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Modtheow
Lorien
Jul 1 2008, 5:55pm
Post #1 of 22
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The Passage of the Marshes 2: Disgust, fear, horror
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I’d like to pick up on a few very interesting ideas expressed in yesterday’s thread in order to move into a discussion about what I think are the dominant feelings in this chapter: disgust, fear, and horror. In our discussion of culturally-determined food preferences, sador made the point that "the spiritual and the corporeal are interconnected" and FarFromHome’s quotation from Milton’s Paradise Lost about tasting "dust and ashes," so well explained in relation to lembas and the viaticum by a.s., illustrates the point really well, in my opinion. Gollum is spiritually unprepared to taste lembas. The hobbits’ supply of lembas smells bad to Gollum and the taste raises his gag reflex. I hope that people would agree with me that, knowing what we do about the elves and hobbits, we can interpret Gollum’s inability to eat this food as a sign that he has fallen away from a state of humanity/hobbitry and has crossed a boundary into an animal-like existence. As Curious says, Gollum is an animal-like creature consisting of pure appetite. He is compared to a dog more than once in this chapter. From Sam’s point of view, Gollum’s eating of "slimy things out of holes" is certainly distasteful, and the suggestion that Gollum might transgress other taboos, such as indulging in cannibalism, is a horrific and frightful prospect to the hobbits, I think it’s fair to say. Also, as ArathornJax points out, Gollum’s preference for raw as opposed to cooked food – evident in "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" – is another sign of his uncivilized state (with apologies to the current raw food movement).
What I’d like to do today is to explore further what raises feelings of disgust, fear, and horror in this chapter, keeping in mind the idea that every culture has certain boundaries that should not be crossed or taboos that should not be broken. I think that the best place to look at such things is in the encounter with the dead faces in the marshes.
corpse candles
According to Hammond and Scull’s Reader’s Companion:
"Candles of corpses – The Oxford English Dictionary defines corpse-candle as ‘a lambent flame seen in a churchyard or over a grave, and superstitiously believed to appear as an omen of death, or to indicate the route of a coming funeral.’"
Sam’s experience
We see the lights first of all from Sam’s point of view:
"....the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When lights appeared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands."
Sam asks Gollum what and who are the lights and whether they are trapped. Gollum’s reply is to identify the "tricksy lights" as "Candles of corpses," and to advise Sam not to look at or follow them.
What’s your impression of these lights? How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
Sam’s even closer experience follows:
"He fell and came heavily on his hands, which sank deep into sticky ooze, so that his face was brought close to the surface of the dark mere. There was a faint hiss, a noisome smell went up, the lights flickered and danced and swirled. For a moment the water below him looked like some window, glazed with grimy glass, through which he was peering. Wrenching his hands out of the bog, he sprang back with a cry. ‘There are dead things, dead faces in the water,’ he said with horror. ‘Dead faces!'"
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam? A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
Frodo’s experience
Sam’s reaction is fear and horror: "Is it some devilry hatched in the Dark Land?" Frodo’s reaction is different, though. I would describe it as poetic:
"‘I don’t know,’ said Frodo in a dreamlike voice. ‘But I have seen them too. In the pools when the candles were lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them.’ Frodo hid his eyes in his hands. ‘I know not who they are; but I thought I saw there men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.’"
Gollum agrees: "All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes."
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam? Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)? What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
shadow of horror
At first, Frodo and Sam are happy to see daylight while Gollum shrinks from the Yellow Face (and later from the White Face). By the end of the chapter, even Frodo and Sam do not welcome the light; in the desolation before Mordor:
"The sun was up, walking among clouds and long flags of smoke, but even the sunlight was defiled. The hobbits had no welcome for that light; unfriendly it seemed, revealing them in their helplessness – little squeaking ghosts that wandered among the ash-heaps of the Dark Lord."
They seem to be learning from Gollum the need to hide. Earlier, their experience with the Wraiths on wings, described as a "shadow of horror" that wheels above them, leaves them "grovelling heedlessly on the cold earth." Just after this encounter, we are told that Frodo is beginning to feel the weight of the Ring and the power of the Eye, "that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off."
