Been a long time since I posted here. I'm not going to remove it...I don't know, maybe someday I'll have the faculties to start it up again. Until then, if you are more than welcome to attend to my www.jesuspolitics.net
It's a political blog concerned with how the radical politics of Jesus should be implemented into our own world now. This is not as dear to my heart as the Lost Straight Road, but in some ways, it's more concrete. Anyway...
Sodalîn odhànna’în-sê vûvêanîyû
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Posting at...
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Storytelling the Deaf Experience
Alright, two interesting facts about me: 1) I have panic disorder; and 2) my wife is studying to be a Deaf interpreter, and I am learning ASL (American Sign Language). Only one of those facts is really relevant to my post today. Today’s post (and I have never posted so soon after another post, but hey, I guess I’m getting more comfortable) is about Story.
At the school I am attending, we had an event aimed towards inciting awareness about Deaf Culture, a marginalized and oft-forgotten people group. There were several activities and workshops to attend, and Deaf guests were invited to speak and share about their experiences. The Deaf communications students were not permitted to speak. It was an interesting day. Deaf Culture is a fascinating one. They are very communally oriented[1] and believe in communal authority (so, for example, if a person in the Deaf community were to make a decision, it would be expected that they should bring it before the entire community of which they are apart); they do not believe their “condition” to be a handicap; they are incredibly honest and forthright, especially in their descriptions of people (they will identify people by saying, “the fat girl,” or “the bald guy;”).[2] Also, they often, as a community, feel oppressed and misunderstood by the hearing world.
And why should they not? They are often treated as slow or mentally handicapped (which they aren’t; there are some very intelligent Deaf people). Many times, people will not attempt to communicate with them, or even think they are incapable of communication like a normal person (which is untrue; ASL and other signed languages are accepted as actual languages). It is common for them to be denied work, or to be discriminated against by authorities (such as police officers or law officials).
This was very telling in the final workshop of the evening. My wife and I, and several friends, attended a two-hour event called “Storytelling the Deaf Experience.” This was a time where Deaf people from the community were invited to tell stories of their experiences being Deaf. This is right in their element, as when Deaf people gather, they will often have times of storytelling (they love stories); the different was, hearing people were invited as well.
I was amazed. It was a fascinating evening. But most interesting to me was that, as they were telling their stories, a common theme was one of oppression and of overcoming the oppressor. Many of their stories would revolve around a particularly oppressive hearing individual (to which the other Deaf people would gesticulate, often vocally, their understanding and agreement), detail the unfair quality of their treatment of the Deaf person, and then end with the Deaf person triumphing over the oppressive person. I will illustrate with a loose retelling from memory of one of the stories from an older Deaf woman:
I worked at the Post Office before I retired, and I was often treated badly. One day, I was mopping the floor, and one of the younger workers accidentally knocked a large pile of mail into where I was mopping. When I asked him to clean it up, he laughed and walked away. I was furious. I cleaned it up and kept mopping. A little bit later, he came by again, and this time he kicked the pile of mail into the spot I was mopping! I was furious. Several times he did this. Finally, I got so angry, I grabbed him and I said, “You clean up this mess, and then you mop the floor!” And he did. When the manager came by, he asked, “Why is he mopping?” I told him what had happened. Then the manager walked away, and that boy never did anything like that again.
This is very illustrative of the kinds of stories they would tell.
As I listened (or watched, I guess; the entire evening was all in Sign, of course), I was struck once again about how the stories a community tells define the community, and show their outlook upon the world they live in. I am reminded of the Israelite community of 1st century Palestine, who clung to liberation stories of the Exodus while under oppression to the Romans, or even the pre-Civil War African-American culture (and beyond), who clung to the exact same stories during their oppression by wealthy, white American landowners. For them, the stories represent hope and a common understanding of the community’s plight.
And once again, I am reminded of how, as one scholar said it, “we live in story like fish in the sea.”[3] Story is all around us, shaping us as we cling to them. And it makes me think that I should evaluate the kinds of stories that I cling to: the stories of Israel and Jesus of Nazareth, and even of Frodo and Harry Potter. These stories have a part in making me who I am, and informing how I will see the world. They are, in part, the life that I live and the air that I breathe.
Now enjoy this wonderful video made by a Deaf Performing Arts Group, set to John Mayer's song,"Waiting on the World to Change."
________________________
[1] Which shows through in their first meetings, where they will ask questions such as, “Where are you from?” “What school did you go to?” “Who was your teacher?” in an effort to find out how you are in the community and how they are connected to you.
[2] Interesting story. My wife and her friend interpreted a play once, and one of the Deaf people there said to my wife, “You were really good, but-“ turning to her friend “- you weren’t, you need work.”
[3] J. D. Crossan, The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story, (Niles, IL: Argus, 1975), 47.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Creation and Story
Okay, I know it’s been a terribly long time since I last posted. For the few that read this blog, I apologize. It was the busy time of the semester. But I just finished my big ole 57-page Historical Jesus paper (don’t be impressed; the bulk of that length was just a bunch of self-indulgent appendices), so I have some more time. I expect soon to have a two-part post on themes of fantasy in Edgar Allan Poe. However, in the meantime, I would like to give you a link to a post done by a friend of mine, Stephen Lawson, which was particularly insightful. You can read it here.
This post got me thinking about a subject concerning the modus operandi of this blog. We are concerned here with the question of Story, as an epistemology, as a teacher, as a way of life, as a damn good time. One of the key ideas of Stephen’s post was that, if we are to combat the rampant consumerism that plagues the Western person, we must return to seeing “value in our work, not merely as a commodity to be exchanged, but as co-creation with God.” I agree. But “work” I think also must be understood as a very broad term.
