December 2004 Print

Although J. R. R. Tolkien wrote what is called "fantasy," the power of his books comes not from what is new and imaginative in them, but from the age-old themes of the world as we know it and live in it. One of these is the theme of renunciation, of giving up what is evil, and even sometimes what is good, for a higher end. We can see this in Tolkien's works in many different ways. Creatures fall because of inordinate love for something they do not wish to give up. An obvious example of this is the Ring of Power made by Sauron. Everyone who comes into contact with it is tempted by what it offers, for it can give power and immortality. Yet the only way to avoid its corruption is by rejecting it. This applies not only to the Ring of Sauron; in a more general sense, there comes a time in every man's life when he must give way to another, when he has to say: "He must increase, but I must decrease."[1] This indeed is hard, but it depends ultimately on love for another being than oneself; those who hold on to what they have long after they should have given it up are those who care for themselves more than anything. The man who truly loves another will be glad to give way to him, as John the Bapist gave way to Christ. Or, in Tolkien's world, as the good kings of Numenor used to give up their thrones to their sons and lie down to die, not clinging to life.

We can see this struggle between love and greed in many of Tolkien's characters; but the first example of it can be found in Bilbo, the hobbit who first found the Ring of Power, not knowing its importance. Bilbo thinks of the Ring as a mere trinket, a magical toy that he can use to escape from annoying relations. In this way he gets accustomed to possessing it, to using it; and he becomes attached to it. This becomes evident when Gandalf, suspecting the Ring's power, tells him to give it up. It is amazingly difficult for Bilbo to part with it: in fact, he does not want to part with it at all, and he says so: "Now it comes to it, I don't like parting with it at all, I may say. And I don't really see why I should."² Now, even though Bilbo is not a very self-centered person, possessing the Ring for as long as he did, even if he only used it lightly, has made him more egotistic. And he does not recognize the danger to himself, which Gandalf tries to warn him of.

"I think you have had it quite long enough. You won't need it any more, Bilbo, unless I am quite mistaken."

Bilbo flushed, and there was an angry light in his eyes. His kindly face grew hard. "Why not?" he cried. "And what business is it of yours, anyway, to know what I do with my own things? It is my own. I found it. It came to me."

"Yes, yes," said Gandalf. "But there is no need to get angry."

"If I am it is your fault," said Bilbo. "It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious."³

How quickly the Ring can take possession of a man's will, even if he is only an easy-going, good-tempered hobbit! Here Bilbo truly acts unlike himself, for already he is somewhat corrupted by the possession of the Ring. He himself recognizes the power it has over him, and realizes that it would be better to be without it. Indeed, like all possessions, the Ring is always present to him. He worries about it continually:

"I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don't you know; or wondering if it is safe, and pulling it out to make sure. I tried locking it up, but I found I couldn't rest without it in my pocket."⁴

This is the way that material possessions take possession of somebody. The man who owns something of value is always worrying about it, figuring out how to keep it safe. It takes his mind off more important things. The Ring works in this way, but much more obviously. It eats away at the mind of the one who carries it. We will see more drastic examples of this later, with Frodo and Gollum. But Bilbo still realizes that there is something strange about the hold that the Ring has on him. It is this realization, and Gandalf's insistence, that helps him let go of the Ring, and "stop possessing it,"⁵ as Gandalf says, before it is too late. Even so he needs all of Gandalf's assistance:

Bilbo took out the envelope, but just as he was about to set it by the clock, his hand jerked back, and the packet fell on the floor. Before he could pick it up, the wizard stooped and seized it and set it in its place. A spasm of anger passed swiftly over the hobbit's face again. Suddenly it gave way to a look of relief and a laugh.

"Well, that's that," he said. "Now I'm off!"⁶

However, even for Bilbo all is not over yet. In the quiet atmosphere of Rivendell he finds peace, but he never truly recovers from having possessed the Ring for so long. He still has an attachment to it. When Frodo meets him again at Rivendell, he asks to see it; and again the desire for it comes upon him:

Bilbo put out his hand. But Frodo quickly drew back the Ring. To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eying a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him.

The music and singing round them seemed to falter, and a silence fell. Bilbo looked quickly at Frodo's face and passed his hand across his eyes. "I understand now," he said. "Put it away!"

