The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy

by Gregory Bassham

  The Journey Out of the Cave

  The narrative of Western philosophy is a journey-narrative. Considered together, the narratives that form the history of Western thought reflect journey motifs of two general types: a journey directed outwardly into the world, and a journey directed inwardly into the self. The former—the journey with-out—is typified by a series of conflicts often initiated by the introduction of evil in the journey narrative.2 The latter—the journey within—is typified by a series of dramatic encounters either within oneself (an inner psychological battle) or with another character. This encounter is often initiated by a strong emotion or force, such as love, and culminates in a union with the force against which a character struggles.

  One of the most famous journeys in Western thought (long before the movie, Thelma and Louise) is St. Augustine’s. In his autobiography, Confessions, Augustine depicts his early childhood in North Africa, his adulthood spent teaching rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan, and finally his conversion to Christianity and his subsequent rise to the position of Bishop of Hippo. In reading his life story, we also bear witness to his philosophical journey toward a vision of Truth found in the triune image of the Christian God. Augustine’s description of his conversion draws heavily upon Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which appears in Book VII of the Republic. The Allegory of the Cave tells the story of a slave who breaks free from his shackles inside a dark dwelling and makes his way out into an unknown world filled with sunlight and “real” objects. As the slave comes to recognize the world beyond the cave, he denounces his allegiance to shadowy images and affirms eternal Forms, the source and constituents of all that is true and knowable. Plato offers an epistemological account of this experience in the Phaedrus, where he claims that every human soul once lived in communion with the Forms, contemplating the Beautiful and the Good, aware of true being in its supreme and uncorrupted state.

  Following in Plato’s footsteps, Augustine searches to understand goodness and beauty in the world. He begins his journey out of the cave of Pagan Rome by embracing Manichean philosophy, a materialist philosophy of good and evil. After meeting the spiritual guide of the Manichean sect, Faustus, Augustine flirts with astrology and then Academic skepticism, until he finally encounters an allegorized rendering of Christian thought in the preaching of St. Ambrose. Once Ambrose teaches Augustine how to allegorize scripture, Augustine sees himself in the image of God and begins his pilgrimage of faith.

  As we have seen, a journey is a movement from one place to another. But not all journeys are movements in space or through time. Many are spiritual, like St. Augustine’s passage from Manicheanism to Christianity. Others are intellectual, such as the journey of the townspeople in the movie, Pleasantville, who see the beauty of reality once the stifling veil of repressive rules is removed from their lives. Although a journey involves movement—physical, spiritual, intellectual, or philosophical—there is more to a journey than reaching one’s destination. As Bilbo points out, “Not all those who wander are lost” (FR, p. 278). Indeed, movement requires freedom of varying kinds, but the movement away from both one’s physical space and one’s perspective on reality requires one to accept and act upon at least two kinds of freedom: freedom from material belongings (a freedom to uproot and wander), and freedom from conflicting duties.

  In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s journey out of the cave is a journey out of the Shire. He frets over his journey and delays the decision longer than he should. Though he has longed to travel for some time, he confesses that leaving home under these conditions is an “exile” (FR, p. 69). Frodo becomes increasingly burdened by his outward journey as he recalls Bilbo’s admonition that leaving one’s home is dangerous business. The first step Frodo takes outside of his cave occurs when Gandalf recites the history of the Ring and Frodo infers the role he might play in its destruction. A second step occurs when Frodo sells Bilbo’s home and belongings to the Sackville-Bagginses, the relatives he despises (FR, pp. 64–69). A third step occurs when Elrond offers Frodo freedom from the burden of the Ring. “Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought.”

  At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice. “I will take the Ring,” he said, “though I do not know the way.” (FR, p. 303)

  As Frodo and his hobbit companions journey further and further from the comfortable Shire, they forge new self-identities. Though typical hobbits are passive and fearful, Sam, Merry, and Pippin face their fears and confront the horrors of war, engaging in varied forms of battle themselves. They suffer physical and psychological wounds, wounds that with each stage of healing, make them stronger, braver, and more confident. As a result of the wounding and healing process they undergo, they unchain themselves from their natural instincts and hobbit-like desires. Only then does their physical journey become existential. Once this transformation occurs, their self-conceptions become harmonized with their duties, and they fulfill the Nietzschean charge to “become who you are.”

  Though Frodo makes his decision to carry the Ring to Mordor without obvious compulsion, his choice illustrates the limits of human freedom. Not only is freedom tethered to responsibility, it is contingent upon a willingness to choose between two viable options—a choice that is shaped by many historical situations. Frodo is the Ring-bearer in part because his cousin, Bilbo, surreptitiously acquired the Ring from Sméagol (a.k.a. Gollum) and then passed it down to him. He is also the Ring-bearer because the Ring remains in his possession—“the ring chooses the bearer.” Clearly, Frodo’s choice is not a choice for himself; his lack of knowledge regarding the location of the Cracks of Doom compels others to bear his burden along with him. His decision to carry the Ring, however, means that he is not only responsible for destroying the Ring, but he is also responsible for the individuals who help him achieve his Quest. His decision offers freedom for the Ring, not from the Ring. And Frodo’s decision to destroy the Ring creates the Fellowship; it is productive. It simultaneously binds the fellows to Frodo, and it frees them to travel with Frodo on his journey to Mordor. Hence, Frodo’s commitment to carry the Ring is a commitment to create freedom in fellowship.

