In the Shire, a vivacious yet sleepy land dedicated to the arts of ale, pipe smoking, gardening, and over-eating we see the antithesis of Mordor, the Land of Shadow. It is a green, gentle land of peaceful simplicity that harbours a state of blissful ignorance amongst its hole-dwelling inhabitants. From a Jungian perspective, the Shire and the lifestyle of the typical hobbit represents a superficial, sheltered, and ultimately delusory existence. Hobbits wear a pleasant but dangerous mask as a protective buffer between their false perception and the reality of existence. Only two things have protected the Shire from the harsh cruelties of Middle Earth so far:
i. The unseen Heroes, the Dunedain, who thanklessly patrol their borders.
ii. The fact that not many places of civilisation in Middle Earth could be geographically further away from Sauron’s hellish and poisonous land. This has a figurative element, with the Shire’s ‘persona’ being placed as a polar opposite to Mordor’s Shadow.
To the hobbits of the Shire, Mordor is “a shadow on the borders
of old stories”. It is a vague and distant nightmare of legends,
an ethereal cloak of danger used to frighten children in
fireside tales. The reality of the existence of darkness and
Shadow is brushed aside because their limited and temporal world
view offers no evidence of it. “There’s only one Dragon in
Bywater” speaks Ted Sandyman, who is portrayed as one of the
more close-minded hobbits, “and that’s Green”. Keener sighted
hobbits such as Sam remain open minded to mythological elements,
stating “I daresay there’s more truth in some of them than you
reckon”.
With such a statement, Sam is acting as a direct mouthpiece for
Tolkien, who like Jung saw a greater truth within myth and
faery. Tolkien determined that through such things “strange
powers of the mind may be unlocked” and that they express “
certain primordial human desires”. Also of interesting
comparison is Tolkien’s idea of a ‘Cauldron of Story’ which
somewhat reflects Jung’s ideas of the Collective Unconscious;
the source of the universal similarities and psychic truths of
world mythology.
It is Gandalf, as the ‘Wise Old Man’ figure that brings
Awareness to those with the potential for wakefulness in the
Shire. The Wise Old Man, or Senex, serves as the Initiator. He
is the psychic archetype that moves one forward, providing
information and knowledgeable advice to move one forward to whom
one might become. In ‘The Hobbit’ he sees Bilbo Baggins as a
potential hero, and the recurring mythological theme of the
journey, the descent into the dark caves of the unconscious to
face a dread monster, and the subsequent return with a prize of
great value are fulfilled through his tale. In Frodo, Gandalf
spots the same potential. He is of similar character to Bilbo
for a start, but what mostly marks him as different from his
fellow hobbits is his desire to leave the boundaries of the
known and explore the world beyond the borders of the Shire.
However, due to the obstacles placed by his Shadow, Saruman,
whose greed and rashness represent the temptations and potential
failures Gandalf himself faces, the agents of Mordor reach the
Shire before Frodo leaves. This breach of the Shadow in the form
of the Nazgul into the faux haven of the Shire acts as an
accelerant in the urgency of the quest to neutralise Sauron. The
Nazgul represent the ultimate loss of Self. They are faceless
and soulless slaves of the Shadow, existing for no further
purpose than fulfilling its destructive will.
In terms of the psyche, the Shadow simply represents that which
we cannot know in everyday consciousness, and largely includes
our most negative, repressed, destructive desires. That which we
dare not face within our own psyche serves to feed the
negativity of the Shadow. The Shadow then leaks through into our
ego and ‘possesses’ us. We are impulsive, emotional,
destructive, hurtful, and angry when in the grasp of the Shadow.
We project all that we secretly despise of ourselves onto others
and then hate them for resembling the truth of the unseen,
uncontrolled elements of our own psyches.
Sauron himself is the Shadow of the entire Collective
Unconscious of Middle Earth. He is a living archetype of the
darkest desires of the free people of Middle Earth. He is wholly
representative of what happens when the Shadow possesses the
Ego. He dwells in his own self-constructed domain, ‘The Land of
Shadow’, in which thousands of Orcs, themselves the embodiment
of the Shadow of the Elves are subservient to his desires. No
longer is the Shadow a hidden and unmarked force in the psyche
in the form of Sauron; he is the result of an ego totally
corrupted by the Shadow, serving as a model of what happens if
you fail to realise the power that it can have over you if you
fail to appease it. His very existence is therefore due to an
intrinsic imbalance in a Collective Unconscious that includes
the static and distant elves and chaotic men.
