – it is Lúthien who is more powerful than Beren; she has the ability ofshape-shifting and her song is so forceful that she enchants both Morgoth and Sauron It

is also her, who is able, unlike Orpheus, to wrest her mate from death, be it for one lifetime only As mentioned above, Lúthien performs two symbolic descents into the underworld (Sauron’s prison in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Morgoth’s fortress Angband) and one real (the halls of Mandos in Valinor) The first type is repeated in the paths of Tolkien’s other heroes, for example Gandalf and his fight with the balrog in Moria, Aragorn on the Paths of the Dead and Frodo in Mordor) The second type is confined only to this story

Beren and Lúthien fall into the type of hero of romance – they have greater than normal abilities, the story takes place largely in forests, Beren ‘has a bond with the natural world’ – he refuses to kill animals because some of them are his helpers: “…he became the friend of birds and beasts, and they aided him…and from that time forth he ate no flesh nor slew any living thing that was not in the service of Morgoth”

(Silmarillion 191) According to Frye, “…prodigies of courage and endurance,

unnatural to us, are natural to him [the hero]…” (Anatomy 34) Unnatural courage and endurance, these are traits typical not only for Beren, but also for Aragorn in The Lord

of the Rings There is also one artefact of unnatural endurance – the Ring of Barahir –

which was given to Beren’s father by the Elven king Finrod, passed to Beren and then through a long succession to Aragorn Therefore, this is one of the links9 between The

Silmarillion (the history) and The Lord of the Rings.

Eärendil

“At the end of The Silmarillion we encounter Eärendil the Mariner, whose quest

at the end of the First Age follows the classic Campbell pattern, and who easily fits the Romance Hero type of Frye” (Petty 265)

Eärendil is of half-elven descent, raised among the Elves in the hidden city of Gondolin When Gondolin is destroyed by Morgoth’s army, Eärendil’s parents are able

to escape and then live in hiding Life in hiding is also a common motif in myths (and the same motif appears for example in Aragorn’s story) Eärendil later on marries the granddaughter of Lúthien, Elwing, who is in possession of the Silmaril of Beren Eärendil then searches for his father and mother who sailed to Valinor and whose fate

9 One of the other links is the light of Eärendil, as Sam says “We’ve got – you’ve got some of the light of

it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on“

was not known: “In the Lay of Eärendil is many a thing sung of his adventures in the deep and in lands untrodden, and in many seas and in many isles…” (Silmarillion 295)

Visiting ‘lands untrodden’, ‘many seas and many isles’ is exactly what Odysseus does inhis quest to find home But unlike, Odysseus, Eärendil is not successful in finding what

he seeks Afterwards, Elwing and Eärendil are betrayed and attacked by the sons of Fëanor10 who are again eager for the Silmaril Eärendil grows sick of the wars with Morgoth and wars amongst Elves and Men and “he thought to find perhaps the last shore [Valinor], and bring ere he died the message of Elves and Men to the Valar in the West, that should move their hearts to pity for the sorrows of Middle-earth”

(Silmarillion 295) This then, is the call to adventure Eärendil, sets to the sea anew, is

unsuccessful again, returns at the sight of his home, then receives a ‘supernatural aid’ from his wife, who has cast herself into the sea with the Silmaril, but instead of dying has been transformed into a sea bird With the Silmaril, Eärendil is able to pass through the Enchanted Isles (crossing of the first threshold) and find the hidden way to Valinor

He comes before the Valar and pleads with them to help the Elves and Men in earth from Morgoth’s evil Although this does not look very heroic, there is a great risk, because the mortals are not allowed to enter Valinor However, the Valar take pity upon him and upon Middle-earth and decide to act Eärendil’s quest is thus fulfilled and he becomes the redeemer of the world (the ultimate boon) Nonetheless, he is not allowed

Middle-to return Middle-to his life in Middle-earth and he looses all his kin (except for Elwing) and his sons The same pattern appears in the later journey of Frodo, who also looses at the end that which he set off to save “I think that ‘victors’ never can enjoy ‘victory’…and in so

10 The Silmarils (like the One Ring in LOTR) evoke a very strong feeling of possession For their evil

deeds the Valar cursed the sons of Fëanor and banned them and all the elves going with them from returning to Valinor and would not help them in the pursuit of Morgoth in Middle-earth.

far as they fought for something to be enjoyed by themselves (whether acquisition or mere preservation) the less satisfactory will ‘victory’ seem” (Letters 235).