  The Journey into the Self

  Like philosophical inquiry, Tolkien’s journey motif moves in two directions: it is a movement outside the dark cave of illusion and into the light of knowable reality, and it is a turning away from the facade of the self into the innermost psyche. The journey inward into the psyche presupposes an existential freedom that is itself part of the structure of authentic human existence. The characters’ inward investigations of their own psyches is a journey toward radical freedom—a recognition that life is defined by events without purpose or meaning. Following in Heidegger’s footsteps, philosopher Charles Taylor argues, “My sense of myself is of a being who is growing and becoming. . . . It is also of a being who grows and becomes. I can only know myself through the history of my maturations and regressions, over-comings and defeats.”3

  During the seventeenth century, the journey motif received further elaboration at the hands of the French philosopher, René Descartes. For Descartes, the journey toward Truth—the journey that Plato tethered to the Good, the journey that Augustine believed culminated in a reunion with God—is turned inward toward the contemplation of innate ideas. As a young soldier, Descartes traveled widely, “visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences,”4 and witnessing the carnage of the Thirty Years’ War. In the end, however, he decided that conquering himself was an easier and worthier goal than conquering the world, and he resolved “to undertake studies within myself too and to use all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths I should follow.”5 As we follow Descartes into the depths of the self, we come to know the cogito, the thinking thing, the symbolic essence of the human mind.

  Descartes creates and uses a system o
f methodological doubt to tear down the weak foundation of belief. By doubting all that he formerly believed, Descartes shows that the senses may systematically deceive us. He then draws the further conclusion that because our senses deceive us, knowledge cannot be based upon sensory experience, but rather has to be based on mental processes—processes that lead to the contemplation of ideas. Only when we base our beliefs on immediate experience and innate ideas can we know reality absolutely and with certainty. Like Descartes, the Ring-bearer and his fellows must break free from their assumptions and false beliefs if they wish to be transformed by the journey inward.

  Like so many thinkers who recognize the need to free themselves from existential doubt but lack the willpower to embrace radical freedom, Boromir attains his philosophical transformation and self-knowledge only at death’s door, when he confesses to Aragorn, “‘I tried to take the Ring from Frodo. . . . I am sorry. I have paid. . . . Go to Minas Tirith and save my people! I have failed’” (TT, p. 4). Aragorn replies, “No! . . . You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace!” Burdened by his wish to save his people, Boromir succumbs to his deep desire to use the Ring to destroy enemies of his land. His enslavement to this desire brings about his own demise.

  A key step in the transition from enslavement to freedom is personal transformation. Once we break free from our inner chains, we are free to grow as individuals. For example, Gandalf’s transformation from “Gandalf the Grey” to “Gandalf the White” begins in the bowels of Moria while battling a Balrog. When he reappears in The Two Towers, he represents a new beginning, the dawning of a new day. And as Aragorn assures Gamling, “dawn is ever the hope of men” (TT, p. 152). Other characters that achieve personal transformation include Aragorn, who began the journey as “Strider” and in the end is crowned “King Elessar,” and Sam Gamgee who becomes “Master Samwise.”6 But other characters never accomplish this existential feat. For instance, though he pretends to be a devoted disciple of Frodo, Sméagol secretly plans to take the Ring from him, with the help of the hideous spider-like creature, Shelob.

  Tolkien suggests that Sam and Frodo’s physical journey may have been mapped out for them by the circumstances of time and history. But he also suggests that their existential journey—their choices to either affirm or deny each element of the journey—is a matter of their own choosing. By choosing to affirm the journey—choosing to become a Nietzschean Yea-sayer—they choose to affirm even life’s “strangest and sternest problems, the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility. . . .”7 Like the Yea-sayer, Sam and Frodo overcome their history and what they take to be their nature. Then and only then do they fulfill their quest and achieve existential freedom.

  Unlike the hobbits, Sméagol and Saruman are Nay-sayers, lamenting their own failures, licking their wounds, and wallowing in self-pity. Sméagol remains enslaved by the Ring even when it is out of his possession, pitying himself for his lack of food, lack of rest, and lack of trustworthiness. Saruman refuses to accept the mercy of Gandalf and company, stating, “Pray, do not smile at me! I prefer your frowns” (RK, p. 283), to which Gandalf replies, “alas for Saruman! I fear nothing more can be made of him. He has withered altogether” (RK, p. 285). Both Sméagol and Saruman live inauthentic lives, lives committed only to the past and present, refusing to acknowledge future possibilities, or to recognize what Heidegger calls one’s “potentiality-for-Being.” Inauthentic characters define themselves only in terms of their pasts, refusing to be free from “the idols we all have and to which we are wont to go cringing.”8 Despite being burdened by the struggle against nature and history, Tolkien’s little hobbits, Sam and Frodo, set their own course as they journey toward self-knowledge and authentic living.