Often I have been asked, when telling a fellow Christian that I am working on writing a book (specifically a fantasy series), “So are you going to try to bring the gospel into it.” To this, I always reply, “No. No, I’m not, actually,” a response which is often met with puzzlement. “Then why are you doing it?” they ask. I tell you, the very question pisses me off. As if the only reason to create, to do work, to do art, is to “convert” non-Christians. I have to say, this is a terrible philosophy, and shame on those fundamentalist brothers and sisters of mine who may believe it.
I write, I create, because I believe that by doing so, I am working as God intended for me. In the words of my friend, I am “co-creating” with God, and in that co-creation, I am exemplifying him in all his shining goodness (the very same “good” that was pronounced of the Creation). I am doing the work which I have been created to do. And if my story does not “smuggle the gospel” directly into its pages, if it does not create moments of apologetical discourse (which I particularly detest), if it does not end with the heroes all joining hands and praying while the non-Christian antagonist “accepts Jesus in his heart” (whatever the hell that means), then so much the better! This story is not simply a project, it is not a task simply done for some “goal,” nor are the people who hopefully (hopefully!) will read it. Rather, the story, and myself, and those I share it with, we are life and creation, and we are dialoguing with each other in a realm which we all know and hold dear: Story. I write because in doing so, I follow in continuity of the Grand Narrative of which we are all apart.
A quote from Tolkien is instructive in this matter (and a few others as well). This was taken from the final paragraph of his seminal essay, “On Fairy Stories”:
But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.” The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.
Here’s to Story for the simple sake of Story, and enjoying it because it is an extension of our very being. Cheers!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Enchanted Reality
I woke up from another late night of brooding amidst the dark (the sort of thing troubled romantics such as myself do quite well) to the sounds of singing. And this was not youraverage sort of singing, no. This was special indeed. A chorus of ageless, shining voices ringing out in awe-inspired wonderment. Recognition occurred before I was even fully awake. Disney, I thought. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella; yes, Disney. I walked out of the room to find Shannan curled up on the couch, watching the movie she had raved about (and had been threatening to buy) since seeing it at Christmas. Enchanted, the film where Fairy Tale and Reality collide. And she had made good on her threat – she had bought the movie. It was immediately apparent that I must make good on my promise: I sat down to watch it with her.
I was delightfully surprised. It was Disney, through and through. But it was done quite well; it was almost as if the film company were poking a little fun at itself. From the singing animals to the “damsel in distress” Dempsy to the tailor-made curtain dresses, it was entertaining and engaging and quite amusing. Disney has been giving us the Fairy Tales a long time, and perhaps they have not always been faithful (Tolkien, I know, did not like them very much), but they have always given us the Fairy Tales nonetheless. But this might be the first time Disney had something to say about the genre in general.
The principle scene came for me in the pizza parlor, where Dempsy and the Princess are conversing. Truly, it sums up the film, for in speaking about his daughter, Dempsy says, “I just want her to be strong, you know, to be able to face the world for what it is. That’s why I don’t encourage the Fairy Tales. I don’t want to set her up to believe this, ‘Dreams come true’ nonsense.” We have already seen this to be true; earlier in the film, when Dempsy gives his daughter a gift. Instead of giving her the Fairy Tale book she wanted, he gives her a coffee-table book called 100 of the World’s Most Important Women. Of course, our darling Princess disagrees.
Here is the crux of my post: Dempsy represents a father who, believing that exposure to Fairy Tales (with its escapist fantasy) will weaken his daughter’s ability to face the world, intends on bringing his daughter up “to face the world for what it is.” He will not fill her head with nonsense like “dreams come true,” and I’m sure he would add to the list other peccadilloes for which the critics love to condemn the Fairy Tales: beauty does not indicate inner character, nor does ugliness reveal evil, and things often to end up “happily ever after.”
I understand the father. And I do recognize the weaknesses of these apparent statutes. Beauty (or ugliness) is not a test of character, dreams sometimes do not come true, and oftentimes, in reality, there is no happy ending. However, I think that perhaps our dear father is barking up the wrong tree, drawing the wrong conclusion, throwing the baby out with the bath water, etc, etc; and I think he does so at his own peril. For these are not what endure in the Fairy Tale. Something far greater is endowed to us through the enchanted pages. But first, let me say a couple things in defense of these common accusations. Buckle in folks, it’s going to get bumpy.
First of all, I defy anyone to show me a medium or genre of Story which does not make wholesale use of these “statutes.” Sure, we have our stories of tragedy, loss, and grief. But we also have our stories of happily ever after, or dreams coming true, and the like. In fact, I would say the ratio is far greater to stories that do than don’t. The fact is, “happily ever after” is simply a coined phrase for a certain kind of ending, one that is universal in its appeal. And it is not a phenomenon particular to the Fairy Tale, however common it may be to it. And concerning the beauty/character relationship…well, let’s be honest: nearly all Stories, from the popular to the beloved to the critically acclaimed, have beautiful heroines and handsome heroes. It’s the Rachel/Leah device – we always want the pretty ones to win. I could go on, especially to ponder why that is, but there is not time, and this will have to suffice.
