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MODES OF THE HEROIC
THE HUMBLE HERO
Tolkien addresses an existential question which has gained
uncanny relevance with the emerging technologies of the 20th century.
Does the mere ability to do something also justify doing it? Does Frankenstein's
ability to replicate "life" make the creation of the monster a moral thing
to do? Does wielding the power of the Ring to destroy Sauron make it essentially
less evil or corruptive? The weight given by Tolkien to this distinction
implies the wider scope of the question above. Acting for Good means understanding
and consciously rejecting Evil; it means altruism and it sometimes means
jeopardising oneself, and the motivation for doing so will always be beyond
the comprehension of evil and corrupted minds. Indeed, the very loss of those
motives is at the heart of their corruption. The fact that the Quest is based
on the recognition of corruptibility and the renunciation of (unbridled)
power is exactly why Sauron, for all his wisdom and cunning, could not have
foreseen his greatest threat. It is a Quest of humility. Frodo may not be
as wise as Gandalf, as fierce in battle as Boromir, as great a leader as
Aragorn, but his heroism lies in the sustained choice of good over evil,
(unbending resistance and self-sacrifice regardless of the odds) - a choice
which is repeated with every hardship of the Quest until his entire being
is spent in the struggle against the Ring. He did not take up the Ring in
personal greed like Gollum, nor to gain power like Boromir would have, nor
as a trophy, an emblem of strength, like Isildur did. Frodo accepted it with
humility, resolved to renounce it, and this is a crucial difference.
Another approach to Frodo as hero is by juxtaposing him
with the heroic patterns laid out in the monomyth. The theory of the monomyth,
as proposed by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
is based on comparative studies of hero figures across the world. The monomyth
should be regarded as a synthesis of recurrent motifs in heroic quests of
varying mythological traditions. We enter the story at a stage when order
has been disturbed and the equilibrium of earlier times must be re-established.
In terms of genre, a challenge must typically be overcome, or some dire threat
looms over the land. The structure dictates that elements of chaos must be
dissolved or unified in order to regain a state of balance. Joseph Campbell
outlines the basic formula (separation - initiation - return) thus: "A hero
ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural
wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won:
the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow
boons on his fellow man"41
.
Contained within these stories is of course the medieval
formula of the Quest narrative. In brief: a hero goes far and wide through
great peril, achieves his goal and brings back with him the fruits of victory
for the good of society or humanity. Often the journey entails a passage
into an other-world in which the hero represents order amid chaos, virtue
vs. vice, in short the culture of Man vs. untamed natural (or preternatural)
forces. Incidentally, that particular motif is also closely related with
the stages of initiation in ancient shamanic tradition. Although Tolkien’s
epic tales are undoubtedly coloured by medieval sentiment and form, they
are crafted on a unique level of complexity. The traits adopted from this
generic tradition have been thoroughly explored by W.H. Auden in his essay
"The Quest Hero". As he points out, the basic notion of the quest can be
extended and elaborated beyond its medieval application and cover more profound
existential processes: "human 'nature' is a nature continually in a quest
for itself, obliged at every moment to transcend what it was a moment before"
42 . Indeed, Tolkien's use
of the Quest motif and its concept of travel sheds important light on the
narrative construct of his fiction. What is particularly interesting, however,
is what he either avoided or completely remodelled in order to transcend
the limitations of the basic Quest.
Frodo's Quest deviates from the generic formula first
and foremost because it is not a mission for power, or retrieval of lost
artefacts, but a hopeless journey toward the destruction of the very artefact
of power. This effectively makes Tolkien's rendition an anti-Quest – a subversion
of traditional patterns which at the same time signifies a complex and essentially
modern view of power. Tom Shippey notes that the popular phrase which has
aptly been applied to LotR, "power tends to corrupt and absolute power
corrupts absolutely" reflects not medieval or mythical ideas of power, but
a distinctly modern view. "This adage was first stated … in 1887 by Lord
Acton" who continued the phrase: "Great men are almost always bad men…"43 . The concept of power
itself as a corruptive force was alien to medieval thought, indeed it only
emerged close to the beginning of the 20th century. The disturbing
acknowledgement of human corruptibility and how power plays a part in this
is found in contemporary authors such as George Orwell and William Golding,
not in Beowulf or the Volsungasaga! Browsing through ancient
views on this, Shippey concludes that "the nearest thing to Lord Acton's
statement in Old English is the proverb 'A man does as he is when he can
do what he wants' and what this means is that power reveals character,
not that it alters it."44
Shippey uses this observation in his compelling revaluation
of Tolkien as an author of the century, "responding to the issues and anxieties"
of his time. Corresponding to the anti-Quest, the character of Frodo, who
faces the combined might of Sauron, the armies of Mordor and the blood-curdling
Black Riders, epitomises the most unlikely hero imaginable: indeed a distinctly
modern anti-hero45 . Again,
Tolkien not only recontextualises his mythic sources, his use attaches entirely
novel implications to the echoes of the ancient, adding new layers of meaning
and depth.
In comparing the traditional Quest with Frodo's anti-quest,
the following discrepancy can hardly be stressed enough. The anti-quest is
not, in fact, completed by the hero, but is achieved indirectly through other
means. After innumerable hardships Frodo arrives at the Mountain of Doom,
the heart of Sauron's evil "where all other powers are subdued". In this
place, at the last moment, Frodo is finally mastered by the Ring. Again,
Tolkien veers from the path of earlier Quests to seek out new ground and
redefine heroic ethos. The question of Frodo's "failure" has always been
open to debate. The fact remains that, physically and mentally drained and
when the Ring was at its strongest, Frodo's will finally collapsed under
its burden. This may or may not constitute failure, depending on one's definition.
Tolkien's reflections on this problem certainly deserve mention:
Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world
he knew from
disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility,
acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real
contract
was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go
as far as his
mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking
of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any
more a
moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been - say,
by being
strangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.46
Indeed, the true reflection on Frodo's character is his
selfless endurance and spiritual growth, implied by his mercy in sparing
Gollum's life. This mercy effectively produces the situation in which Gollum's
later intervention may indirectly (and inadvertently) destroy the Ring. In
order to fully gauge Frodo's predicament, though, one must first seek an
understanding of the nature of Evil and the truth about his burden.
41Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand
Faces, FontanaPress HarperCollins, London, 1993, p. 30 back
42Isaacs & Zimbardo, op.cit. p. 40.
back
43Shippey, J.R.R.Tolkien: Author of the
Century, p. 115 back
44Ibid. p. 115 back
45Which, in relation to his role as mythic
mediator discussed above, lets Frodo mirror the conflict of both medieval
and modern heroism and old and contemporary theories of power. back
46Tolkien, J.R.R., Letters, p. 327 back
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