Frodo, who gave his life, is then himself given passage to the Undying Lands by Arwen to show that giving up is the means of restoration. And in order to show that an unfetishized life is possible, we are earlier given the example of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, who are notably also the exemplars of romantic fulfilment in the story. They were left out of the films, and are often something of an embarrassment to critics as being extraneous to the epic form of the novel. In my view Tom and Goldberry’s difference is deliberate and is important to the novel’s purposes in offering a challenge to the fetishism rife in Middle-earth. For Tom Bombadil is the unfallen “master of wood, water and hill” precisely because he does not own them. Rather he receives everything as a gift and is himself a gift-giver, who is first seen bringing water-lilies to Goldberry. That a gift-economy is being opposed to fetishism is made quite plain by Tom’s behavior with the Ring. To Frodo’s disapproval he treats it with scant respect, throws it up in the air, and can see through its invisibility magic. He treats it, in fact, like a very pretty ring and nothing more.
Bombadil nicely illustrates the distinction Tolkien draws between magic and enchantment in his essay “On Fairy-stories”: magic “is power in this world, domination of things or wills,” whereas enchantment “does not seek delusion, nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves.”10 There is something cheerfully fictive and enchanted about Bombadil (signaled to us by his talking in verse), and this tells us that we too can transform our world into one of enchantment in which we see things as they really are: rings as pretty pieces of shining metal, and men and women as utterly real and yet utterly mysterious. In contrast to Tom’s singing that rescues the hobbits from entrapment, the honeyed tones of Saruman are merely tricks of dominatory magic that fixate their audience so that they do not see what is really going on.
The novel ends, very simply, with Sam’s return home from the Grey Havens. His hobbit home is a scene of simple objects appropriately arranged that deliberately recreates the yellow light, fire and waiting woman of Bombadil’s house. The great and onerous quest ends with the restoration of the objectified world, which is now freed from fetishism for use:
And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said. (RK, p. 340)
The objects of fire, food, light, and shelter unite here to signify human warmth and community. By making Sam function as a chair for his little daughter in a family trinity, the text affirms the familial relation of objects to persons. Chairs are only chairs; they have no magical qualities, but they allow human connection—“Thinging gathers.” The fetishized Ring is now replaced by the family circle. There is a triumphant emphasis on the word “and” in these two final sentences. Its repetition sets up a rhythm of connections between the different things in the scene that asserts their unity in combining to bless human life.
Now that objects are returned to full participation they can signify themselves. Galadriel’s phial caught the light of the star Eärendil, and its magic came from participation in the source of light that Eärendil redeemed by rescuing it from fetishization by warring groups and returning it to its origin. Thanks to all that has gone before to redeem the object in The Lord of the Rings, any light can now have that same quality, when it serves human need and is valued for its utility and its beauty. Hobbits in the story seem to have been invented precisely in order to appreciate this ordinary domestic world of objects, just as the proper end of the ents is to love trees. In one sense, the whole complex nest of invented languages and creatures, histories and mythologies exists in order that, like Sam, we can see the ordinary world in an unfetishized manner. This is the “recovery” of vision that Tolkien himself states is the purpose of the fantasy or fairy-tale. And that he means the recovery of a right relation to objects as intrinsic to this recovery is seen in the following passage:
And actually fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting. For the story-maker who allows himself to be “free with” Nature can be her lover not her slave. It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of the things, such as stone and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.11
Tolkien calls this love “wonder,” as a faculty of vision that accords full presence to that which one sees and is challenged by in its otherness. We learn to see things as if for the first time. This wonder is very far indeed from fetish worship because it celebrates the connections that fetishism denies. Treebeard’s word for “hill” exemplifies this relationality:
“A-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lind-or-burúmë. Excuse me: that is part of my name for it; I do not know what the word is in the outside languages: you know, the thing we are on, where I stand and look out on fine mornings, and think about the Sun, and the grass beyond the wood, and the horses, and the clouds, and the unfolding of the world.” (TT, p. 66)
In his sign for “hill” Treebeard reconnects the object with the world of phenomena, and of thoughts, and with himself. In ent language an object is signified by the range of its connections by which it achieves its true identity, not by separation, as in hill being defined by those things it is not: “hill” not “rill.” Individuality thus comes from the multitude and variety of interconnections. Again, “Thinging gathers.”