Now that Bilbo has given up the Ring and its hold is not so strong on him, he can recognize the damage that it does and renounce it, lest it do him more harm. Even so, till the end, there remains in him a fondness for it, perhaps allied with the fact that he never associated it with wrong. As Gandalf said, Bilbo did not kill Gollum to get the Ring. "Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."⁷

In Frodo's case, the ownership of the Ring is even more dangerous. For him it is not merely a case of giving it up, which is hard enough, as we have seen. Instead, he must carry it to be destroyed, although it can destroy him. Indeed, no mortal creature can resist the power of the Ring in the long run. Yet Frodo, unlike anyone else who possessed the Ring, has taken it, not for any selfish reason, but to help others. Nor is he going to use it for anything, as even Bilbo did. He must take the Ring to the fires of Mount Doom to be destroyed, and he must do so in order to save the things he loves, especially the Shire. This is indeed an errand of renunciation and of love. His will is not set on the Ring, although it begins to possess him more the longer he carries it. Indeed, at the very beginning, when he has owned it for many years but never used it, he is already attached to it. Although he knows of its danger, he cannot bring himself to harm it.

"But why not destroy it, as you say should have been done long ago? " cried Frodo again. "If you had warned me, or even sent me a message, I would have done away with it."

"Would you? How would you do that? Have you ever tried?"

"No. But I suppose one could hammer it or melt it."

"Try!" said Gandalf. "Try now!"

Frodo drew the Ring out of his pocket again and looked at it. It now appeared plain and smooth, without mark or device that he could see. The gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was its colour, how perfect was its roundness. It was an admirable thing and altogether precious. When he took it out he had intended to fling it from him into the very hottest part of the fire. But he found now that he could not do so, not without a great struggle. He weighed the Ring in his hand, hesitating, and forcing himself to remember all that Gandalf had told him; and then with an effort of will he made a movement, as if to cast it away–but he found that he had put it back it his pocket.⁸

As we see, the beauty and the apparent perfection of the Ring is very seductive. It plays upon his desires, so that he cannot bear to hurt it although he knows it should be destroyed. The Ring is the ideal possession: whatever a man desires, the Ring seems to promise. For Bilbo, it was a toy and a convenient tool. For Frodo, it is a thing of beauty; but the more he carries it, the more it forces itself upon him. In Lothlorien, after he has decided to take the Ring to Mount Doom, he meets the Lady Galadriel, who also bears a ring, although it is not evil. Because of it, her powers are great, and she can read the minds of others. He begins to wonder whether he, too, could gain that kind of power since he carries the One Ring. But Galadriel warns him of its danger:

Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.⁹

In spite of this warning, Frodo cannot prevent the Ring from gaining power over him. Even as far off from Mordor as Amon Hen, he nearly loses the struggle when he puts on the Ring to escape from Boromir and sees the Eye of Sauron looking for him.

He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off. Fool, take it offl Take off the Ring!

The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his finger.¹⁰

Here, Frodo's will is still strong enough to resist the hold that the Ring has upon his passions. Indeed, it seems almost as if there are two wills within him: one that seeks after the Ring and the other that does what his mind tells him is right. The longer he possesses the Ring, the stronger the first will becomes. In Mordor, the land of Sauron, it becomes much stronger, for evil is strong in that land. The Ring begins to overpower him, until every waking moment is spent in an internal argument. The Ring becomes a physical weight; from a possession it has nearly become a master over Frodo.

Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master's left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn.¹¹

The closer Frodo comes to the moment of renunciation, the more the Ring gains power over him. Now his will is barely strong enough to prevent him from claiming the Ring and using it. What will become of him when he has to destroy it? The answer is, of course, that he is not strong enough. For ultimately, if one takes up the weight of corrupted possessions, of which the Ring is the greatest example, the human will alone is not strong enough to reject them without help. In Frodo's case, since he took up the burden of the Ring only in the spirit of charity and selflessness, he does receive help. Some might call it providence; but certainly it is not chance which saves Frodo at the last moment when he tries and fails to destroy the Ring.

Then Frodo stirred and spoke with a clear voice, indeed with a voice clearer and more powerful than Sam had ever heard him use, and it rose above the throb and turmoil of Mount Doom, ringing in the roof and walls.

"I have come," he said. "But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!" and suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from Sam's sight.

Of course, in the irony of providence, what saves Frodo from ultimately being possessed by the Ring in this way is Gollum, the wizened, hobbit-like creature who had owned the Ring for many years before. Gollum is probably the most terrible example of what can happen to one who is utterly self-centered and cannot give up anything that he desires. Unlike Bilbo and Frodo, he began his possession of the Ring by a crime: he murdered the friend who had found the Ring and would not give it to him. Although he did not realize any more of its power beside the fact that it made him invisible, he used it often for the hurtful things that he liked to do.