Sauron's own Shadow dominated him after his seduction by Melkor,
the first Dark Lord, and has not loosened its grip since. Like
the Shadow in man’s psyche Sauron seeks to dominate and control
the conscious realm, possessing all for his own and laying waste
to all that opposes it. Defeat by, or failure to realise and
counter the Shadow results in the same loss of Self represented
in the (lack of) character of the Nazgul.
For the Self to be realised and attained the Shadow must be kept
in full check and restrained, for it is a vital barrier to
overcome in the quest for Selfhood. This quest is represented in
mythology by the identification of the Self as a Hero who seeks
to win a treasure from the guardianship of a wholly corrupted
monster. Very often, magical weapons are at the disposal of the
hero, which symbolise a sharpness of Will combined with the use
of the tools of heredity, culture, magic, and technology one has
at their disposal.
The One Ring
The One Ring is a Microcosmic representation of Sauron, the
orchestrator of evil and the embodiment of the Shadow of the
Collective Unconscious of Middle Earth. Everything that Sauron
stands for, the Ring stands for. Its most apparent effect is the
ability to turn its wearer invisible, but eventually the
invisibility becomes permanent and the Ringbearers essence is
negated as he passes into the world of Shadows, becoming a
wraith subservient to the power of Sauron with no individual
will.
Like Sauron’s purpose, the purpose of the Ring is the
destruction of the Self and the victory of the unadulterated
Shadow. As mentioned previously the effect that the Shadow has
upon our behaviour includes impulsive, destructive, hurtful, and
angry emotions, and these are the precise kind of behaviours
that the Ring materialises in those in its proximity. It largely
inspires mistrust, possessiveness, and dependence in its bearer,
and avarice and violence in those who come into its presence.
The Ring finds a weakness in the emotional makeup of its target,
and breaches that weakness in order for the Shadow to take
possession of the Ego complex. The honourable and valiant
Boromir for instance, succumbs more easily to the pull of the
Shadow than his brother Faramir due to the desperation and zeal
that mark his psyche concerning the defence of his homeland
Gondor. As heir to the Stewardship, favourite son, and national
hero, the target emotions are ones that the Shadow clearly finds
easy to manipulate because of their sheer magnitude in the Ego
of Boromir. More pressure has been put onto him to find victory
for his people, whereas his brother Faramir, who rejects the
Ring, faces less external pressure than Boromir, remaining of a
lesser profile and relegated to lesser significance by his
father. Faramir therefore is a more difficult target for the
Ring due to a more strongly developed, less zealous, and less
politicised sense of Self.
The Ring is an incomplete entity that seeks its own unity. Its
unity would be fulfilled by it finding its way back to the hand
of its master, and to do this it needs to manipulate what it
finds of its master in the hearts of men. We know that anyone
who comes into possession of the Ring through an act of evil,
such as Isildur or Gollum, is doomed because their Shadow has
become inexorably tangled with that of the Greater Shadow that
lies within the Ring. Thus the Shadow of man is as much a part
of the Collective Shadow as Sauron himself is. All evil in
Middle Earth is consistently interconnected to a single source.
In the Lord of the Rings this source is personified as Sauron
and his Ring, which in turn are both products of the Shadow that
Melkor laid on the whole of the realm of Arda.
Moria
"That dark fire will not avail you,
Flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow!"
Throughout Mythology the descent of the Hero into the
Underworld is synonymous with the directing of the
conscious Will into the depths of the Unconscious. The
Underworld is a drastically perilous realm, and those
who venture there are frequently unable to leave of
their own volition, requiring the aid of a greater hero
or god to rescue them from heir plight. Inanna for
instance, calls upon Enki to rescue her from Ereshkigal
in Mesopotamian myth, and Zeus bargains with Hades for
the release of Persephone in Greek legend as does Hermod
with Hel for the release of Baldur in the Nordic Sagas.
