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aruman
Ossiriand
May 31 2012, 3:14am
Post #1 of 17
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Why does Smeagol talk the way he does?
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I'm referring to how he speaks to Deagol...calling him "My love," and referring to himself as "us." I think we would all expect anyone that bore the ring for so long to be rather peculiar, but this was before he possessed it. I don't recall any other character in Tolkien's works speaking in this manner.
One thing, it sure is creepy and always made Gollum even scarier to me.
Anyone know/care to speculate on why he spoke in this manner?
In the movies Elrond, Denethor, Haldir, Galadriel, and Celeborn stink.
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Elskar
Nevrast
May 31 2012, 3:56am
Post #2 of 17
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Maybe just the way of speaking that his people have among themselves. Had it been Deagol who wanted to take it from Smeagol he may have said it in a similar manner.
Plant Trees
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sador
Gondolin
May 31 2012, 8:48am
Post #3 of 17
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squire once wrote a fine essay about it
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I couldn't find the link with a short search - but I did find quite a few good old discussions to revisit!
So I've wasted far too much time already, and came up with no result for you. Sorry. 
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dormouse
Gondolin
May 31 2012, 9:15am
Post #5 of 17
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Smeagol doesn't refer to himself as 'us', I don't think...
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... when he speaks to Deagol, in the scene reported by Gandalf in 'The Shadow of the Past' chapter, though he does call Deagol 'my love' - even when he's about to strangle him. I could be wrong, but I think the 'us' comes later in his timeline and refers to himself and the Ring - or to Smeagol/Gollum, if you prefer it.
I'd say that when Tolkien wrote the Smeagol/Deagol scene in Fellowship of the Ring he gave Smeagol the speech pattern and rhythm he had already given to Gollum when he wrote The Hobbit, because that was the character he'd already created. The 'my love' could be regional - around the UK lots of people use 'love' just in a friendly way, talking to complete strangers. But it does feel really creepy having him say that to someone he's about to kill for a ring.
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DanielLB
Elvenhome
May 31 2012, 10:45am
Post #7 of 17
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I will have a read of this 
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dormouse
Gondolin
May 31 2012, 3:26pm
Post #8 of 17
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That's very interesting, squire
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And I think you're onto something with the nursery language.
But there's something else about Gollum's speech which has just struck me, reading it - which is, for me at least, so obvious that I never realised it consciously before. Gollum is Welsh. Just as the Hobbit trolls are Cockney, when I read Gollum, his speech pattern falls naturally into something like a Welsh accent and it always has - the sibilant 's's and 'p'raps it does, does it' - also 'a bitsy' which, when you read it or hear it read sounds just like 'a bit, see' which is a very Welsh idiom.
Just a thought!
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
May 31 2012, 4:34pm
Post #9 of 17
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Tolkien made a recording of the riddle game. it's available on cds nowadays; I have those, and also cassettes and LPs. It's called 'The JRR Tolkien Collection'.
And Tolkien speaks the Gollum part with a Welsh accent.
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
May 31 2012, 4:39pm
Post #10 of 17
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Where I come from, we say 'us'. As in 'Give us that spanner'. That sort of thing. We don't call each other 'precious', though. But in some parts of the UK folk will use various terms of endearment - the young man who played Pippin in the BBC radio version of LotR recalled how he once asked Robert Stephens where he'd got his terrific Bristol accent, to which Stephens replied, (in his best Bristolian) 'Well, my babby, that's because I'm from Bristol'. (paraphrase from memory).
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Yngwulff
Mithlond
Jun 2 2012, 9:26pm
Post #11 of 17
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I'll agree 100 % on the accent and dialogue corresponding to Welsh for Gollum, but as to the Precious bit, that's different.
Isuldur wasn't Welsh (I don't think) and he referred to the Ring as "Precious" and so did Bilbo after a time just like Gollum.
I would postulate that even Sauron called it that from the get go, and the Ring itself, as it took hold of its bearers after Sauron lost it, impressed this upon each ones psyche.
Take this Brother may it serve you well!!!
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Bombadil
Gondolin
Jun 3 2012, 1:03am
Post #12 of 17
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IT's...a...Riddle as Only JRRT could...
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write
Goldberry
(TommyDearest has a Situation W/ the Barrow-wights)
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sador
Gondolin
Jun 3 2012, 6:42am
Post #13 of 17
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But when Gollum first called the Ring 'precious'
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Isuldur wasn't even thought of yet.
Gollum might have been modelled on a region dialect, but as often with Tolkien - idioms take a life of their own.
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Morthoron
Hithlum
Jun 10 2012, 10:14pm
Post #14 of 17
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Gollums dialogue always reminded me a little of the character Fagin in Oliver Twist:
"You'd like to make pocket handkerchiefs as easily as the Artful Dodger, wouldn't you my dear?"
"We will, my dear, we will."
"Only think," said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands; "only consider. You've done what's a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat, that's so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloose- in plain English, the halter!"
A bit too literate p'raps, but add the sinuous lisps-s-s-s and you've got a fair approximation of the sinister Smeagol in a more real-world sense.
Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.
(This post was edited by Morthoron on Jun 10 2012, 10:15pm)
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Jun 11 2012, 5:16pm
Post #15 of 17
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1. Gollum's speech is a reflection of his psychological decay that the ring has caused. He's confused where his personality ends and where the ring's begins, so he uses the plural for himself but the singular for the ring (mostly, it seems). Gandalf says at one point that the Precious was originally the ring, but later became Gollum + the ring since he lost so much of his mind that the ring took over.
2. Gollum has devolved from hobbit to near-animal, moving about like a wild predator and eating his food raw. He is like a snake--able to sneak up and strike his prey by surprise, and evade capture through slippery tricks. To me, that's why he has all the hissing "s's."
3. Gollum's grammar deteriorates because he hasn't had anyone to talk to for centuries besides himself. Hence "We hates it forever!" with "hates" misconjugated and using "it" for a person, not "him" or "you." When I lived in a non-English-speaking country for a couple years, though I didn't spend time alone in a cave speaking to myself and eating raw fish, I didn't use English a whole lot, and one time I was speaking to some Americans and said "I isn't" and didn't realize my mistake until they laughed and pointed it out.
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sador
Gondolin
Jun 11 2012, 8:43pm
Post #16 of 17
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Very suggestive; and it never occured to me before.
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GothmogTheBalrog
Ossiriand
Jun 16 2012, 8:42pm
Post #17 of 17
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Perhaps Gollum was somewhat insane even before he had the Ring?
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Just a thought.
"It was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and go before it." ~FotR
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