XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message  "Joseph"   
    enriched us with:   
   >   
      
      
      
   I wasn't sure if your ... variable spelling of 'Boromir' was   
   intentional (I saw at least three different spellings) -- but thought   
   I'd make you aware of it in case it wasn't ...   
      
   > Compare the number of times Boromir mentions the word 'power' with   
   > the number of times he mentions the word 'immortality'. Borimir is   
   > Tolkien's specific and personal representation of man's weakness   
   > for the ring so Borimir is a very good example when considering   
   > man's principal weakness for the ring in general. (Again, you may   
   > disagree with this, but I find support for this in the text.)   
      
   Have you read /The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien/ edited by Humphrey   
   Carpenter? I'm sure you'd enjoy the insights they give to how Tolkien   
   himself intended (or afterwards read, as it sometimes appear) his own   
   stories ...   
      
       [...] Anyway all this stuff is mainly concerned with Fall,   
       Mortality, and the Machine. With Fall inevitably, and that   
       motive occurs in several modes. With Mortality, especially   
       as it affects art and the creative (or as I should say,   
       sub-creative) desire which seems to have no biological   
       function, and to be apart from the satisfactions of plain   
       ordinary biological life, with which, in our world, it is   
       indeed usually at strife. This desire is at once wedded to   
       a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence   
       filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by   
       it. It has various opportunities of 'Fall'. It may become   
       possessive, clinging to the things made as 'its own', the   
       sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private   
       creation. He will rebel against the laws of the Creator -   
       especially against mortality. Both of these (alone or   
       together) will lead to the desire for Power, for making the   
       will more quickly effective, - and so to the Machine (or   
       Magic). By the last I intend all use of external plans or   
       devices (apparatus) instead of development of the inherent   
       inner powers or talents - or even the use of these talents   
       with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the   
       real world, or coercing other wills. The Machine is our   
       more obvious modern form though more closely related to   
       Magic than is usually recognised.   
   [Letter #131, To Milton Waldman  (probably written late in 1951)]   
      
   The rebellion against mortality is one thing that leads to the desire   
   for power, which was at least the primary way the One Ring worked on   
   others (not just Men, or humans, but /all/, including both Hobbits   
   and Maiar), and how it brought them all to their Fall. Everyone (with   
   /two/ exceptions) who took the One Ring, or even reached out for it,   
   fell -- Sauron, Isildur, Saruman, Gollum, Bilbo and Frodo. The   
   exceptions are Tom Bombadil and, of all people, Sam (who, through his   
   own experience with the Ring, learned to pity Gollum).   
      
   Gandalf and Aragorn knew this very well, and shied away from the   
   Ring, careful never to even want it. Boromir didn't know, and didn't   
   believe when told, and he desired the Ring (and the glory it would   
   bring himself) ...   
      
   To say, within Tolkien's sub-creation, that the desire for power is a   
   specifically mannish thing would, IMO, be wrong -- it is, I think, a   
   symptom of a fall (or partial fall) by the person who has that   
   desire, and it is a desire of which I think Ar-Pharazôn the Man was   
   no more culpable than Fëanor the Noldo, Saruman the Maia or even   
   Lotho the Hobbit.   
      
   > Ultimately, I don't think it's appropriate to assert that any one   
   > particular point is *the* entire point and sum total of the quest.   
   > Tolkien wove together a multitude of motivations and challenges   
   > into the quest in order to produce a number of object lessons.   
   > Inevitably, different (or even the same) readers will find   
   > something slightly different with every reading.   
      
   Which also leads us back to the traditional debate (some might insist   
   that 'quarrel' is the better word) about allegory and applicability.   
      
   With respect to a 'message' in the book, Tolkien himself said;   
      
         As for 'message': I have none really, if by that is meant   
       the conscious purpose in writing The Lord of the Rings, of   
       preaching, or of delivering myself of a vision of truth   
       specially revealed to me! I was primarily writing an   
       exciting story in an atmosphere and background such as I   
       find personally attractive. But in such a process   
       inevitably one's own taste, ideas, and beliefs get taken   
       up. Though it is only in reading the work myself (with   
       criticisms in mind) that I become aware of the dominance of   
       the theme of Death. (Not that there is any original   
       'message' in that: most of human art & thought is similarly   
       preoccupied.) But certainly Death is not an Enemy! I said,   
       or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril   
       of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial   
       longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The   
       confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief   
       causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with   
       a Ringwraith. The Elves call 'death' the Gift of God (to   
       Men). Their temptation is different: towards a fainéant   
       melancholy, burdened with Memory, leading to an attempt to   
       halt Time.   
   [Letter #208, From a letter to C. Ouboter, 10 April 1958]   
      
   But note also what he said in the foreword to LotR about allegory and   
   applicability.   
      
   To hear what others get from the book is often interesting, but   
   difficult to discuss, so the discussions that make sense in a group   
   such as this, is the discussion of what Tolkien intended: not that he   
   should be cast up as the sole arbiter of what LotR is allowed to tell   
   people, but because that is the only reasonably objective scale we   
   have for a discussion. Generally it is taken to be implied here when   
   people speak of what LotR says that they mean what Tolkien intended   
   it to say (as the poster believes it to be), whereas statements   
   exploiting, and building upon, the 'varied applicability to the   
   thought and experience of readers' are usually explicitly described   
   as such.   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer   
   Valid e-mail is    
      
       In this case the cause (not the 'hero') was triumphant,   
       because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of   
       injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed   
       and disaster averted.   
    - J.R.R. Tolkien, /The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien/ #192   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)