The close relationship between John and Frodo

[Madonna Baggins]

We are all effecting each other in one way or another, and sometimes a very tragical event or difficult phase in our lives can effect our thinking, making all of our decisions for a very long time.

Maybe our whole lives. And Tolkien was no exception.
As most of us know, he had a very difficult time as a child, having several severe losses inside and outside his family.
At a very young age he probably got the vision of life pretty pessimistic, basing it on that we loose people, we all get difficult times and make hard lifedircting decisions.

Tolkien lost a great number of friends in the first world war, and what could he have done about that? Nothing. The world seemed evil.
He was alone again, and how could it not have effected his writing?

I believe that The lord of the rings may not only be his way of expressing his creativity or work with his long kept feelings from past time.
I believe that these books were a journey for him. A sort of mission he had to get through somehow.
There he was alone, lost his family and friends, feeling extremely exposed and in a position were he felt like a victim to the world, who was evil.
I believe this journey is about John himself -He was Frodo, a small creature living in a big world, were he have to be strong and believe that he can make a change, he can survive although there are powers in this world that he couldn´t deal with.
He was a bit pessimistic just as Frodo in the books, althoguh he knew that even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
The ring was the world, and Frodo was him.
I am using modern political thinking, but after all that was his life, and he couldn´t change what the external powers of the world had done to him and his family. I see a lot of the LOTR themes that may were connected to his own life.

Anyone agree? Disagree?

[kohaku]

Hm, that is a good observation, I'll have to agree with you.
After all, Frodo lost both his parents, Bilbo moved on to Rivendell, and after the ring was destroyed Frodo left his friends and the Shire. There is definitely a theme of loss in the book, with Frodo being one of the main characters concerned with that theme. This could very well reflect Tolkien's life.

[HLGStrider]

Yes and no.

Yes in that when you write you poor yourself into your characters. Their struggles are your struggles. Seeing as Frodo was the main character, Tolkien would do this mainly with him.

I believe that The lord of the rings may not only be his way of expressing his creativity or work with his long kept feelings from past time.

No. The Lord of the Rings sprang out of the Hobbit. You can hardly see that Hobbit as Tolkien venting his inner feelings. The LotR's was a project originally meant to be like the Hobbit that grew into something beyond his control. It engulfed his myths, his beliefs, his languages, and perhaps in someways his life, could it be helped that it involved his life? However, let's look at some of the points.

There he was alone, lost his family and friends, feeling extremely exposed and in a position were he felt like a victim to the world, who was evil.

Not really. Tolkien didn't seem to think himself a victim. I see him thinking of himself as a hero, at times. He did defeat odds to marry his wife, odds that were probably much bigger in his imagination than they were in reality.

Also, is Middle Earth or our Earth, in Tolkien's mind, evil? No, in Middle Earth we have a good thing that is in a continual flux between good forces wishing to maintain it and evil wishing to defeat it. Tolkien definitely saw some semblence to our earth in this. However, in Middle Earth, good basically wins. I think, as a Catholic/Christian, Tolkien would believe this for our world as well. The struggle is not in vain for there is always God and goodness (God is less prominent in ME. . .there are problems in paralels).

Also, I don't see Frodo as a victim either. A victim of what? Heros aren't victims. Frodo willingly chose to carry a burden stronger than he. Victim of his own choice, then? Victim of the times, no more than any of the other characters. A hero isn't defined by the times, but by what he does with them. Frodo is not a victim. If he'd remained in the Shire and been attacked by Nazgul or let Sam do the work and stayed at the Shire to be tortured by Sharkey, then we have victimhood. The only victim of it all, off the top of my head, is possibly Gollum. Gollum is the archetype victim.

Frodo lost his parents, but he doesn't show any of what Tolkien felt at the death of his beloved mother. Frodo doesn't even think of them. He's close to Bilbo, seemingly content with being an orphan, and his parents are convenient figures to explain why he's living with a bacholar uncle and doesn't have "attachments" elsewhere.

He did lose most of his friends in the War. However, he gained as many afterwards. . .in fact, the friend he is best known for he gained afterwards (Lewis. . .though sometimes their friendship was rocky.). He had a contented home life with children he adored, and this is when the Hobbit and LotR's were written.

I am using modern political thinking, but after all that was his life, and he couldn´t change what the external powers of the world had done to him and his family.

I wouldn't call it political so much as philosophical. The war and deaht of many friends are attributable to politics, but his mother died of diabetes. Nothing to do with politics. His father of fever. No politics. Just disease and fate. Common disease at that. I don't think he hated the world. I know he was a bit of pessimist, but not in the victimhood sense as much as the "That's bad but what can you expect" sense. He didn't whine. He just went on. He definitely did not see himself as specially hurt by evil forces. . .no more than any other man. He would've known many men who had died in the war and probably considered himself lucky when compared to them.

