squire
Half-elven
Jul 12 2007, 3:36am
Views: 5468
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This scene, and the theme it engenders with Nienor suffering the same fate (running nude through the woods just as Saeros taunted Turin that his women kin did; later jumping to her death), is unprecedented in Tolkien. The nudity is hardly necessary to the story; one need only imagine the same scenes of panicky flight by clothed actors - quite effective and plausible - to realize that. Is it sexual? I don't see why not: nudity always promises sex to the human imagination. Where else does Tolkien use "buttock", for gosh sakes? and unlike N. E. Brigand, I wouldn't let Turin's promise to Saeros to "prick you on from behind" with his sword pass by. "he stripped him, and Saeros felt Turin's great strength, and was afraid." The sex promised is brutal, humiliating, the act of a rapist. Tolkien plays with the powerful imagery almost with distaste - and then drops it. Where did he get it from, I wonder? More broadly, throughout this chapter I think the major theme is Wildness. The uncombed hair vs. the golden comb, the effete courtier vs. the unkempt march-warden, the comparison of Turin to the Woodwose (three times - bad writing), the implicit comparison of being chased nude, in nothing but hair, to being hunted like a wild hairy beast, the earlier information that the wild Easterlings hunt their fastest prisoners for sport like Orcs do and its recurrence in the remarks about Orc-work and Orc-play: all bounce off the idea that Turin is a wild Man in the Elf-king's civilized court. He cruelly turns the tables on the evil (wild) Elf who torments him in a civilized (verbal) way, by making Saeros into a wild beast and hunting (or more disturbingly, symbolically raping) him. In fact it is Turin who fears the accusation of wildness, and he struggles with that self-image for much of the rest of the book. It is no wonder he adopts the wild girl, exhausted from running, naked except for her hair, and marries her, his sister, in an ultimate act of self-identification.
squire online: RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!" squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
(This post was edited by squire on Jul 12 2007, 3:43am)
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