Arthur and his men delve into
Annwn, ‘the very deepest level’, in their attempt to
rescue the imprisoned Gweir in The Spoils of Annwn, and
even Heracles relies upon the aid of Hermes and Athena
in his descent and escape from the underworld in his
final labour of capturing Cerberus, the guardian of the
Underworld (a task that was only possible after first
becoming Initiated into the esoteric
Eleusinian Mysteries).
The Unconscious, whether Individual or Collective,
communicates with us in symbolic form through dreams and
mythology for a reason – most Egos are not capable of
facing the truth, reality, and pain that the unconscious
reveals to them. Sigmund Freud named the agent of this
protective, veiled means of communication the 'Censor',
and that term suitably summarises the exact purpose of
symbolic communication – to censor the Ego from the harm
that comes with exposure to ones deepest truths.
Mythology warns us that the Underworld is not a place
for the unprepared, and that going there whilst
unequipped or inexperienced could have a dire effect
upon the Ego. The descent into the underworld represents
the symbolic death of the Ego, or more specifically, the
parts of the Ego that are required for sacrifice for a
greater renewal of Self to occur. This death/rebirth
symbolism is again universal to world mythology, be it
in the form of
Odhinn’s
sacrifice to himself on Yggdrasil,
Lleu’s death and transformation at the hands of
Gronw and Gwydion in the Mabinogion, or the rebirth of
Mithras from his cavernous tomb.
These myths are clearly reflected in the plight of
Gandalf in Moria. To cite Tolkien’s Catholicism as a
reason for Gandalf’s death and resurrection being a
direct parallel to the death and resurrection of
Christ is
insufficient. The influence of heathen mythological
archetypes in The Lord of the Rings is far more
pervasive than any allegory to the Christian mythos,
which largely served a moral rather than symbolic
inspiration to the author. Being a staunch opponent to
the literary use of allegory, Tolkien did not wish
Gandalf to symbolise Christ in the same unsophisticated
manner that his chum C. S. Lewis did so with Aslan in
The Chronicles of Narnia.
Moria in itself however is not representative of the
Underworld. It is more akin to the realm of
Svartálfheimr in the cosmology of Northern Myths, a
liminal realm between Midgardhr (Ego), and Hel
(Unconscious). Moria and Svartálfheimr are both
subterranean realms that symbolise a psychic functioning
that is below conscious thought, yet not so low as to be
regarded as unconsciousness. Both realms are (or were)
inhabited by the Dwarves, who as shapers, creators, and
forgers are representative of the emotive level of
consciousness. This is outwardly expressed through the
volatility, pride, ferociousness, and loyalty – all
highly emotive traits – of Gimli’s character, and also
of the powerful emotions of fear and loss that the realm
of Moria generates in the Fellowship. That Moria has
been entirely overrun with Orcs signifies the possession
and dominance of the emotional realm by the Shadow.
The Balrog, a creature that has broken free from the
depths of the earth, acts as the agent of the
Unconscious that has ascended from its deepest dungeon
lair into the liminal realm of Moria. Gandalf faces it,
and removes its threat to the quest, but himself
descends with it to the pits deep below the earth. This
self-sacrifice initiates his own descent into
Underworld. From there he fights with the Balrog from
the darkest depths of Middle Earth up to the highest
peak, Zirak Zigil. After coaxing the Balrog away from
the deepest levels and up to the highest part of the
world, he is eventually victorious, defeating the
monstrous manifestation of the Shadow. The fight claims
his life, but his subsequent rebirth sees the flaws of
his Ego - his procrastination, his irritability, and his
eccentric vagueness - negated, and his return to the
quest as a more potent and virile force.
Whether Gandalf's rebirth is due to the strength of his
own Being, as is the case with Ódhinn, or whether it is
reliant on higher powers than his own, as we see in most
other mythological examples of returning from death, can
only be speculated at. Considering the archetypal
similarities between the Grey Pilgrim and Ódhinn the
Wanderer it doesn't seem too out of place to suggest
that like Ódhinn, he overcomes death without the aid of
another. We also know that the Maia, Gandalf's class of
spiritual entity, can overcome physical death on their
own accord, as Sauron, who is also a Maia, did so on at
least three occasions in the tales of Middle Earth.