Eärendil’s ship is hallowed and set to drift across the sky: Eärendil becomes a new star - a sign of hope to Elves and Men (apotheosis) “The final work is that of the return If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection

(emissary)…” (The Hero 228) Though Eärendil does not physically return to

Middle-earth, he returns to be visible above it, as the emissary of the Valar The Valar then come

to Middle-earth, defeat Morgoth at war and cast him out of the world, into the void Eärendil with his new powers kills the greatest of Morgoth’s dragons that ever lived Slaying the dragon stands for overcoming the powers of darkness (see the section about Bilbo)

Eärendil and Elwing afterwards stay in Valinor (in Eärendil’s case rather above Valinor), choose to be counted among the Elves and live as immortals (freedom to live).Eärendil is the archetypal world saviour, even though he does not perform the action of saving the world himself, like the more traditional heroes, but by taking the case before the angelic powers of the world, as the evil is caused by one of their own (Morgoth) Eärendil ascends into the sky11 in a sort of metamorphosis, like the heroes in Ovid’s

Metamorphoses However, even after these events the evil is still present in the world,

only its primary source and its physical incarnation were removed

The germinal idea behind the Voyage of Eärendil, as noted by some of the critics (e.g Tom Shippey), is the Old English poem now called Christ There the word ‘earendel’,

which literally means ‘dawn’ or ‘a ray of light’, designates a divine messenger - either Christ, or John the Baptist, as other Old English texts imply The question, evidently, is not whether Eärendil symbolises Christ, or John the Baptist, or someone completely

11 There is no ‘heaven’ in Tolkien’s legendarium, but this comes as close to ‘ascension’ in the religious

different (Tolkien’s aversion to allegory is well-known), but whether there is an

underlying idea or archetype which links them both “The use of earendel in A-S

Christian symbolism as the herald of the rise of the true Sun in Christ is completely alien to my use The Fall of Man is in the past and off stage; the Redemption of Man in

the far future” (Letters 385) Eärendil thus represents the archetypal saviour and the

messenger of hope and it does not matter whether the readers see in him Jesus Christ, Buddha or Mohammed

As already mentioned, Eärendil fits into the romantic type of hero: in the beginning he has far greater abilities than the ordinary Men and after his apotheosis he is raised even

higher – to the status of the hero of myth The language of the Voyage of Eärendil is mostly high-rhetoric (as well as the rest of The Silmarillion), which is in accordance

with the mode of romance and myth employed there: “ ‘Hail Eärendil, of mariners most renowned, the looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed for that cometh beyond hope! Hail Eärendil, bearer of light before the Sun and Moon! Splendour of the

Children of Earth, star in the darkness, jewel in the sunset, radiant in the morning!’ ”

(Silmarillion 298) This is the declamation of the herald of the Valar, for which reason

the vocabulary is even more elevated than the rest of the story

Gandalf

Gandalf bears both the attributes of the archetype of the Wise Old Man and of the Trickster The attributes of the Wise Old Man are obvious – he wields great magical powers and wisdom, he sets the heroes on their journeys and helps them, and he almost always knows more than he says The trickster attributes are trickier According to Jones, “…tricksters are ambiguous and anomalous, deceivers and trick-players, shape-shifters, situation-inventers, messengers and imitators of the gods, and sacred and lewd

bricoleurs…” (Jones 76) Furthermore, tricksters are agents of chaos They bring down the old structures so that something new has a room to be created When looking at the tricksters in Norse mythology, Gandalf is associated partially with Loki (fire-making features, someone who sets things in motion) and Odin (travelling far and wide, fast horse, leading warriors into battle) What is more, Odin is not a simple character either: his epithets include “Deceiver, Raven God, Battle-Wolf, Father of the Battle-Slain, and Stirrer of Strife” (Drout 474) and this is almost exactly what some people in Middle-earth (for example the Rohirrim) think and say about Gandalf “You have ever been a herald of woe Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse… Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow? Láthspell I name you, Ill-news…” (TTT 136)