Secondly, I would submit that these “principles” are symbolic ways of teaching. Beauty reveals magnificent character and vice versa, because, well, there is truth to that. We have come to a time in history (in our part of the world, leastways) where it is understood on at least a surface level that it is character that counts. That good character makes you beautiful. The old axiom: it’s what’s inside that counts. I think this is what the Fairy Tale, on some level, is conveying. Moreover, the “happily ever after” (and vice versa)[1] is a “moral” (or what have you) in and of itself, meant to instruct that doing the right things lead to rewards. Is this false, or misleading? Well, it certainly depends on your worldview. But it also depends on what you count as reward. The Old Norse, with their ill-fated mythology, believed that the monsters and giants would, at Ragnarök, defeat the gods and plunge existence into chaos.[2] Therefore, the reward of good deed was simply of doing the right thing, of having done the right thing amidst the ease of doing the wrong thing, and of gaining the character, honor, and perhaps respect that comes with such a deed. Do bad things happen to good people? Sure. Do many good deeds go unrewarded? Sure. But I do also think that there is reward for good deeds, and I certainly do not think that this is a bad thing to teach children.
But be all that as it may, I should proceed to my main point (and how frustrated you must be that I have not gotten here sooner, fair reader!). Our dear father wishes to “protect” his daughter by keeping from her these Fairy Tales, so that she may be strong, and face the world as it truly is, without the false pretensions that allegedly come with exposure to said Tales, which may then lead to disabling disillusionment. But I would like to suggest that this may, in fact, lead to the opposite.
We are born into a cruel world; a world of disease and death and betrayal and loss and uncertainty. We are brought into this world with few answers, with limited guidance, with no assurances. We are brought into a world of deceit, theft, rape, and murder. Of starvation, exposure, and cataclysmic natural disasters. We are now brought into a world where the shape of the Land is known, where there are devices that can annihilate entire cities in the matter of moments, where the whims of one man can be responsible for six million or even thirty million human lives. We live in a world filled with emptiness, hollowness, brokenness.
And so the search for meaning, for answers, leads us to retreat. Not in the sense of fleeing, not exactly, but very nearly into the sense of exploration. We are lead to Story. We read books, we watch movies, we have conversations; we engross ourselves in learning about the circumstances of another, fictitious or real, and comparing them to our own. We watch for deeds both terrible and wonderful, because these give us something beyond ourselves, even if it is only the hope that there is something beyond ourselves.
This could be (and has been) called escapist. And in some cases, it may be true, both for the reader (or watcher) and for the story itself. Some stories are escapist nonsense, it is true. But I submit to you that oftentimes these take a form quite different from Fantasy, often spinning tales of wealth, power, sexual encounters, beaches and irresistible beauties. They are grounded in what is around us, what we would like to have, what we think we should have. And they often but don’t always take the form of “media,” as we might traditionally conceive of it. You see, this “fantasy” [3] is much more deeply engrained. It is written in pornography, in webcam sites and pictures of young men and women unclad; it is captured in game shows and the sales paper and lottery tickets and footage of well-dressed business men climbing stories upon stories to their corporate thrones. It is sublimely and subliminally hidden in chance conversations and small glances. It is the fantasy not to have things around us different, but to have our circumstances different in what’s around us. It is the fantasy to have what we think we want, what we think will satisfy, what we think will drown out the pain and silence of this oft-seemingly empty world.[4]
And there is the escapist reader. I should not have to look far to find an example, for I, myself, will do quite nicely. All over I see the fantasy. The want to escape from my plight and be found in different circumstances, with different people, different prospects, and of course, a lot more money. Every ad calls to me, whether it be for a new car, or a new DVD player, or a new partner, if only for a little while. And why shouldn’t it? The “happily ever after” failed me, right? The reality of the world caught up with me and I realized there are seasons of romance, but only seasons; seasons of fulfillment, but only seasons, and the rest of the time is a feeling that I am reaching for something I cannot have. This is the escapism; it’s part of the same emptiness of the world.
But to say that any media which allows us to “escape” from the world is escapist is really rather silly. And the Fairy Tale, I think, gives us the glimpses of the opposite. The Fairy Tale does not deny the terror of the world; in fact, it personifies it in some of the most terrifying images we have known, from Lord Voldemort to Beowulf’s Dragon to Tolkien’s great “Eye” (perhaps the scariest of all because this evil never actually takes a bodily shape). And it does not deny the evil that can be perpetrated. But the answer is always found in facing the evil, taking a stand against it, doing the right thing, and accepting the hope of triumph amidst even the near-certainty of failure. Escapism comforts only as long as the escape is made; the return from the escape always means the return of despair. But the Fairy Tale empowers us and encourages us to face the oft-seemingly emptiness of the world with hope and courage. The challenges of life may seem perhaps less terrible if I can dwell on money, or sex, or whatever. But they seem surmountable when I think about the courage of Frodo, or Harry Potter, or fill-in-your-own-inspired-blank. The Fairy Tale, in keeping with Story itself, terrifies us, pacifies us, makes us dream, and then sends us back out in the world with a desire for enchantment, but also the belief that there may actually be enchantment around us, and that things like courage, honor, and love actually might exist.
It is not surprising to me that C. S. Lewis has said it much better than I ever could:
Escapism is not finding solace in another world; it is to deny accepting the world you are escaping from. Fantasy, as among other noble arts and genres, does not deny the world, but inspires us to face it, and to long for something powerful within it. For who would call a prisoner of war who remembers childhood stories to stay sane and endure the terrible tortures of war an escapist? Perhaps he is remembering them because they help him endure. To escape would be to give up hope, to commit suicide, or in some other way deny the life that is in him. But to hold on to ideals that he knows, by their sheer power, to be real – peace, love, honor, beauty, desire – and so find strength to continue amidst his adverse circumstance can hardly be called escapist at all.