The Lord of the Rings, then, is an ethical text that teaches us to give up dominatory and fixed perceptions in order to receive the world back as gift. The novel itself offers an inexhaustible plenitude of things, but they are not self-referential. For the elves, their songs and their gifts originate outside Middle-earth itself in a Blessed Realm just glimpsed by the reader before Frodo disappears forever. This realm is the source of the “light and high beauty” (RK, p. 211) that Sam perceives in the sky above the dreadful plain of Gorgoroth. The wonder and abundance of all the things that constitute Middle-earth have a divine origin, so that, as we leave the novel, we are somewhat melancholy. For we are unable to remain fetishistically fixated by the details of the story, but left rather with a craving for something more: a hunger for breaking our own unnatural attachment to things, a hunger for transcendence itself.
_____________________
1 For more on Freud’s impact on feminist philosophy, see Teresa Brennan’s, “Psychoanalytic Feminism,” in Alison M. Jaggar and Iris Marion Young, eds., A Companion to Feminist Philosophy (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 272–79.
2 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: Modern Library, 1936), Volume 1, p. 82.
3 The Oxford English Dictionary upon Historical Principles, 13 volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), Volume 11, p. 309.
4 Martin Heidegger, What Is a Thing?, translated by W.B. Barton, Jr., and Vera Deutsch (South Bend: Gateway, 1967), p. 174.
5 Ibid., p. 174.
6 Joshua 2:15–18.
7 Beowulf and Judith, edited by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), p. 38.
8 See Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda (London: Everyman, 1998), p. 116.
9 Arthur Morgan, “Medieval, Victorian, and Modern: Tolkien, Wagner, and the Ring,” in Rosemary Gray, ed., A Tribute to J.R.R. Tolkien (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 1992), pp. 16–28.
10 J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine, 1966), p. 53.
11 Ibid., p. 59.
PART II
The Quest for Happiness
4
Tolkien’s Six Keys to Happiness
GREGORY BASSHAM
Rivendell. Hobbiton. Lothlórien. The very names conjure up images of peace, beauty, and conte
ntment. Many readers of The Lord of the Rings (myself included) believe that they would be happy living in such places, and Tolkien certainly presents these communities as exceptionally happy places in which to live. Of course, Tolkien’s invented world is very different from our own. There are no traffic jams, annoying telemarketers, or bad reality-TV shows in Middle-earth. Nor, apparently, are there any divorces, mudslinging political campaigns, or psychoactive drugs other than beer. Still, Middle-earth is similar enough to our own world that useful comparisons and lessons can be drawn. In this essay, I ask what the inhabitants of Rivendell, Hobbiton, and Lothlórien—Tolkien’s hobbits and elves—might teach us about the secrets of true happiness and fulfillment. To my mind, six important lessons stand out.
1. Delight in Simple Things
Hobbits are merry, good-natured folk who delight in simple pleasures: eating and drinking, pipe-smoking, gardening, wearing brightly colored clothing, attending parties, giving and receiving presents, making simple jests, and gathering at village pubs with friends and neighbors. They live uncomplicated, rustic lives in “close friendship with the earth” (FR, p. 2), dislike complex machinery, have no real government, and enjoy singing simple, comical songs about hot baths and shinbone-munching trolls.
The elves, though much wiser and more sophisticated than hobbits, also primarily delight in simple things: telling tales, singing songs, making beautiful things, preparing simple but delicious food, watching the stars, and communing with nature. Tolkien saw a connection between happiness and a capacity to delight in simple, everyday pleasures. And this is a connection many philosophers have noted as well.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus (c. 341–270 B.C.) pointed out one obvious reason for favoring simple, “natural” pleasures over artificial or “superfluous” ones: they tend to be more frequent and easy to obtain.1 People who find satisfaction in watching sunsets, going for long walks in the woods, and spending quality time with family and friends can usually find many opportunities to enjoy these experiences. In contrast, those who seek happiness in the more elusive pleasures of wealth, power, prestige, or fame often come up empty handed.
There is a deeper reason why happiness is often associated with simpler lifestyles and a capacity to delight in simple pleasures. In his 1993 book The Pursuit of Happiness, psychologist David G. Myers summarized the results of thousands of recent scientific studies of happiness and well-being. He found that the most important factors that contribute to lasting happiness are:
•fit and healthy bodies
•positive self-esteem
•feelings of control over our lives and our time
•optimism
•outgoingness
•challenging and meaningful work
•adequate opportunities for rest and leisure
•intimate and supportive relationships
•a focus beyond the self
•a spiritual commitment that entails hope, a sense of purpose, and communal support and service.2
If these are indeed the keys to enduring happiness, it is not hard to see why Americans, on average, are no happier today than they were in the 1950s (despite the fact that average buying power has more than doubled).3 In fact, the kinds of fast-paced, stress-filled lives many of us lead today may make it harder for us to achieve happiness, because we’re too busy to focus on the things that most reliably produce it. A century and a half ago, Henry David Thoreau, the great American apostle of simplicity, wrote:
Our life is frittered away by detail . . . [M]en labor under a mistake. The better part of a man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. . . . Simplify, simplify. . . . a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.4
For more than two years, Thoreau lived a simple, mostly solitary life in the Concord woods, because, he said, he “wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”5 Had Thoreau built his famous cabin on Bywater rather than on Walden Pond, no doubt he would have found the Shire and its inhabitants much to his liking.