He was very pleased with his discovery and he concealed it; and he used it to find out secrets, and he put his knowledge to crooked and malicious uses. He became sharp-eyed and keen-eared for all that was hurtful. The ring had given him power according to his stature.¹²

Slowly the Ring consumed Gollum, until he was little more than a shadow of his former self, always small-minded and caring for nothing but himself. And, since the Ring gave power according to his stature, he did not aspire for anything great or even partly noble, as Boromir did. All he wanted was to live in darkness, alone except for his "precious," with fish to eat. It led him to a miserable existence, in which he hated the Ring and everything about him. Indeed, from loving that which he possessed, he came to hate it when it began to possess him; but he could not renounce it now, for he had already given himself up to it. "He hated and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter."¹³ Such was Gollum's life when the Ring left him and was picked up by Bilbo. He had possessed the Ring far too long to desert it then, even when it had deserted him. Instead, he set out to look for it, and thus much later his path crossed Frodo's. There are moments when we realize that in spite of his utter enslavement to the Ring, there is still something good in Gollum, although it is hardly strong enough to survive. At any rate, for a while he obeys Frodo and even seems to care for him a little. But the Ring again takes hold of him. Now that he knows some of its power and importance, he begins to dream of what he could become if only he had the Ring again:

"See, my precious: if we has it, then we can escape, even from Him, eh? Perhaps we grows very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Smeagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the Sea. Most Precious Gollum! Must have it. We wants it, we wants it, we wants it!"

This is indeed almost the lowest level to which any rational creature can fall. Although for a time Gollum had seemed to rise a little higher, the Ring's power over him would never allow him to be free. He could not even think of giving up the Ring, and when he knew that Frodo intended to destroy the Ring he decided to intercept him: it is doubtful whether he could have lived any more if it had been destroyed. "And when Precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust."¹⁴ Of course, Frodo does not destroy the Ring, but claims it for his own: and Gollum cannot bear this. Instead, he rushes forward to take it away:

Suddenly Sam saw Gollum's long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white fangs gleamed, and then snapped as they bit. Frodo gave a cry, and there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.

"Precious, precious, precious!" Gollum cried. "My Precious! O my Precious!" And with that even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail precious, and he was gone.

Thus indeed he died in the only way that he could have died: destroyed with the precious possession that he was unable to give up. Yet, by the mercy of providence, it was his unredeemable greed that saved Frodo from a similar fate. Certainly Frodo failed to renounce the Ring, and was only saved by something outside himself; but he learned the hard lesson of renunciation through that months-long struggle with the Ring. It is because of this, because he had taken up the Ring in renunciation, that he can so easily return to the good will which had only been submerged for a while, not yet entirely destroyed.

And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will, nor madness, nor any fear. His burden was taken away.¹⁵

Thus, at the end of the story, Frodo and Bilbo, the two Ringbearers, can leave Middle-Earth and their homes to sail away from the Grey Havens. For the lesson of renunciation does not merely apply to the Ring. There is time for those who have held even the happiness of ordinary life, to give it up to those who follow them. As Frodo tells Sam when he leaves: "It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."¹⁶ This applies not only to Sam and Bilbo, but to all those who go with them: Gandalf the Grey, and the elves Elrond and Galadriel. For these were powerful figures in Middle Earth, and they bore the three Elven-Rings of Power. But their time, too, was past, and they had to leave Middle Earth to those who would inherit it after them: the children of Men. The parting was bittersweet, for although it was hard for them to leave, they knew that they would find joy and peace in Tol Eressea, the Undying Lands. Perhaps the song of Legolas the elf illustrates most eloquently both the sorrows and the joys of renunciation:

 

Miss Maria Stromberg, herself once a pupil of the Dominican Sisters at Post Falls, recently graduated from St. Thomas More College and is now teaching at St. Dominic's School at Post Falls, Idaho. The painting on p.27 is Honore Daumier's We Want Barabbas (c. 1850-70).

 

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¹ Jn. 3:30

² J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Chap.l, "A Long-Expected Party."

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid., Chap. 2, "The Shadow of the Past."

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid., Chap. 7, "The Mirror of Galadriel."

¹⁰ Ibid. Chap. 10, "The Breaking of the Fellowship."

¹¹ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Bk.VI, Chap. 3, "Mount Doom."

¹² Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Chap. 2, "The Shadow of the Past."

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Tolkien, The Return of the King, Bk.VI, Chap. 3, "Mount Doom."

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid. Bk.VI, Chap. 9, "The Grey Havens."

¹⁷ Ibid. Bk.VI, Chap. 4, "The Field of Cormallen."