In fact, it could be said that they are a way into the real truth of things. As I’ve said before, I view Story as a sort of epistemology, and I believe Fantasy to be one of the more potent forms therein. The Fairy Tale instructs, amidst the adversity of the world which may persuade us that all things are empty, vanities, that there is something deep and powerful in the world. It trains us in the “stock responses,” as Lewis puts it. The Fairy Tales can teach us of bravery, of shrewdness, of faithfulness, of fighting for what is good and right, that fighting for such things is even worth it in the first place. Sure, the world is not always “happily ever after.” But that’s not all the Fairy Tales offer. They have show a way of honor and courage, of love and respect. They whisper that there is more beyond us. They have helped me to be a better friend, husband, brother, person. That is their power; and I believe that power is efficacious to help us to live and live well.
Enchanted, I believe, holds within it this message. The father is, of course, converted, and to his betterment. But more than that, the Princess remains in our world. Fantasy is not at odds with reality; it complements it. And so, I shall not deprive my children of such lessons.
[1] Which is always quite terrible in the traditional Fairy Tales. A good example is “The Twelve Brothers” from Grimm’s, in which the evil mother-in-law is cast into a barrel filled with boiling oil and poisonous snakes.
[2] At least, according some traditions. Others included a remaking of the world through which a lone couple would repopulate the earth.
[3] I should caution the reader of how casually I am throwing around the term “fantasy.” For clarity, let the reader understand that when capitalized, Fantasy refers to the genre of Story; otherwise, it is used in the general sense of the term.
I was delightfully surprised. It was Disney, through and through. But it was done quite well; it was almost as if the film company were poking a little fun at itself. From the singing animals to the “damsel in distress” Dempsy to the tailor-made curtain dresses, it was entertaining and engaging and quite amusing. Disney has been giving us the Fairy Tales a long time, and perhaps they have not always been faithful (Tolkien, I know, did not like them very much), but they have always given us the Fairy Tales nonetheless. But this might be the first time Disney had something to say about the genre in general.
The principle scene came for me in the pizza parlor, where Dempsy and the Princess are conversing. Truly, it sums up the film, for in speaking about his daughter, Dempsy says, “I just want her to be strong, you know, to be able to face the world for what it is. That’s why I don’t encourage the Fairy Tales. I don’t want to set her up to believe this, ‘Dreams come true’ nonsense.” We have already seen this to be true; earlier in the film, when Dempsy gives his daughter a gift. Instead of giving her the Fairy Tale book she wanted, he gives her a coffee-table book called 100 of the World’s Most Important Women. Of course, our darling Princess disagrees.
Here is the crux of my post: Dempsy represents a father who, believing that exposure to Fairy Tales (with its escapist fantasy) will weaken his daughter’s ability to face the world, intends on bringing his daughter up “to face the world for what it is.” He will not fill her head with nonsense like “dreams come true,” and I’m sure he would add to the list other peccadilloes for which the critics love to condemn the Fairy Tales: beauty does not indicate inner character, nor does ugliness reveal evil, and things often to end up “happily ever after.”
I understand the father. And I do recognize the weaknesses of these apparent statutes. Beauty (or ugliness) is not a test of character, dreams sometimes do not come true, and oftentimes, in reality, there is no happy ending. However, I think that perhaps our dear father is barking up the wrong tree, drawing the wrong conclusion, throwing the baby out with the bath water, etc, etc; and I think he does so at his own peril. For these are not what endure in the Fairy Tale. Something far greater is endowed to us through the enchanted pages. But first, let me say a couple things in defense of these common accusations. Buckle in folks, it’s going to get bumpy.
First of all, I defy anyone to show me a medium or genre of Story which does not make wholesale use of these “statutes.” Sure, we have our stories of tragedy, loss, and grief. But we also have our stories of happily ever after, or dreams coming true, and the like. In fact, I would say the ratio is far greater to stories that do than don’t. The fact is, “happily ever after” is simply a coined phrase for a certain kind of ending, one that is universal in its appeal. And it is not a phenomenon particular to the Fairy Tale, however common it may be to it. And concerning the beauty/character relationship…well, let’s be honest: nearly all Stories, from the popular to the beloved to the critically acclaimed, have beautiful heroines and handsome heroes. It’s the Rachel/Leah device – we always want the pretty ones to win. I could go on, especially to ponder why that is, but there is not time, and this will have to suffice.
Secondly, I would submit that these “principles” are symbolic ways of teaching. Beauty reveals magnificent character and vice versa, because, well, there is truth to that. We have come to a time in history (in our part of the world, leastways) where it is understood on at least a surface level that it is character that counts. That good character makes you beautiful. The old axiom: it’s what’s inside that counts. I think this is what the Fairy Tale, on some level, is conveying. Moreover, the “happily ever after” (and vice versa)[1] is a “moral” (or what have you) in and of itself, meant to instruct that doing the right things lead to rewards. Is this false, or misleading? Well, it certainly depends on your worldview. But it also depends on what you count as reward. The Old Norse, with their ill-fated mythology, believed that the monsters and giants would, at Ragnarök, defeat the gods and plunge existence into chaos.[2] Therefore, the reward of good deed was simply of doing the right thing, of having done the right thing amidst the ease of doing the wrong thing, and of gaining the character, honor, and perhaps respect that comes with such a deed. Do bad things happen to good people? Sure. Do many good deeds go unrewarded? Sure. But I do also think that there is reward for good deeds, and I certainly do not think that this is a bad thing to teach children.
But be all that as it may, I should proceed to my main point (and how frustrated you must be that I have not gotten here sooner, fair reader!). Our dear father wishes to “protect” his daughter by keeping from her these Fairy Tales, so that she may be strong, and face the world as it truly is, without the false pretensions that allegedly come with exposure to said Tales, which may then lead to disabling disillusionment. But I would like to suggest that this may, in fact, lead to the opposite.