2. Make Light of Your Troubles
The Society of Friends, popularly known as the Quakers, is a Protestant sect that arose in mid-seventeenth-century England and quickly became established in the American colonies. For generations, devout Quakers have memorized a list of twelve rules for living known as “The Quaker Dozen.” Among the rules are precepts such as “work hard,” “love your family,” “show kindness,” “have charity in your heart,” and the very hobbit-like admonition to “make light of your troubles.”6
Tolkien comments frequently on the hobbits’ ability to “make light of their troubles.” Gandalf remarks on the hobbits’ “amazing power of recovery” (TT, p. 220) and cautions Théoden that “hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and remoter cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience” (TT, p. 178). Separated from Pippin, Merry finds himself missing his friend’s “unquenchable cheerfulness” (RK, p. 41). And after Merry and Pippin’s harrowing escape from the orcs, no one could have guessed from their light-hearted talk that they “had suffered cruelly, and been in dire peril” (TT, p. 58).
Making light of troubles also means finding hope and beauty in even the most dire circumstances. Of the four hobbits in the Fellowship of the Ring, only Sam remains absolutely undaunted and uncomplaining to the very end of the Quest. And in one memorable passage Tolkien makes clear that Sam’s optimism and strength have deeper roots than simply personal devotion or native pluck:
Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. . . . There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Dark Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. (RK, p. 211)
The hobbits’ ability to remain cheerful and unbowed in the face of hardship and suffering is one of their most endearing qualities. It is also, of course, a virtue much praised by philosophers. Many religious philosophers, like St. Augustine, urge us to rejoice and be glad, because life is short, sufferings are temporary, and our true home is in heaven, where our reward will be great.7 Many secular philosophers, like the famous Stoic Marcus Aurelius, exhort us to be courageous and serene, because all human strivings are insignificant from the standpoint of eternity, and there is no memory or pain in the oblivion of the grave.8 But whatever our point of view on these ultimate issues, we can both admire the inner strength and appreciate the wisdom of those who make light of their troubles, for by so doing they brighten not only their own lives but the lives of those around them.
3. Get Personal
Hobbits are a clannish and highly sociable people. Their dwellings are often spacious, and inhabited by large, extended families (FR, p. 8). They tend to be honest, loyal, courteous, well-mannered, moderate, generous, hospitable, and are so peaceable that most don’t lock their doors at night (FR, p. 111) and “no hobbit has ever killed another on purpose in the Shire” (RK, p. 310). Indeed, so close-knit, orderly, and mutually supportive are the hobbits of the Shire that they have no need for anything more than the most minimal government and police force (FR, p. 10). They do have “Shirriffs,” but their job mainly involves “walking round the country and seeing folk, and hearing the news,” and ascertaining where the good beer can be found (RK, p. 305).
One of the hobbits’ most striki
ng traits is their remarkable capacity for friendship. At the Council of Elrond, Sam, Merry, and Pippin insist on accompanying Frodo on his Quest, heedless of the obvious dangers. When the Fellowship is attacked by orcs at Parth Galen, Frodo chooses to go on alone, wishing to spare his friends from almost certain torment and death in the dungeons of Barad-dûr. And of course without the unwavering friendship and devotion of Sam, Frodo’s Quest and the hopes of all the Free Peoples would have failed.
The importance of belonging to other people—of forming close, supportive attachments—is something many philosophers have noted as well. Aristotle, for instance, devotes nearly a fifth of his Nicomachean Ethics, his great work on human excellence and fulfillment, to a discussion of the good of friendship. Friendship, he says, is indispensable for a happy and fulfilled human life, for it holds families and communities together, stimulates to noble actions, provides refuge and consolation when misfortunes strike, and offers guidance to the young and assistance to the elderly.9 Indeed, in Aristotle’s view, friendship is “the greatest of external goods,”10 “for without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”11
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy Page 6