I believe that these books were a journey for him. A sort of mission he had to get through somehow

A mission, yes, but not in the sense you're thinking, a physcological journey. It was a journey into a new world through a story he discovered in his own imagination. A journey of a tale that HAD to be told. A tale that was so powerful it carried him on.

The ring was the world, and Frodo was him.

No. I just don't see any of this in anything I've ever read about him. . .or by him. There is a thread of hope in the LotR's that doesn't go with the evil world trying to destroy him theory.

The theme of loss probably reflects a little. But in the end Tolkien gained more than he lost.

[jallan]

An excellent post HLGStrider.The only victim of it all, off the top of my head, is possibly Gollum. Gollum is the archetype victim. This I do think is overstated.

Both Frodo and Gollums are victims in the sense that both get stuck with Ring, though certainly different ways. But Gollum murdered to get it.

He seems to have been a rather rotten type before and in a sence one can say he deserved what happened to him ... if that can be said of anyone.

Frodo was more of an innocent victim of cirumstance. But he was the one who got stuck with the task of going to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring.

Bad things happen. So do good things.

But Frodo and Tolkien were no more victims than most of us, born into a world which we did not make and cannot greatly control.

As you point out, with your "yes and no", Madonna Baggins is not altogether incorrect.

Frodo is certainly a kind of person that J.R.R. Tolkien tried to be in some ways.

But Frodo shows almost nothing of the impassioned scholar that Tolkien was. Bilbo and Sam both compose verse. We are not told that Frodo ever did, except for one poem that Tolkien claims in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was traditionally attributed to Frodo.

Nor was Frodo in any way a family man. Frodo never married and was unusual in the Shire as was Bilbo in not marrying.

Nor was J.R.R. Tolkien broken as was Frodo (at least not permanently).

In Niggle in Leaf by Niggle we can find more of Tolkien, but even that is not directly allegory. Niggle embodies certain aspects of Tolkien’ life, much exagerated. Or to better put it Niggle is an attempt to generalize part of what Tolkien was going through, but something he knew other people oddly obsessed with artistic creative impulses also go through.

Oops!

I forgot about Frodo’s poem in memory of Gandalf. Still, we don’t see the passion for verse in Frodo that Bilbo attained. In some ways Bilbo after The Hobbit is more like J.R.R. Tolkien.

But Bilbo is certainly not a mask for Tolkien either.

[HLGStrider]

I personally choose to see Tolkien in the dog from Farmer Giles of Ham. . .except Tolkien as a dog would probably speak dog Latin.

Whoah, Elgee, a "high-quality", "on-topic" "Tolkien-related" post, I'm honestly impressed. Shame on those who say you can't do that! Don't be shy to post more of that stuff...

I crown thee king of backwards compliments.

Gollum as a victim depends on whether or not the ring was controling his actions even at an early stage (when he killed Deagol . .. .though I suppose, truthfully, the archetype victim is Deagol. . .:eek: );)

A victim of his own greed and desires, yes, but still a victim.

I didn't think he sounded all that nasty before hand. ..just a bit grubby.

[jallan]

Walter posted:... (though one is tempted to ask who or what is represented by Parish, if anyone/anything at all)Well, it’s commonly pointed out that the name suggests a parish, perhaps with the connotation of one’s neighbor within a parish.

That is to say, Parish is the epitome of the aspects of all our fellow humans that are annoying when they interrupt our own desired course. Unfortunately these interruptions are usually not innately unjust or unfair, as Niggle recognizes.

Yet certainly some of them are. And the person imposing often seems unable to recognize that he or she is imposing.

That said, Tolkien may have also had in mind some particular person who was annoying to Tolkien in exactly the ways Parish was to Niggle, a relative or a neighbour whose needs kept cutting into Tolkien’s time and energy.

Parish is also a representative of the kind of person who can’t see any value in creative endeavour. Some of that also comes out in Gaffer Gamgee.

[HLGStrider]

Maybe it is just me, but I can't see Edith chasing after John with a broom and dustpan trying to get him to sweep the dining room before he goes back to his work.

[Eledhwen]

Madonna BagginsThe Ring was the worldI don't think so, though I have heard the argument that the ring was a type of the cross (ie: the sin of the world) that had to be carried to the top of the hill and destroyed (in hell?). Frodo would therefore be a type of Christ; but Tolkien would recognise the analogy and avoid it, so (and not for this reason only, but for the sake of the story) Frodo failed at the end, rescued by his and Bilbo's mercy in the form of the still living Gollum who, through his evil intent, saved the world, illustrating Iluvatar's words "And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself had not imagined." One of the "things more wonderful" after the destruction of the Ring was the valuing and appreciation of what was really important. This also occurred after WWI among the regular soldiers; but unfortunately not among the rulers who sent them to fight, hence the atrocious and unforgiving behaviour towards Germany between the wars, which precipitated WWII.

Re: dustpan and brush: I think it was more clipping hedges and mowing lawns etc that were Tolkien's 'chores', and maybe also reluctantly helping neighbours out (niggle style).