Nonetheless, Gandalf’s closest counterpart is the wizard Merlin They share characteristics of magic, wisdom, power, and especially humour; they both are advisors

to the kings-to-be; and they have a habit of leaving their charges to deal with adventures

themselves (for example Gandalf disappears in The Hobbit several times only to return

in the time of crisis), but when really needed they suddenly appear to provide help Bothare also fond of disguising themselves as beggars or wanderers and of exhibiting their fire-working skills (Jones 75)

When looking at Jones’s characteristics of the Trickster in the citation above, the

following ones are relevant to Gandalf: he is ambiguous and anomalous in a way that he

is one of the Maiar and of this order there are only four others in Middle-earth in his time His ambiguity is most often seen when he speaks in unclear statements to his companions, and he almost never reveals his intentions beforehand Gandalf is also a

situation-inventor: for example he invites thirteen dwarves to visit an insignificant and

comfort-loving hobbit Bilbo Baggins and turns him into a professional burglar and

adventurer during the quest that follows The trickster is also a messenger and imitator

of the gods: Tolkien describes the Maiar as being the Middle-earth equivalents of angels

- the very word ‘angel’ means ‘messenger of God’ Moreover, Gandalf was sent to

Middle-earth to redress Sauron’s rising evil Jones also compares Gandalf to a Sacred

and lewd bricoleur: although not being lewd, he acts as a sacred bricoleur using the

actual individuals as his creative materials, constructing not only the dwarf party in The

Hobbit but also the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings out of the individuals at hand,

to set in play the forces that would eventually bring the Third Age to a generally

beneficial end (Jones 78) However, this comparison is rather stretched because in The

Lord of the Rings the composition of the Fellowship is hinted at as being the result of

the intervention of a higher power than Gandalf The members of the Fellowship were not called for, and yet they came at the right time to the right place

As a final word on tricksterism Jones says that “Tricksterism, it seems, is not

compatible with concentration or with emotional investment…” (Jones 78) and that is why Gandalf has only some of these features

When looking at Frye’s classification of heroes, Gandalf resembles the mythic (divine)hero because he is superior in kind to Elves and Men in Middle-earth, let alone the Hobbits However, this is complicated by the fact that while staying in Middle-earth, he

is forbidden to use his full powers, and also by the fact that the character of Gandalf evolves gradually in Tolkien’s writing over many years Thus, when Gandalf is first

introduced in The Hobbit, he seems to be an ordinary sort of fairy-tale wizard, whom it

takes half a night to resolve a problem with a few trolls, and who is afraid of a pack of wolves: “Gandalf, listening to their [wolves’] growling and yelping, began to be

dreadfully afraid, wizard though he was, and to feel that they were in a very bad place”

(Hobbit 96) Then there is Gandalf the Grey from the first part of The Lord of the Rings,

whose actions are much less fearful: for example when a similar incident with wolves happens on the way of the Fellowship, he does not hesitate to fight them with fire (FOTR 388); and finally Gandalf the White who leads armies into battles and has more power than his former superior, Saruman “ ‘Come back, Saruman!’ said Gandalf in a commanding voice…I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death…and I cast you from the order and from the Council’ ” (TTT 226).

Despite the different representation of Gandalf in The Hobbit and The Lord of the

Rings, Gandalf’s journey can be reconstituted as follows (drawing mainly on the

Unfinished Tales):

In Tolkien’s legendarium, Gandalf’s call to adventure takes place long before

The Lord of the Rings, when he is asked by the Valar to aid the people of Middle-earth

in their resistance against Sauron Although he is of higher order than the Elves and Men, in his human form he is also “subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth,

able to hunger and thirst and be slain…” (Unfinished Tales 389) Besides, he and the

other wizards have to learn much anew by slow experience and although they know from where they came, Valinor is only a distant memory, for which they much long

(Unfinished Tales 390) Gandalf is afraid that he is not strong enough for such a task and

claims to fear Sauron, but “Manwë said that that was all the more reason why he should

go” (Unfinished Tales 393), therefore Gandalf decides to accept the call The uncertainty

and the doubt are rather common at the beginning of the quest – although the hero is an

exceptional personality, he may not know about it (The Hero lxi).