In these encounters, fear and horror are dominant emotions created. Any comments on how and why these feelings are created? Are there any taboos or boundaries crossed in these events?
Any other moments of fear, disgust, or horror in this chapter that you want to discuss? Any ways in which you see the spiritual and the corporeal connected in the events of this chapter?
And by the way, Darkstone, I’ve never tried catfish, but I’d be willing to give it a go.
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Curious
Half-elven
Jul 1 2008, 9:08pm
Post #2 of 22
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The word "goth" made a long, strange trip from Roman times to the present, but parts of LotR such as this chapter fit the definition of gothic horror, generally identified with ancient, haunted ruins. Here we have an ancient, seemingly haunted battlefield, the Dead Marshes, where long-dead warriors, good and evil, float in the water, rotten but still recognizeable, lit by strange candle-like lights. Of course our trio must make the passage by dark, and must feel their way for a path, led by a creature nearly as creepy as the corpses. But unlike Morgul Vale, Shelob's Lair, and Mordor, the effect is not completely evil, for good and evil warriors lay side by side, and orcs avoid these marshes as much as others do. Frodo is even strangely attracted to the corpses, or so it seems.
What’s your impression of these lights? How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
When lights appeared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands.
Dimly-shining smoke, misty candle flames, ghostly sheets -- these sound like ghosts. But Tolkien only hints that there is something ghostly about these lights; he never says they are ghosts. They could be static electricity, or methane emissions, or luminescent fungus, or even some sort of luminescent creatures.
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam? A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
The sticky ooze is disgusting enough, but then when Sam sees faces, that adds shock value. In this case I think Tolkien uses the image of a window to show that the water had become as clear as a window, as opposed to murky and opaque. Since Sam's hands are in the water, it's not much of a boundary.
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam? Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)? What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
Frodo seems entranced by the images, not disgusted by them. In general Frodo is more open to dreams and visions than Sam, which can be both good and bad for Frodo, depending on the nature of the dream or vision. And as I commented above, the corpses are not necessarily evil, although they can be dangerous if they lead the wanderer astray.
I am reminded of the palantir Denethor held when he died, which ever after showed his hands to anyone not strong enough to turn it to another use. I am also reminded of the Mirror of Galadriel, which also showed visions in water, and which Galadriel warned Frodo not to touch. And the lights remind me of the Elvish swords that shine with an inner light, like Sting, where the light seems to represent the spirit of the ancient elvish swordsmith.
I find it interesting, by the way, that Gollum knows the story of this battlefield better than Sam and Frodo, or at least better than Sam -- perhaps Frodo just isn't talking. We see this chapter through Sam's eyes, not Frodo's. Gollum also knows about the flying Nazgul, somehow. For a wretched animal-like creature, Gollum seems remarkably well-informed.
In these encounters, fear and horror are dominant emotions created. Any comments on how and why these feelings are created? Are there any taboos or boundaries crossed in these events?
Mostly we see the fear and horror of the hobbits and Gollum, as we do later in Minas Tirith when the Nazgul fly by. The fact that the Nazgul turns as if he sees something is of course disconcerting.
They have come close enough to the border of Mordor to see the Nazgul on patrol. I suppose that may be a taboo and boundary. The Nazgul functions as a kind of border guard, particularly in an area not patrolled on land.
Any other moments of fear, disgust, or horror in this chapter that you want to discuss? Any ways in which you see the spiritual and the corporeal connected in the events of this chapter?
I wonder what Frodo would see in the Dead Marshes if he put on his ring. Would the ghost lights turn into spirits, as visible as the Nazgul in the spirit plane? Is there a ghost army here, or just a memory of people whose spirits have long since fled? I think the latter, but it's hard to tell.