We are born into a cruel world; a world of disease and death and betrayal and loss and uncertainty. We are brought into this world with few answers, with limited guidance, with no assurances. We are brought into a world of deceit, theft, rape, and murder. Of starvation, exposure, and cataclysmic natural disasters. We are now brought into a world where the shape of the Land is known, where there are devices that can annihilate entire cities in the matter of moments, where the whims of one man can be responsible for six million or even thirty million human lives. We live in a world filled with emptiness, hollowness, brokenness.
And so the search for meaning, for answers, leads us to retreat. Not in the sense of fleeing, not exactly, but very nearly into the sense of exploration. We are lead to Story. We read books, we watch movies, we have conversations; we engross ourselves in learning about the circumstances of another, fictitious or real, and comparing them to our own. We watch for deeds both terrible and wonderful, because these give us something beyond ourselves, even if it is only the hope that there is something beyond ourselves.
This could be (and has been) called escapist. And in some cases, it may be true, both for the reader (or watcher) and for the story itself. Some stories are escapist nonsense, it is true. But I submit to you that oftentimes these take a form quite different from Fantasy, often spinning tales of wealth, power, sexual encounters, beaches and irresistible beauties. They are grounded in what is around us, what we would like to have, what we think we should have. And they often but don’t always take the form of “media,” as we might traditionally conceive of it. You see, this “fantasy” [3] is much more deeply engrained. It is written in pornography, in webcam sites and pictures of young men and women unclad; it is captured in game shows and the sales paper and lottery tickets and footage of well-dressed business men climbing stories upon stories to their corporate thrones. It is sublimely and subliminally hidden in chance conversations and small glances. It is the fantasy not to have things around us different, but to have our circumstances different in what’s around us. It is the fantasy to have what we think we want, what we think will satisfy, what we think will drown out the pain and silence of this oft-seemingly empty world.[4]
And there is the escapist reader. I should not have to look far to find an example, for I, myself, will do quite nicely. All over I see the fantasy. The want to escape from my plight and be found in different circumstances, with different people, different prospects, and of course, a lot more money. Every ad calls to me, whether it be for a new car, or a new DVD player, or a new partner, if only for a little while. And why shouldn’t it? The “happily ever after” failed me, right? The reality of the world caught up with me and I realized there are seasons of romance, but only seasons; seasons of fulfillment, but only seasons, and the rest of the time is a feeling that I am reaching for something I cannot have. This is the escapism; it’s part of the same emptiness of the world.
But to say that any media which allows us to “escape” from the world is escapist is really rather silly. And the Fairy Tale, I think, gives us the glimpses of the opposite. The Fairy Tale does not deny the terror of the world; in fact, it personifies it in some of the most terrifying images we have known, from Lord Voldemort to Beowulf’s Dragon to Tolkien’s great “Eye” (perhaps the scariest of all because this evil never actually takes a bodily shape). And it does not deny the evil that can be perpetrated. But the answer is always found in facing the evil, taking a stand against it, doing the right thing, and accepting the hope of triumph amidst even the near-certainty of failure. Escapism comforts only as long as the escape is made; the return from the escape always means the return of despair. But the Fairy Tale empowers us and encourages us to face the oft-seemingly emptiness of the world with hope and courage. The challenges of life may seem perhaps less terrible if I can dwell on money, or sex, or whatever. But they seem surmountable when I think about the courage of Frodo, or Harry Potter, or fill-in-your-own-inspired-blank. The Fairy Tale, in keeping with Story itself, terrifies us, pacifies us, makes us dream, and then sends us back out in the world with a desire for enchantment, but also the belief that there may actually be enchantment around us, and that things like courage, honor, and love actually might exist.
It is not surprising to me that C. S. Lewis has said it much better than I ever could:
A far more serious attack on the fairy tale as children’s literature comes from those who do not wish children to be frightened…that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil…[This] would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the Ogpu and the atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker…I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones…[5]
Escapism is not finding solace in another world; it is to deny accepting the world you are escaping from. Fantasy, as among other noble arts and genres, does not deny the world, but inspires us to face it, and to long for something powerful within it. For who would call a prisoner of war who remembers childhood stories to stay sane and endure the terrible tortures of war an escapist? Perhaps he is remembering them because they help him endure. To escape would be to give up hope, to commit suicide, or in some other way deny the life that is in him. But to hold on to ideals that he knows, by their sheer power, to be real – peace, love, honor, beauty, desire – and so find strength to continue amidst his adverse circumstance can hardly be called escapist at all.
In fact, it could be said that they are a way into the real truth of things. As I’ve said before, I view Story as a sort of epistemology, and I believe Fantasy to be one of the more potent forms therein. The Fairy Tale instructs, amidst the adversity of the world which may persuade us that all things are empty, vanities, that there is something deep and powerful in the world. It trains us in the “stock responses,” as Lewis puts it. The Fairy Tales can teach us of bravery, of shrewdness, of faithfulness, of fighting for what is good and right, that fighting for such things is even worth it in the first place. Sure, the world is not always “happily ever after.” But that’s not all the Fairy Tales offer. They have show a way of honor and courage, of love and respect. They whisper that there is more beyond us. They have helped me to be a better friend, husband, brother, person. That is their power; and I believe that power is efficacious to help us to live and live well.
Enchanted, I believe, holds within it this message. The father is, of course, converted, and to his betterment. But more than that, the Princess remains in our world. Fantasy is not at odds with reality; it complements it. And so, I shall not deprive my children of such lessons.
_______________
[1] Which is always quite terrible in the traditional Fairy Tales. A good example is “The Twelve Brothers” from Grimm’s, in which the evil mother-in-law is cast into a barrel filled with boiling oil and poisonous snakes.
[2] At least, according some traditions. Others included a remaking of the world through which a lone couple would repopulate the earth.
[3] I should caution the reader of how casually I am throwing around the term “fantasy.” For clarity, let the reader understand that when capitalized, Fantasy refers to the genre of Story; otherwise, it is used in the general sense of the term.
[4] The movie High Fidelity, I think, perfectly illustrates this point.
[5] C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” (On Stories, Orlando: Harcourt, 1966), 39-40.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Listeners and Other Whispers of Fantasy
Last November, I checked out a book from our school library. It was an old book, beaten, but not precisely worn, jet black but for the small white sheet that held Dewey’s dear print. The publication was Japanese, of all things, with an introduction in Japanese characters (which is sad; I would pay dearly to know what it says). But the subject of the book was a today little-known English poet/writer. His name was Walter de la Mare.
Walter de la Mare, of French Huguenot descent, worked as a statistician for an English company called Standard Oil. He was a family man, and an avid writer from the start. He wrote several books of poems and stories, both for children and adults, and had very interesting theories about imagination.
If I understand his theory right (and I only just started to study up on him), de la Mare believed that there were two types of imagination: the childlike and the boylike. Most often, we all start with the childlike, which is accepting of things fantastic, such as Dragons and magic swords, but as we grow, we develop the boylike imagination, which takes us away from those things, being more analytical. This progression, de la Mare believed, was a response to the terrors of the world (which one might conceive of as “unnatural,” if one were so inclined) that, as it were, frighten the childlike imagination away. However, de la Mare believed that it was the childlike imagination that was more natural and fitting, and this is the part which he sought to awaken in his work.
I would like to give you a sampling of his work. The first is his most famous work, the poem called “The Listeners,” which is what I first read that enthralled me so with his most powerful pen:
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Walter de la Mare, of French Huguenot descent, worked as a statistician for an English company called Standard Oil. He was a family man, and an avid writer from the start. He wrote several books of poems and stories, both for children and adults, and had very interesting theories about imagination.
If I understand his theory right (and I only just started to study up on him), de la Mare believed that there were two types of imagination: the childlike and the boylike. Most often, we all start with the childlike, which is accepting of things fantastic, such as Dragons and magic swords, but as we grow, we develop the boylike imagination, which takes us away from those things, being more analytical. This progression, de la Mare believed, was a response to the terrors of the world (which one might conceive of as “unnatural,” if one were so inclined) that, as it were, frighten the childlike imagination away. However, de la Mare believed that it was the childlike imagination that was more natural and fitting, and this is the part which he sought to awaken in his work.
I would like to give you a sampling of his work. The first is his most famous work, the poem called “The Listeners,” which is what I first read that enthralled me so with his most powerful pen:
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the traveler's head:
And he smote upon the door a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveler;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men;
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveler's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Oh! It calls to the heart and imagination in the very way a poem should. It tells a story, indeed, it does. But it is a fragmented story. It is an echo of a story, of which we only have pieces that are confusing and hard to put together. Who is this man? How does he represent the “World of Men?” Who is he seeking to contact, and what was the promise that brought him? What is this place, who once lived here, and why have they retreated so, only listening now, and doing naught else? We have no answers. Only are own imagination can fill in the gaps.
But it is a powerful story. We can feel the power, the ancientness of the place, a place that once had great meaning. It is written in heavy language; like cumbersome acrylic oils upon blank, white canvas, it whispers of subtleties barely known and just out of reach.
Or here’s another, a bit more furtive, called “The Familiar”:
“Are you far away?”
“yes, I am far – far;
Where the green wave shelves to the sand,
And the rainbows are;
And an ageless sun beats fierce
From an empty sky:
There, O thou Shadow forlorn;
Is the wraith of thee, I.”
“Are you happy, most Lone?”
“Happy, forsooth!
Who am eyes of the air; voice of the foam;
Ah, happy in truth/.
My hair is astream, this cheek
Glistens like silver, and see,
As the gold to the dross, the ghost in the mirk,
I am calling to thee.”
“Nay, I am bound,
And your cry faints out in my mind,
Peace not on earth have I found,
Yet to earth I am resigned,
Cease thy shrill mockery, Voice,
Nor answer again.”
“O Master, thick cloud shuts thee out
And cold tempests of rain.”
Again, the questions. Who is speaking to whom? What are they talking about? There is no doubt; the sense of story lingers thick because of the very questions themselves. We want the answers to fill in the gaps. We want the Story.
I submit that in these poems, and many others of his, there is the crucial element of story, and more often than not, fantasy is his vehicle of communication. Something about the realm of fantasy lends itself to mystery and inspiration, explanation and wonderment, and that is why I think it will continue to be a call to people, especially as we become more modern and more lost in the “boylike imagination” that rejects, or at least ignores, these deep things. And that is why poems like Walter de la Mare’s must be read, and cherished. Because they whisper to us stories of great importance, and they whisper to that part of us that needs to hear them the most.
***
I read the book again and again and finally, I found, I could not part with it. I could not give it up to the library. So I went in and said, “I would like to buy this book from you.”
Oh! It calls to the heart and imagination in the very way a poem should. It tells a story, indeed, it does. But it is a fragmented story. It is an echo of a story, of which we only have pieces that are confusing and hard to put together. Who is this man? How does he represent the “World of Men?” Who is he seeking to contact, and what was the promise that brought him? What is this place, who once lived here, and why have they retreated so, only listening now, and doing naught else? We have no answers. Only are own imagination can fill in the gaps.
But it is a powerful story. We can feel the power, the ancientness of the place, a place that once had great meaning. It is written in heavy language; like cumbersome acrylic oils upon blank, white canvas, it whispers of subtleties barely known and just out of reach.
Or here’s another, a bit more furtive, called “The Familiar”:
“Are you far away?”
“yes, I am far – far;
Where the green wave shelves to the sand,
And the rainbows are;
And an ageless sun beats fierce
From an empty sky:
There, O thou Shadow forlorn;
Is the wraith of thee, I.”
“Are you happy, most Lone?”
“Happy, forsooth!
Who am eyes of the air; voice of the foam;
Ah, happy in truth/.
My hair is astream, this cheek
Glistens like silver, and see,
As the gold to the dross, the ghost in the mirk,
I am calling to thee.”
“Nay, I am bound,
And your cry faints out in my mind,
Peace not on earth have I found,
Yet to earth I am resigned,
Cease thy shrill mockery, Voice,
Nor answer again.”
“O Master, thick cloud shuts thee out
And cold tempests of rain.”
Again, the questions. Who is speaking to whom? What are they talking about? There is no doubt; the sense of story lingers thick because of the very questions themselves. We want the answers to fill in the gaps. We want the Story.
I submit that in these poems, and many others of his, there is the crucial element of story, and more often than not, fantasy is his vehicle of communication. Something about the realm of fantasy lends itself to mystery and inspiration, explanation and wonderment, and that is why I think it will continue to be a call to people, especially as we become more modern and more lost in the “boylike imagination” that rejects, or at least ignores, these deep things. And that is why poems like Walter de la Mare’s must be read, and cherished. Because they whisper to us stories of great importance, and they whisper to that part of us that needs to hear them the most.
***
I read the book again and again and finally, I found, I could not part with it. I could not give it up to the library. So I went in and said, “I would like to buy this book from you.”
The guy looked at me curiously, then said, “Well, let’s see how many times it’s been checked out.” He took the book from my tense hands and looked at it with a cocked eyebrow. “Walter de la Mare,” he read slowly. “Never heard of him.” He ran the cold, white barcode through his computer and then straightened. “Well, looks like this has never been checked out!”
“Really?” I asked, honestly flabbergasted.
“Well, not since we have gone electronic, nope. Sure, we’ll sell it to ya.”
I was frozen a moment. Shall I really rob this already lopsided, lacking library of this prize? And yet, no one even knew of it. No one had checked out this lonely book. None here knew of its secrets. Then I grabbed the book greedily, and reached in my pocket. “I’ll take it.” He ripped off the barcode then, I gave him my money, and I walked out.
As I came to the doors, I saw that it was cold and rainy out. I smiled. I got the feeling that this was the kind of day ole Walter would have liked.
“Really?” I asked, honestly flabbergasted.
“Well, not since we have gone electronic, nope. Sure, we’ll sell it to ya.”
I was frozen a moment. Shall I really rob this already lopsided, lacking library of this prize? And yet, no one even knew of it. No one had checked out this lonely book. None here knew of its secrets. Then I grabbed the book greedily, and reached in my pocket. “I’ll take it.” He ripped off the barcode then, I gave him my money, and I walked out.
As I came to the doors, I saw that it was cold and rainy out. I smiled. I got the feeling that this was the kind of day ole Walter would have liked.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tolkien on Violence
“This, then, is my counsel. We have not the Ring. In wisdom or great folly it has been sent away to be destroyed, lest it destroy us. Without it we cannot by force defeat his force…We cannot achieve victory by arms…”[1]
Tolkien lived through one of the most violent eras there ever was. Two World Wars passed in his time, one of which he was personally a part of. He came to realize, rather than was born into, a world where wars that spanned the globe, chemical warfare, the hateful march of the Nazis, the devastation of the atomic bomb, the extreme mechanization of violence. And this full-scale scope of violence, and the terror that it must invoke, is portrayed vividly in his writing, namely the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which while we know is not allegorical, is most certainly applicable, to the World Wars which Tolkien’s generation saw.
The above quotation is the word of Gandalf in the chapter entitled “The Last Debate.” Sauron’s forces, attacking Minas Tirith, have been defeated on the Pelennor Fields, and now the leaders of the “good guys” are debating what to do next. Now, I have purposely left out certain statements not because I want to twist Tolkien’s words, but rather to highlight a concept which I think is strong but subtle in his writing. Statements such as in the last sentence, where Gandalf adds that “but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it may be.” Obviously Gandalf is making the point that there is no force of arms strong enough to defeat Sauron. Tolkien is not making a statement against violence; he simply stating that their violence is not strong enough to overpower Sauron’s violence.
Or is he?
Auden rightly uses this passage in his excellent study to show that the tact of Good in Tolkien’s war is – and indeed, must – be different from the tact of the Enemy.[2] And the Ring, as a symbol, is central to this. Gandalf does make the point in said passage that “Without [the Ring] we cannot by force defeat his force,” but he says immediately proceeding, “In wisdom or great folly it has been sent away to be destroyed lest it destroys us” (emp. mine). To go beyond Auden, who is examining Tolkien’s expression of the conflict of Good and Evil, I would like to speculate on Tolkien’s view of violence, and make two points: that Frodo’s deed is an act of anti-violence (not exactly non-violence), which is the true hope of the entire story (which Gandalf himself points out in said passage), and that Tolkien sees the use of violence (I think symbolized by the Ring, which is a device used to control and dominate “wills others than one’s own,” which is perhaps always what violence is used for) as evil, if albeit a necessary one.