The Shadow as the Alter-Ego
The Shadow is a mythological name for all that is within
the psyche that we cannot know. Once some kind of
attempt is made to realise the Shadow it may take an
anthropomorphicised form in our dreams as a character of
similar sex and race – an alter-ego. In The Lord of the
Rings the most striking examples of alter-egos can be
seen in the relationships between Gandalf and Saruman,
and Frodo and Gollum.
Gandalf and Saruman are both Istari of profoundly
similar appearance – ‘Like and yet unlike’ remarks Gimli
– and both have also failed in their task of countering
the threat of Sauron through their various attachments
to fleshly existence. Gandalf’s guise as the Grey
Pilgrim was not dynamic and responsive enough due to his
lack of true direction, whereas Saruman falls to his
greed for power, becoming corrupted by the very thought
of the One Ring. Upon being reborn as Gandalf the White,
Mithrandir becomes as Saruman should have become.
‘Indeed I am Saruman’ he proclaims, ‘one might also say,
Saruman as he should have been’.
The identity of ‘the White’ is a conceptual entity
rather than a persona. It is the state of unstained
purpose in the chief ambassador of Valinor in Middle
Earth. Gandalf’s initial guise of ‘the Grey’ represents
an imperfect manifestation of the White – a state of
potential White that is stained. Saruman has
transgressed this state by falling into the clutches of
the Shadow, becoming Saruman of many colours and of
none, and is banished from the order of Istari and the
White Council by Gandalf, who breaks his staff and
renders him (mostly) impotent. In stripping his alter
ego of its power he symbolically defeats his own past
and potential failures, which are all personified in
Saruman.
The relationship of Frodo and Gollum is almost a perfect
Archetypal model for the Shadow in literature. Gollum is
Frodo’s Shadow incarnate, representing exactly what
Frodo would himself eventually become should he be
overwhelmed by the Ring and claims it as his own. Like
Frodo, Gollum is a male Hobbit, but is one that has
spent the majority of his long life living in the dark
caves under the Misty Mountains, rather than under the
pleasant and pastoral Bagshot Row.
Gollum's connection to the Shadow is such that he even
ventured into the Land of Shadow itself – Mordor, being
grotesquely drawn to those lands by the Shadow of the
Ring. In Mordor he was captured and faced eight years of
torture there at the hands of the Orcs. After those
years of torture failed to extract the information about
the location of the Ring from him, Gollum is brought
before Sauron. After mere moments in his presence Gollum
reveals as precise a location as he can of Baggins,
and at his revelation the Nine Riders begin their
journey to the Shadow. Gollum is then unleashed from
Mordor, being allowed to believe that he is escaping, as
Sauron knows that he is bound to find the Ring. As such
he is an agent, if an unwitting one, of the
personification of the Shadow itself.
Like the Shadow that manifests in our dreams, Gollum
begins as a figure that follows its subject, who is
unaware he is being followed, first noticing so when a
pair of lamp-like eyes glow in the dark of Moria. Frodo
eventually becomes increasingly aware of his Shadow,
catching further glimpses between the trees of
Lothlorien and the currents of the Great River.
Eventually he decides he will have to confront him, and
so lays in wait to capture him. Once he has Gollum face
to face the reality of his existence cannot be ignored
and their fates become inexorably entwined. Like the
Shadow, Gollum becomes Frodo’s guide, leading him into
the danger of Mordor while never ceasing to be an
underlying threat to the quest. This is a fact that is
never overlooked by Sam who, being an ‘outsider’ in the
situation between Frodo and Gollum has the objective
perspective, and as is always the case between the Hero
and the Shadow, there is undying enmity between them.