  Though most journey narratives adopt either the outward or inward model of journey narratives, The Lord of the Rings utilizes both. As John Dunne remarks, Tolkien’s saga is “a great journey, but it’s a conflict, a war, between good and evil; it’s both of those at the same time.”9 By drawing out the philosophical implications of the outward and inward journeys within The Lord of the Rings, we not only connect the past to the present historically, we confront and affirm the past existentially—we find ourselves in Tolkien’s story. By confronting both the historical and existential facets of human experience, we begin to understand something new about our tasks as contemporary philosophers—the task to gaze into the fragmented abyss of postmodern culture and find meaning and value therein.10

  Pilgrims and Guides

  Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes the journey of Frodo and his fellows not as a heroic escapade, but as a “Quest.” Like most quests with great or exalted purposes, the hobbits’ journey is unexpected and undesired. It begins in the familiar Shire and moves quickly to lands unknown to them. Like Monkey’s journey to India in search of sacred Buddhist scrolls in the Chinese epic, Journey to the West, Sam and Frodo’s journey occurs primarily on foot, takes place over several months, and involves a series of clashes and battles. It also unfolds in stages. When Frodo first learns of his journey, Gandalf says to him, “It may be your task to find the Cracks of Doom; but that quest may be for others: I do not know. At any rate you are not ready for that long road yet” (FR, p. 73).

  Sam and Frodo appear to be typical pilgrims—a little mad, weak-willed, and very reluctant to endanger themselves or their fellow travelers. For instance, as Frodo considers the journey before him, he says to Gandalf,

  Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me. . . . But I feel very small, and very uprooted, and well—desperate. The Enemy is so strong and terrible. (FR, p. 69)

  These friends need guides in part because they are weak-willed. Tolkien’s description of Frodo and Sam is analogous to the medieval pilgrim, Dante, and the fear he experiences as he makes his way through hell with his guide, Virgil. As Dante’s trepidation begins to overcome him at various points in the Inferno, he faints, incapable of facing the reality before him. Likewise, Frodo struggles against the increasing weight of the Ring, his own self-doubt, and his deep weariness. Historically, philosophers have received aid in their intellectual struggles by teachers and guides. For example, Plato burned his tragedies when he met Socrates. Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy and became a teacher in his own right. St. Augustine received spiritual guidance from St. Ambrose. Aquinas studied under Albert the Great. Kant relied upon Hume to “wake him from his dogmatic slumbers.” And Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, and Hans-Georg Gadamer contributed to the burgeoning field of existentialism after studying with Martin Heidegger, who himself was deeply indebted to Edmund Husserl.

  What would a journey be without a guide (or two)? Tolkien’s mythical guide, the one who finds freedom in wandering, is Gandalf. Though Gandalf is often called away from Sam and Frodo to aid in the war effort, he never abandons his hobbit friends, assisting them in both word and deed. Gandalf arranges for Aragorn to serve as a guide to the hobbits. Later, thanks to Gandalf’s wise counsel that “Sméagol may yet have “some part to play” (FR, p. 65), Gollum serves as Sam and Frodo’s last guide in their almost hopeless Quest to destroy the One Ring.

  Pilgrims are different from heroes in the classical sense of the term. According to both ancient mythology and modern epics, heroes are courageous, large in stature, often of divine ancestry or noble birth, sometimes magical, athletic, intelligent, adept at specific skills, and knowledgeable of the arts (often they play musical instruments). Classic Greek examples include Theseus, who with the help of his beloved Ariadne slays the Minotaur who guards the labyrinth in Knossos, and Odysseus, who Homer represents as the noblest and most respected hero for his courage, cunning, and eloquence.

  Unlike these heroes, Sam and Frodo experience constant fear and dread; their journey is overshadowed by despair. Like all hobbits, they are small i
n stature, often mistaken for children. Nor are they of noble ancestry or exceptionally knowledgeable, intelligent, skilled, or athletic. Their strength lies in their devotion, determination, and single-mindedness of purpose. They are not heroes in the classical sense; rather, they exemplify the traits of modern pilgrims. As their journey to Mount Doom approaches its end, the Quest transforms these two reluctant pilgrims into resilient, bold masters whose characters reflect the potency of the Ring. We see this transformation in Sam most clearly in his battle with Shelob. Tolkien writes:

  As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass [Phial of Galadriel] blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand. . . . No such terror out of heaven had ever burned in Shelob’s face before. . . . She fell back. . . . Sam came on. He was reeling like a drunken man, but he came on. And Shelob, cowered at last, shrunken in defeat, jerked and quivered as she tried to hasten from him. (TT, p. 383)

  We see the transformation in Frodo through Sam’s eyes when the two companions capture Sméagol: “For a moment it appeared to Sam that his master had grown and Gollum had shrunk: a tall stern shadow, a mighty lord who hid his brightness in grey cloud, and at his feet a little whining dog” (TT, pp. 249–250). Despite their individual growth, these two friends realize their change may be of no consequence as they near the end of their journey to the Cracks of Doom. Sam, in particular, fears that even if they manage to destroy the Ring, they have no hope of escaping Mordor alive: