FRODO AND DENIAL
By Elenya
Some time ago I was talking about how Frodo was filling my mind after FotR and re reading LotR again, before I found Imladris. I said I was alone in a sea of angst, thinking about Frodo and failure, denial and PTSD. Niphredil asked me what I meant by denial, but I had no time to sit down and get a sensible reply together. So now here it is and blame Niphy for asking me :D ...
Firstly there are some obvious denials such as when Frodo passes Weathertop on the way home.
'At length they came to Weathertop.... then Frodo begged them to hasten and he would not look towards the hill but rode through it's shadow with head bowed and cloak drawn close about him.'
and when he returns to the Shire Frodo does not talk about his recurring illnesses.
'On the 13th of that month Farmer Cotton found Frodo lying on his bed; he was clutching a white gem that hung on a chain about his neck and he seemed half in a dream.
'It is gone for ever,' he said, 'and now all is dark and empty.'
But the fit passed and when Sam got back on the 25th Frodo had recovered and he said nothing about himself.'
'Frodo was ill again in March but with a great effort he concealed it.'
Sam does find Frodo ill in the intervening October but doesn't make the connection with Weathertop until sometime later. I suspect dear Sam would have unwittingly made it harder for Frodo to talk about his experiences anyway, his attitude in CU is very telling:
''They stripped me of everything; and then two great brutes came and questioned me, questioned me until I thought I should go mad, standing over me, gloating, fingering their knives. I'll never forget their claws and eyes'
'You won't, if you talk about them, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam...'
'You won't if you talk about them... Sam's attitude is 'least said soonest mended'. He takes the view that the way to healing is not to talk about things but to get on with life. His experiences are so different from Frodo at a fundamental level because he has enemies he can fight against (Shelob, the Orcs, Gollum) and the final satisfaction of doing everything he set out to achieve. Whereas Frodo has all the trauma and injuries (Weathertop, the Watcher, Shelob, the Orcs in CU, Gollum), the terrible temptation of the Ring, guilt of failure in claiming the Ring and guilt about Gollum's death. Because Frodo's closest companion believes that Frodo should not be talking about these things they will only grow in his mind.
Failure and PTSD has been talked about a lot (apart from Sam's attitude) so I'm not going to talk further about those aspects here, but I'm going to finish with something I find very interesting in the way the book is written.
Firstly, of course, the Red Book is mostly written by Frodo and simply translated by Tolkien.
'There was a big book with plain red leather covers, it's tall pages were now almost filled...... most of it was written in Frodo's firm flowing script.'
'In presenting the matter of the Red Book, as a history for people today to read, the whole of the linguistic setting has been translated as far as possible into the terms of our own times.'
So here is an opportunity for catharsis; he can write down everything he experienced, all his emotions, trauma, fears, the effect the Ring had on him, how it tempted him and his feelings towards Gollum. What does he do?
To start with he does write about his thoughts and fears. So for example in the Old Forest we learn:
'A heavy weight was settling on Frodo's heart and he regretted now with every step forward that he had ever thought of challenging the menace of the trees. He was about to propose going back....when things took a new turn'
and
'But Frodo, without any clear idea of why he did so ran along the path crying help! help! help! It seemed to him that he could hardly hear the sound of his own shrill voice...... he felt desperate, lost and witless.'
On the Barrow-Downs the whole episode is again told from Frodo's perspective:
'Then a wild thought of escape came to him. He wondered if he put on the Ring, whether the Barrow-wight would miss him, and he might find some way out. He thought of himself running free over the grass, grieving for Merry, Sam, and Pippin, but free and alive himself. Gandalf would admit there was nothing else he could do.'
Maybe he can admit this because he goes on to overcome the temptation of the Ring and defeat the Barrow-wight. Here is a success story. He does, however, refuse to speak about it to his friends:
' 'I thought that I was lost,' said Frodo, 'but I don't want to talk about it.''
As the book goes on we learn less and less about Frodo's feelings and by the time he and Sam reach Mordor the only information we are given is what Sam would know. Almost every detail is either what Sam sees/thinks or what Sam could have heard or overheard.
'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 the mind. Anxiously Sam noted how his master's hand would often be raised to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look into them.'
He admits to Sam: ''I am naked in the dark Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.'' But that's all he has to say about that. The dreadful thirst, the imagining pools and streams, the internal debates and promptings of despair: all Sam's.
Frodo is in a terrible state, but can he really remember nothing? Or does the memory weigh so heavily on his mind that he refuses to write about it?
Lurea/Stormyday wrote 'Counted Sorrows' in which the Ring was prompting Frodo to kill Sam. So likely don't you think? I cannot find it posted anywhere so here is an extract:
'The Ring burns me.
It whispers to me constantly in an unending litany of hatred, fear, and suspicion.
(take me kill orcs make them pay use me save Sam take me kill Sauron put me on claim me Sam will steal me from you kill Sam take me you must you will you will)
The images that accompany the words are unspeakable. Broken victims, flaming houses, tortured screams of agony, the Ring shows it all to me. Everyone I've ever cared for is meat for the Ring. Sometimes the Ring shows that I would stop the torture and heal the victims. They would kneel to me, laughing and glad, and all the horrors I've seen are rectified...
Over and over the Ring shows me its final victory. It whispers that this is inevitable, why continue the struggle? I see myself speak the words to claim it; I feel the orgasmic release from the constant pain. The final surrender and the peace are delicious. This vision becomes more and more difficult to deny. I tremble in the revulsion and disgust an animal must feel, knowing it must gnaw off the limb caught in the trap. I begin to feel my strength ebb and I am afraid. I am afraid. I push away the fear, and with a slow breath return again to my counted sorrows.'
Frodo does not describe his feelings when he claims the Ring. Orgasmic relief? I think Lurea has that exactly right (and this was written well before the Osgiliath scene in the film version of the Two Towers). But all we know is what Sam hears him say:
''I have come,' he said. 'But I do not 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 disappeared from Sam's sight.'
I'm not saying that if Frodo had written out all the torment (thereby, of course, denying us our fervid imaginations) there would have been no need for him to go to the Grey Havens. I don't know the answer to that. Karyn Milos finishes her excellent essay (http://www.geocities.com/karynmilos/toodeeplyhurt.html) Too Deeply Hurt: understanding Frodo's Decision to Depart -
''I explain,' wrote trauma specialist Mary Baures, 'that by healing I don't mean that the loss doesn't still hurt or that it disappears, but that there is a way people can find some meaning in a catastrophe so they can go on with their lives.'
'Being healed,' replied Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, 'is when the wound is no longer there.''
So either way, Frodo may have departed, but by refusing to write about his experiences, Frodo internalised all his problems and made the journey to the Grey Havens inevitable.
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