The relationship between Frodo and Gollum progresses to
one of understanding, and eventually becomes a more
relaxed ‘master and servant’ partnership. Once this
resolution begins, Gollum’s original ego Sméagol begins
to surface. Sméagol is the remnant of his pre-Ring
Hobbit identity that only realises it still exists when
it comes into contact with Frodo, Gollum’s other
alter-ego. However, the strength of the Ring’s effect is
far too powerful for Sméagol to become prevalent, and
because of the strength of the effect of the One Ring,
Gollum wins the battle of ego control. Indeed the One
Ring is a power that is too great for any force on
Middle Earth to counter or destroy, and it is only
through its own actions that it becomes destroyed at
all.
The Feminine
Tolkien’s critics often single out the lack of feminine
presence in the Lord of the Rings as one of its
fundamental weaknesses. On reflection, in comparison
with feminine current evident in the fairy tales of the
Brothers Grimm, as well as the Norse, Celtic, and
Finnish mythologies that inspired Tolkien so heavily,
this criticism can be justified.
Middle Earth is an irrefutably male domain. Feminine
presence is either ethereal and untouchable as seen in
the characters of the Elf Queen Galadriel, and the
invisible Valar Elbereth when she is called upon, or
portrayed as something of utter terror, as seen in the
giant Spider Shelob. A Freudian analyst might remark
that these are the expressions of a man who lives in
fear of sex, whilst a Jungian may comment that there was
an issue with the author’s acceptance of his own female
qualities. Both may agree that these could be symptoms
of latent homosexuality, and would draw extensively on
the relationship of Sam and Frodo as evidence of such
impulses.
Debating Tolkien’s sexuality is rather fruitless and can
only produce speculation. When one considers the depth
of love between male and female in the long story of
Arwen and Aragorn and the parallel tale of Beren and
Luthien in The Silmarillion one may be closer to
reaching a more accurate (or at least more overt)
reflection on the author’s love life. The fact that the
graves of Tolkien and his wife Edith (to whom he was
married for sixty years) are marked ‘Beren’ and
‘Luthien’ appear to be evidential that the tale of Beren
and Luthien was written as an expression of his passion
for his wife.
The reasons for the masculine dominance of Tolkien's
work is possibly grounded in the realities of the First
World War which so heavily shaped his mythos. The
trenches of the Somme were a horror filled world in
which the presence of women were but a pleasant and far
away memory. The horrors of such a world were markedly
masculine in nature, and so in portraying a war torn
world that struggles through bloody battle and violent
heroism, the lack of feminine presence adds to the
one-sided nature of the Shadow in the Lord of the Rings.
The World created by the struggles against Melkor and
Sauron has become overwhelmingly masculine in order to
ensure its survival.
The character of Eowyn appears to bear the largest torch
for ladykind in The Lord of the Rings. On being told to
remain at Dunharrow and lead her exiled people she
becomes infuriated at being left out of the ride to
Gondor on grounds of her sex alone. In order to defy the
rules of foolish patriarchy she follows the suit of
Portia in The Merchant of Venice, The Brontë sisters,
and the women at the stoning in Monty Python’s Life of
Brian, and disguises herself as a man to prove she is as
capable, if not more capable than any man at the task
she turns her hand to.
Indeed she plays one of the more important parts in the
Battle of the Pelennor Fields by slaying the dread
Witchking of Angmar, a task it would seem no man, no
matter how great would have achieved that day.
“Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!" speaks the
Witchking to Eowyn.
"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn"
she replies before slaying him.
The Witchking became the victim of the curse of Sauron’s
arrogance. In the destructive, masculine world of his
creation, the biggest peril to his dread general comes
from where it was unlooked for – a woman. This arrogance
is no different from the same blindness that leads to
Sauron's downfall, in not considering that anyone could
ever plan to destroy the ring rather than use it against
him. This shows a lack of the intuition and general
common sense that the Anima's guiding role provides.
The side in touch with the positive force of its hidden
feminine is the side of the victors. Frodo’s survival of
Cirith Ungol was only possible by the gifts and guidance
of the Anima figure of Galadriel. The starlight of
Eärendil she supplies him with in Lothlorien proves
vital in the struggle against the deadly lure of the
negative Anima of Shelob with her black, fetid,
web-filled tunnels. Sauron assumes nothing outside the
realms of his own reckoning is possible. This is the
blindness and foolishness of the male without the
guidance of deeper insight and intuition – The Anima in
the form of Sophia.