It's interesting that you talk about a spiritual and corpreal connection, because I think the theme is a spiritual and corporeal disconnect, with the wandering spiritual ghost lights disconnected from the rotting bodies, and the real spirits of the dead long fled. The Nazgul is the real ghost, because he has unnaturally tied his spirit to his body long after it should have died. Gollum, too, is scarier than the ghost lights, because he has lived an unnaturally long time by dark and unnatural means.
This chapter also reminds me of Tolkien's marvelously-creepy poem The Mewlips.
(This post was edited by Curious on Jul 1 2008, 9:12pm)
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Darkstone
Immortal
Jul 1 2008, 9:48pm
Post #3 of 22
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What’s your impression of these lights?
Typical swamp lights which have historically led people to their deaths. Also Lieutenant Tolkien would have been very familiar with how decomposing bodies left for weeks on the battlefield would emit luminescent gases, and often make strange, lifelike sounds. And occasionally would move.
How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
By making them hard to catch visually. Like ghosts.
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam?
The faces of death.
A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
A boundary, yet also an entrance. Watch Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968). It’s not safe to be standing next to a window when there’s dead people walking around. And don’t even dare try to look out. There’s guaranteed to be something looking back.
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction?
Unsurprised. Familiar. It’s like how during the chase of the Three Hunters Legolas feels Saruman’s will a day and a half before the others do but he doesn’t mention it.
Why does he react differently from Sam?
The window has already started opening for him. Soon there will be no veil between him and the other world.
Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)?
He’s got more terrible horrors he's currently confronting in his mind.
What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
Well, as Sam says that was literally an Age ago. Why are they still here? Like wights, wraiths, and Gollum these spirits cannot shed their corrupted flesh! It must be a curse!
In these encounters, fear and horror are dominant emotions created. Any comments on how and why these feelings are created?
Appealing to the senses: smell, touch, sight, taste.
Are there any taboos or boundaries crossed in these events?
A thick layer of crud floating on top of water, at the bottom of which is corruption, is a very good description of a septic tank.
Any other moments of fear, disgust, or horror in this chapter that you want to discuss?
It’s interesting how Gollum sniffs the air like the Nazgul. And indeed he detects a Nazgul!!
Any ways in which you see the spiritual and the corporeal connected in the events of this chapter?
Corporeal corruption seems to capture the spirit like flypaper.
And by the way, Darkstone, I’ve never tried catfish, but I’d be willing to give it a go.
Sure. Bill Catfish House over in Lone Grove is legendary. See you there!
******************************************
The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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Beren IV
Gondor
Jul 2 2008, 12:29am
Post #4 of 22
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This scene here is inconsistent with the description of mortality, immortality, and divinity that is described in the Silmarillion and in Tolkien's later letters. In The Lord of the Rings, the Elves are immortal until slain, Men wither and die of age, and Orcs we never find out about, but as far as what kind of afterlife these disparate creatures experience following their deaths, the apparitions of dead faces and enigmatic lights in the Dead Marshes is the most we ever see, and in them, the clear implication is that race makes no difference for those who actually have died: Elf, Orc, and Man, are alike and equal.
I find it curious that this scene is in here, since it seems to clash with Tolkien's view of spirituality in his world and possibly even the point of his legendarium as it relates to his faith. Yet, this is the Lord of the Rings and not the Silmarillion; this is what Tolkien saw fit to publish, not what he mused on in his earlier writings. Nonetheless I am mighty curious if there are any versions of this and speculations as Tolkien wrote it in the volume of HoME that deals with this scene.
What’s your impression of these lights? How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
I'm not sure what you mean; the description seems perfectly clear in my mind. They're ethereal, and spooky.
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam? A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
Yeah, it's a window, a window in time, looking back into the aftermath of the battle fought ages ago.
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam? Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)? What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
Good question - and this is related to what I ask.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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Dreamdeer
Valinor
Jul 2 2008, 1:15am
Post #5 of 22
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I think that the overly-long lingering corpses are supposed to be a kind of blasphemy, an attack on hope. The corpse-lights might not actually have anything to do with departed souls--rather, they might belong to evil spirits like the Barrow-Wights, who moved in on the graves of men back on the borders of the Shire. But one is supposed to get the impression of unending corruption and no hope of an afterlife, elves no better than men no better than orcs.
And why would Sauron go through so much trouble for his theatrics? Because wherever water flows, Ulmo, the Vala of Water, can spy. Why else turn as much of his land as he can into a desert, holding the farmlands by the Sea of Nurn at an inconvenient arm's length? Ulmo must have deliberately pushed water to Sauron's very doorstep, but Sauron has used his earth-writhing abilities to choke it into marshes with little power to flow much of anywhere, then jammed the signal, so to speak, with horrific magical imagery. His choice of images of the dead, who had fallen on that plane before the marsh had spread, might have something to do with his specialty: necromancy. Perhaps he could draw power from the long-dead bones to recreate their past at a particularly disturbing stage of decomposition.
My website http://www.dreamdeer.grailmedia.com offers fanfic, and message-boards regarding intentional community or faerie exploration.
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ArathornJax
Lorien
Jul 2 2008, 7:38am
Post #6 of 22
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What’s your impression of these lights? How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
They really remind me of will-o-the-wisps, using the following two definitions: "corpse candles" suggests that they're the souls of the departed" and "The phenomenon is also inextricably linked with the leading astray of weary travellers into mires. The light was taken to be a lantern or a torch carried by a mischeivous spirit." For me here, the second example is the one that I think is going on. I think in the Dead Marshes Sauron has manipulated evil spirits to possess the many graves here to lead those who may try to go through them to avoid the Dargolad Plain where his Orcs and soldiers are thick, constantly moving and more than likely watching and guarding, astray.
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam? A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
There are several things going on. First, the disgust comes from falling in a marsh or swamp. The decaying mud stinks really bad, you become wet and the smell clings to you and it is just not a pleasant experience. More importantly Sam has to confront death when he sees the dead faces. Notice that the cries out "There are dead things, dead faces in the water," he cried with horror. "Dead faces!" I'll contrast that with Frodo in a minute but Sam sees nothing but death and corruption and decay all around him, and seeing death, when you still have hope of life, is both fearful and horror. Sam must also now be really questioning where Gollum is leading them in his mind and to what outcome.
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam? Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)? What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
Frodo has an different reaction than Sam. To quote Frodo, "grim faces and evil, and nobles faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. (Wonder if Tolkien met for that to rhyme?) But all foul, all rotting, all dead." Frodo sees the horror of death, but he sees past death to what is there, grim and evil, noble and sad, proud and fair, but in the end, all dead. For me, I think we are seeing in this chapter Frodo is in despair. We don't need to wait for Mordor, it is happening right now. The ring is corrupting him internally, quickening as both it and Frodo get closer to Mordor, and Frodo has lost hope. I think though Frodo is more perceptive naturally than Sam, he is even more so now because he relates internally to the dead. For Frodo, he sees his own destiny in the Marshes, and that is despair and death.
" . . . (we are ) too engrossed in thinking of everything as a preparation or training or making one fit -- for what? At any minute it is what we are and are doing, not what we plan to be and do that counts."
J.R.R. Tolkien in his 6 October 1940 letter to his son Michael Tolkien.
Come over to the LOTR Movie Thread and discuss the 1981 BBC Adaptation of the LOTR.
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Modtheow
Lorien
Jul 2 2008, 2:17pm
Post #7 of 22
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The dead faces in early drafts
[In reply to]
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You can find this information in the History of Middle-earth, volume 8, The War of the Ring.
In an early outline, "The Story Foreseen from Lorien," Tolkien has only bare details about this scene:
"Gollum all the while is scheming to betray Frodo. He leads them cleverly over the Dead Marshes. There are dead green faces in the stagnant pools; and the dry reeds hiss like snakes."
Later, in notes that Tolkien made while writing the chapter, he states:
"Gollum takes them down into the water gully and then turns away eastward. It leads to a hard point in the midst of the Marshes. Over Dead Marshes. Dead faces. In some of the pools if you looked in you saw your own face all green and dead and corrupted."
The idea of seeing your own face continues in early drafts:
"The pools lit by will o’ the wisp fire reveal dead faces. The moon shows their own....The moon came out of its cloud. They looked in. But they saw no faces out of the vanished past. They saw their own....Sam Gollum and Frodo looking up with dead eyes and livid rotting flesh at them.
Let’s get out of this foul place!"
Christopher Tolkien notes that after this draft the idea of seeing one’s own face in the pools doesn’t appear again. In a footnote, he adds that the above draft is "no doubt the point at which the idea of the marsh-lights entered (ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp, jack-o’-lantern). In TT, as in the manuscript, Gollum calls them ‘candles of corpses’, and in time-schemes of this period my father referred to the ‘episode of the corpse-candles’."
Christopher then includes the definition of ‘corpse-candle’ from the Oxford English Dictionary, which I’ve quoted from the Reader’s Companion in my first post. However, a much more complete survey of marsh lights, ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp, jack-o’-lantern lights, and so on, is given on Wikipedia (of course, the usual warnings about Researching with Wikipedia apply). Clearly, the idea of such marsh lights has a long history in folklore.
Your question of whether the dead faces violate Tolkien's ideas about mortality and spirituality is an interesting one. I'm thinking that the horror of the scene comes from just such a violation of the usual boundary between living and dead.
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Modtheow
Lorien
Jul 2 2008, 2:21pm
Post #8 of 22
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You're right to think of will-o-the-wisp lights; Tolkien even refers to the "pools lit by will o' the wisp fire" in one of his early drafts, which I've quoted from in this post.
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Modtheow
Lorien
Jul 2 2008, 2:29pm
Post #9 of 22
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Thanks for drawing my attention to "The Mewlips." What a damp and slimy poem! The Mewlips seem to be a little bit of everything: troll, dragon, wight -- I'm even reminded of Gollum when their feet go "squish-flap-flip."
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
Valinor
Jul 2 2008, 3:23pm
Post #10 of 22
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Tolkien's trip through Switzerland took him over the Grimsel Pass, with the dark Totensee ('Lake of the Dead') on the south side. The lake was a burial ground for the warring Austrians [aided by the Valaisians] and French during the summer of 1799. There are older stories of enemies being driven into the cold Swiss lakes, but this small see is the one given the picturesque name. It know it made me think of the Mere of Dead Faces. I wonder what Tolkien thought about it.....
The Swiss themselves have always been...superstitious, but it's a passage from Hans Christian Andersen's Swiss tale, The Ice Maiden, that always gets me:
[note: The boat has gotten loose, and Rudy jumps into the lake to retrieve it.]
Cold and deep was the clear bluish-green icy water from the glacier of the mountain.
Rudy looked down into it--he took but a glance, yet he saw a gold ring trembling, glittering, and playing there. He thought of his lost betrothal ring, and the ring became larger and extended itself out into a sparkling circle, within which appeared the clear glacier; endless deep chasms yawned about it, and the water dropped tinkling like the sound of bells, and gleaming with pale-blue flames. In a second he beheld what would take many words to describe. Young hunters and young girls, men and women who had been lost in the crevasses of the glacier, stood there, lifelike, with open eyes and smiling lips; and far beneath them arose from buried villages the church bells' chimes. Multitudes knelt under the vaulted roofs; ...
The similarities make me wonder.
I'm the creepy girl with a folder labelled Bog Bodies, along with some Corpse Candles files. =)
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Dreamdeer
Valinor
Jul 2 2008, 4:42pm
Post #11 of 22
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How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam? Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)?
I should have commented on this before, but this was the point when I first began to worry about what the Ring might be doing to Frodo's sanity. The last chapter set me up when he started to experience a strange urgency, a sort of manic anxiety to push forward faster than common sense, but that still seemed within the range of a distraught normal person. In the marshes his behavior starts to become noticeably abnormal, morbid, and spacy.
My website http://www.dreamdeer.grailmedia.com offers fanfic, and message-boards regarding intentional community or faerie exploration.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Jul 2 2008, 5:54pm
Post #12 of 22
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Like the earlier episode of hysterical blindness, Frodo is exhibiting symptoms of shell shock/battle fatigue/PTSS.
******************************************
The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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FarFromHome
Valinor
Jul 2 2008, 7:31pm
Post #13 of 22
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What’s your impression of these lights? How does Tolkien create that impression through his description?
This is one of Tolkien's favourite techniques - describe something that a modern reader knows to have a rational explanation, but present it through the eyes of someone who has no understanding of it and therefore senses that it's supernatural. Will-o-the-wisp has been associated with spirits and the dead in folk legend for centuries, and this story is set in a world where what we call folk legend is their reality.
I find it interesting that Tolkien began his imagining of this scene with the idea of people seeing their own reflections in the water. Although he took all references to this out of the final text, I suggest that this was at the basis of the scene for him. The hobbits and Gollum see their own frightened, staring faces, horribly distorted by the oozing muddy water and the flickering flames, and think they are seeing dead people in the water. But in terms of the story, which is told from their own perspective, this is real - real faces of Elves, Men and orcs (from our perspective, distortions of Frodo, Sam and Gollum respectively?) I note that Gollum tells Sam that the lights are "candles of corpses" before Sam ever sees any of the corpses for himself. And that Gollum claims to have tried to reach the corpses, but that they cannot be touched - that reminds me of the way dogs will sometimes try to touch their own reflection in water, thinking it's another dog. (But that's only at the "metafictional" level - within the story, as seen by the hobbits, this is real.)
What details in Tolkien’s description create a feeling of horror and disgust in Sam? A window usually creates a boundary between two different places – is that image working in the same way here?
It's a horribly porous boundary - Sam falls with his face almost touching the water, and there's a face on the other side, almost touching the surface too!
How would you describe Frodo’s reaction? Why does he react differently from Sam?
Frodo is fascinated by the horror, it seems to me. He sees a terrible beauty in it. His knowledge of history allows him to populate his own vision of the dead with much more nobility and poetry than Sam's vision. (Ian Holm does a wonderful version of this scene in the BBC dramatization.) The atmosphere of this scene reminds me of the barrows of the barrow-downs, which also held the remains of warriors slain in battle. Like the barrows, there may be both trapped souls of noble Men and wicked spirits that have come to haunt the burial-place.
Why isn’t he horrified that he has "water and slime" dripping from his own hands (and when and how did that happen)?
He's been left behind, and Sam has to go back to find him. Frodo too must have fallen with his face down near to the water when he saw the vision.
What is the significance of mixing together elves, men, and orcs – both good and bad, in a vision that strikes Sam as "devilry"?
This must be one of the most horrible things to see in the aftermath of a battle - friend and foe lying dead together, all alike in death. After a "civilized" battle, the dead are recovered and buried with their own kind, but after this battle, it seems, either there was no-one left to bury the dead, or the corpses have been washed out of their graves by the encroaching marsh, and so they lie intermingled forever.
Any other moments of fear, disgust, or horror in this chapter that you want to discuss?
Sauron's own land is completely sterile, but to get to it (both here and in Cirith Ungol) you have to pass through a different kind of death - the organic, disgusting stink of rotting life.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Modtheow
Lorien
Jul 2 2008, 10:42pm
Post #14 of 22
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In one of the draft outlines of the chapter, Tolkien writes this about the dead faces:
"Gollum says that it is said that they are memories (?) of those who fell in ages past..."
This is far from a definitive statement -- Gollum is reporting what is reported -- and then there's the "(?)" which I'm assuming is Tolkien's question mark, not Christopher's. But the idea that the dead faces could be memories and not the real thing is a more definite identification of what the hobbits see. Tolkien doesn't specifically call them "memories," though, in the final version, which suggests to me that he preferred to make the phenomenon more mysterious.