The crossing of the first threshold is represented by his crossing the sea and coming to Middle-earth It is true that the threshold lies usually between the ordinary world and the world of magic, and in this case the crossing appears to be in the oppositedirection, but more importantly, the crossing takes place in the direction from the known

world to the unknown – in case of Gandalf from Valinor to Middle-earth According to Campbell, “the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation …instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be

born again” (The Hero 84) As mentioned above, Gandalf assumes human form and in

doing so transforms himself and looses some of his powers and memories - which certainly is a form of ‘self-annihilation’

At his arrival, Gandalf is given one of the Three Elven rings (supernatural aid):

“Cirdan…gave to his keeping the Third Ring, Narya the Red…’For’ said he, ‘great labours and perils lie before you…take this Ring for your aid and comfort’ ”

(Unfinished Tales 389) Gandalf then goes through a long road of trials and labour,

secretly working against Sauron and awakening the wavering spirits of Men and Elves with the Ring of Fire12 The trials include the descent into the depths of Dol Guldur (Sauron’s fortress in Mirkwood) and numerous travels in Middle-earth This is one of the gaps in Tolkien’s legendarium, because not much is said about what Gandalf was doing in the two thousand years which passed from his arrival till his final task

Gandalf, as well as Galadriel, has to go through a temptation scene The

temptation is not performed by a woman (as Campbell calls this part of hero’s quest), but by the Ring Gandalf resists, obeys the rules of his order and remains true to his purpose although the bait is the dominion over Middle-earth: “…they [the wizards] were forbidden to match his [Sauron’s] power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves

or Men by force or fear” (ROTK 451) Although he is the embodiment of the magical and mythic hero, he is not a two-dimensional superhero – he makes mistakes in

judgment, for example, giving Saruman the benefit of the doubt when he should have

12 Such was the power of this Ring: “For this is the Ring of Fire, and herewith, maybe, thou shalt rekindle

seen the potential danger, or by not warning Frodo in person about the hunt for the Ringthat has begun.

In the Fellowship of the Ring, during the initial phase of the quest, Gandalf mostly

directs the quest from the sidelines, encouraging the members of the Fellowship, but nottaking direct actions against Sauron This changes after his rebirth as Gandalf the White.The initiation phase of his journey is symbolized by the entry into Moria (the ‘belly of the whale’) There he is forced to exit the company in order to experience his own trial, death and transfiguration:

As mythic hero, Gandalf’s transformation (what Campbell calls apotheosis) comes at the midpoint of the Ring quest where the need for aid from the divine world becomes crucial…Gandalf experiences rebirth into physical incarnation where he can do the most good – in the midst of the men who face Sauron’s massed forces…This is in keeping with the role of the supernatural helper in what Campbell refers to as the “higher mythologies.” (Petty 271)

Gandalf meets in Moria, which is a place of transformation, with his antithesis – the Balrog - Gandalf as the ‘wielder of the flame of Anor’ [sun] versus Balrog as ‘a flame

of Udûn‘ [Morgoth's fortress Utumno], both having the same level of power Campbell

says that “No creature can obtain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist…the physical body of the hero may be actually slain, dismembered, and scattered over the

land or sea-as in Egyptian myth of the saviour Osiris…” (The Hero 85)

After his apotheosis Gandalf becomes more active and is ready to meet with his real shadow figure - Saruman Saruman is Gandalf’s shadow because he yielded to

temptation of the Ring (and of technology in general) and ultimately fell, while Gandalf refused the offer of the Ring and became greater than before “‘Yes, I am white now,’