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sador
Gondolin
Jul 11 2008, 9:51am
Views: 1811
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The Black Gate is Closed, IX - "Not nice hobbit, not sensible"
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As mentioned above, we hardly get to see the workings of Frodo’s mind in books IV and VI. Unlike the movies, which took the Frodo the-Ring-junkie approach, the book leaves us to imagine the worse, to blissfully ignore the warning signs, or to mantain our belief in his inherent purity, which will carry him through all the trials and temptations – we see him mostly through the eyes of Sam, who keeps within the pale of the two latter alternatives.
So now it’s time to discuss the third member of the trio – the one who asks the questions (of Gollum), and effectively ‘reports’ the story.
Let’s begin with Sam’s reaction to the threat scene:
1. Sam looks at Frodo with both surprise and approval. What does that say about Sam – as a servant, and morally?
Before, while Frodo caught Gollum in his slip, Sam was pondering the guide’s actual offer, and considering it in view of the interior conversation he overheard: “Sam’s guess was that the Smeagol and Gollum halves (or what in his own mind he called Slinker and Stinker) had made a truce and temporarily alliance... Whether there really was another way into Mordor Sam doubted.”
2. Doesn’t Sam seem to be wrong here about both Frodo and Gollum?
3. One point which has always disturbed me – why did Sam keep the debate he overheard secret from Frodo? Or didn't he?
Tolkien seems to make fun of Sam, describing him with a nearly condescending irony – in fact, quite like he treated Bilbo in The Hobbit. Even “Sam’s slow but shrewd mind” is not exactly an expression of respect, and “Gollum in his own way, and with much more excuse as his acquaintance was much briefer, may have made a similar mistake” is another piece of comedy at Sam’s expense.
But the comedy is because Sam tries to reason out Gollum’s motives, and then interrogate him. Sam’s head is nowhere as good as his heart – consider Faramir’s “your heart is shrewd as well as faithful, and saw clearer than you eyes” (‘The Window on the West’), and his own inner voice (the Gaffer’s? I can’t wait to see what Dreamdeer will make of it!) in Shelob’s lair: “You fool, he isn’t dead, and your heart knew it. Don’t trust your head, Samwise, it’s not the best part of you. The trouble with you is that you never really had any hope.”
Wait a moment! “Never really had any hope”? We thought Sam was hope embodied! But, earlier in this chapter: “After all, he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning, but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.”
4. In ‘The End of the Third Age’ Sam is renamed “Hope Unquenchable” by Gandalf. Did Tolkien change his mind about Sam, or does Gandalf mean a deeper kind of hope than the one Sam professes to not having?
5. How does he keep his cheer, and postpone despair?
The comparison of Sam to Bilbo in The Hobbit goes far. Consider both their fascinations with Elves (“He loved elves, though he seldom met them” – ‘A Short Rest’). Both profess to cooking well – Sam next chapter, and Bilbo in ‘Roast Mutton’. Both have a childlike curiousity – as Sam shows here, with his excitement about the swertings and oliphaunts.
Another case is the affinity with Gollum. “There was a great deal in the background of their minds and memories that was very similar... Think of the the riddles they both knew, for one thing.” as Gandalf said in ‘The Shadow of the Past’.
6. Isn’t the Oliphaunt rhyme just such a riddle? It is clearly similar to the full version of the Fish riddle given last chapter!
Stopping and thinking about this comparison – after all, Bilbo knew of Oliphaunts (see ‘Many Partings’), and Gollum didn’t. Didn’t Bilbo miss a chance to win the riddle-game fair and square, without reverting to ordinary questions?
7. Does this affinity help Sam understand Gollum’s intentions, or does it hinder him?
8. Could it be the reason for Sam’s suspicion and resentment towards Gollum – in a way that Sam wouldn’t feel towards a fallen person of a different race?
9. Considering all that was said in the last three threads – what could be the reasons for the shift in the point of view from Frodo’s to Sam’s?
Before finishing this thread, I must mention that the shift is incomplete – we still do not fully enter Sam’s heart. Not until ‘Mount Doom’ do we hear of Rosie Cotton.
"Don't make jokes about it," hissed Gollum. "It isn't funny. O no! Not amusing. It's not sense to try and get into Mordor at all."
"I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go" - said Frodo.
Sam frowned... his mind was full of doubt.
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The Black Gate is closed,
but the Reading Room discussion is open.
July 7th-13th.
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The Black Gate is Closed, IX - "Not nice hobbit, not sensible"