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a.s.
Valinor
Jul 2 2008, 11:07pm
Post #15 of 22
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only shapes to see, not to touch
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Frodo seems entranced by the images, not disgusted by them. In general Frodo is more open to dreams and visions than Sam, which can be both good and bad for Frodo, depending on the nature of the dream or vision. And as I commented above, the corpses are not necessarily evil, although they can be dangerous if they lead the wanderer astray.
I like this explanation. Frodo may recognize the danger of the vision of the corpses but nevertheless understands that's what it is: a vision. After a bit, this will be confirmed in a sickening way by Gollum himself, noting "You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them....Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch."
They're not real. Scary, but not real.
It's maybe just an interesting coincidence (are there any Tolkien-coincidences?), but in Hammond & Scull's Reader's Companion, they trace a possible influence on this section of the book as thus:
"Another inspiration for the Dead Marshes may have been the account in De Origine Actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of the Goths) by the sixth-century writer Jordanes, of how a bridge collapsed while an army was crossing, in an area 'surrounded by quaking bogs' and where 'even today one may hear in that neighborhood the lowing of cattle and may find traces of men'..."
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
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Dreamdeer
Valinor
Jul 3 2008, 10:13pm
Post #16 of 22
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I just came across two interesting quotes RE: the lights and Frodo.
1. Sam to Frodo, after finding him dripping slime from his hands and acting entranced: "Don't look at them! Gollum says we mustn't."
This is the first time where Sam actually agrees with Gollum and sets value by his advice.
2. Gollum to hobbits: "Now on we go! Nice hobbits! Brave hobbits! Very very weary, of course; so we are, my precious, all of us. But we must take master away from the wicked lights, yes, yes, we must."
Is Gollum also a bit freaked by Frodo's odd behavior? And he's actually praising them to give them a pep talk to keep moving. He almost seems empathetic at this point--interesting.
My website http://www.dreamdeer.grailmedia.com offers fanfic, and message-boards regarding intentional community or faerie exploration.
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Beren IV
Gondor
Jul 6 2008, 10:47pm
Post #17 of 22
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Tolkien originally had Frodo and Sam looking into dead mockeries of themselves, but at the same time there is no evidence whatsoever of Tolkien thinking about it in his theological framework of mortality and spirituality!
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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Dreamdeer
Valinor
Jul 7 2008, 4:27pm
Post #18 of 22
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Tolkien would not have had to write his own feelings on the theological matter of Frodo and Sam seeing deathly images of themselves, as such imagery already abounds in Catholic folklore and hagiography. Two opposing explanations come to mind, and the subsequent actions of each character would determine which explanation would fit.
One is the concept of being "dead in sin." In this, a person physically lives, but his soul has died and sorely needs resurrection. Gollum's inability to derive nourishment from Lembas indicates that he is dead in sin, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This fate awaits the hobbits, as well, if they veer off-course through the temptations of the Ring. Frodo, in fact, died spiritually for a moment when he claimed the Ring, but was saved by having it torn from him, thanks to past mercies.
The other is the "mortification" of saints. In this the person dies to the lures of the flesh so as to live in spirit. Step by step the hobbits pare back bodily necessities in order to serve their purpose--food, water, rest, even air as they march into choking fumes. It is not required that they actually die, only that they are willing to die if called upon to do so, for a higher good. Their gradual but steady sacrifices illustrate this willingness.
My website http://www.dreamdeer.grailmedia.com offers fanfic, and message-boards regarding intentional community or faerie exploration.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 22 2009, 10:46am
Post #19 of 22
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Note that the grimy window image recurs in “The Land of Shadow”. //
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 22 2009, 10:47am
Post #20 of 22
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And its original subject was apparently Oxford beauracracy! //
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We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 22 2009, 10:47am
Post #21 of 22
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So, a sort of twisted palantír?
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 22 2009, 10:48am
Post #22 of 22
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Does Tolkien want moderns to re-think their rational certainty? //
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