We must have as our center Frodo, the little “hero,” quite unlike the mythic archetypal Hero, of a small folk, a little timid (though certainly not weak, as he is sometimes portrayed) and certainly daunted by this terrible task which he has chosen (or has been laid upon him – choice, chance, and fate being another interesting study of paradox within the Tolkienian canon). If we follow Frodo’s journey through the entire story, we find an interesting progression. At the beginning, when Frodo first hears that the secret of the Ring has been compromised to the Enemy by the admission of Gollum, he bemoans the fact that Bilbo did not kill Gollum to begin with.
“What a pity Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”
“Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without needed.”
Gandalf then explains that because Bilbo began his journey with the Ring with such an act of Pity, or Mercy, he was able to resist the great power of the Ring for a long time, resilient beyond any creature Gandalf knows of.[3] This is not the full extent of Frodo’s violent capabilities (which are by no means even average, being the even-tempered Hobbit that he is): in the Barrow Downs he makes to wound a Wight and does the same to a Nazgul later at Amon Sul, and in Moria stabs a Troll. However, at some point Frodo begins to make a turn. He won’t kill Gollum, citing the same pity which stayed Bilbo, and continues to show mercy to Gollum throughout the story. But perhaps more amazing, as they trek through Mordor, Frodo suddenly throws down his sword, an Orc blade he has taken up, declaring, “There, I’ll be an orc no more…and I’ll bear no weapon, fair or foul. Let them take me if they will!”[4] By the time Frodo gets back to the Shire, his abhorrence of violence is nearly complete. He will not take part in the fighting, even though Merry and Pippin are as gung-ho as one could want, and actually resists their inclinations several times, to the disdain of Merry (who has been quite influenced by his Rohirrim friends). While the others fight, he takes care of the wounded and tries to keep Hobbits from unnecessarily killing prisoners and other Hobbits, and later will not allow Saruman to be killed (perhaps in part taking this que from Gandalf, who shows mercy to Saruman twice, although Frodo only sees the second encounter). In the end, the violence which Frodo “agrees” to is almost a sigh of defeat: “All the same…I wish for no killing, not even of the ruffians, unless it must be done, to prevent them hurting hobbits.”[5]
What has happened to this hobbit? If there is anyone who has seen the “need” of violence used as a means to an end, it is Frodo, yet he hardly has the stomach for it. And this cannot be attributed to a lack of courage. Frodo, it has already been soundly proved, is no coward. Yet he won’t fight. Now we cannot imagine that Tolkien is just going with the artistic flow here. Tolkien was a craftsman of words, and was more capable perhaps than anyone else in the world at his time of being able to use the English language to say exactly what he wanted to say. And again, it must be pointed out that he was a WWI veteran, had witnessed the death of several of his closest friends, and had seen real violence up close in a way most of us cannot imagine. Whatever Tolkien said about violence through Frodo is indeed, I would contend, well-planned and significant. But before we draw any conclusions, we must look at two more points: Frodo as a symbol of Peace and the Ring as a symbol (at least in part) of violence and domination.
For this first point, as I have yet no proper training in Norse mythology, I must rely heavily on Tom Shippey’s splendid analysis in J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, who examines Frodo as an arcane mythic symbol (the arcane being significant).[6] “The question is, what sort of name is Frodo – the one name out of all the prominent hobbit characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which Tolkien does not mention or discuss?”[7] Frodo, beyond being most likely derived from frothi, the Old Norse word for “wise” or “the wise one”, in Shippey’s estimation comes from a Nordic myth about the father of the Norse hero Ingeld. Ingeld, a true Hero archetype shinning with Mythic power, is committed to vengeance and violence. Frothi, his father, on the other hand, was before his downfall a harbinger of peace. “The peace of Frothi” refers to a golden age, supposedly concurrent with the time of Christ, where the king Frothi maintained absolute peace in his realm, and as far as I can glean, without violence (sort of; the peace was “ground out” from a magic mill by a giantess who eventually revolts because Frothi will not allow her rest). But the point is that the myth of Frothi, not well-remembered compared to the heroic advent of his son Ingeld, is one which echoes of peace. This mimesis seems apparent. Frodo, indeed, seems to be a “peacemaker,” and does so with an act of anti-violence, which will now be discussed.
The Ring certainly represents in some respect violence and willful domination, which is in my estimation, the ultimate manifestation of violence. Sauron created it as an agent which would allow him to control the minds, designs, and wills of all those who also wore the magic rings and so gain domination of Middle-earth. Everywhere the Ring goes, violence follows, a manifestation of its evil. Isildur is betrayed to his death. Sméagol murders Déagol to obtain it (which, remembering that Sméagol is a kind of hobbit, is very significant). Boromir tries to take it by force. Those who wish to use it for “good” wish to use it for violence – to overthrow Sauron. Saruman, who wants to obtain it, wishes to do so in order to replace the Dark Lord with his own overlordship. The Dark Lord himself wishes to regain it so that his power (which he gave to make it) will be complete and he can rule Middle-earth without challenge, making use of violence and slavery and torture in his dark rule, as he learned from his master. I could go on, but this is a blog, and I really am (believe it or not) shooting for brevity.
And so, to resist the Enemy, one cannot use the Ring against him. It is evil, it creates violence. Fire cannot be used to fight fire. Rather, the Ring, and so the Evil bound about it and contained within it, must be “unmade,” destroyed. And how will it be done? Will an army force their way into the Black Lands and cast it into the fire? No. It will be brought by Frodo (with the magnificent support of dear Sam Gamgee), a small hobbit who makes peace not by the sword but by an act of sacrifice given willingly for all those in grave danger of the violence which the Enemy threatens. This quest, an anti-quest really, not meant to find something but to be rid of something, is to destroy a symbol of evil and violence. And it is done not by violence (which would be trying to fight fire with fire, force by force – useless, I think, in Tolkien’s estimation) but by anti-violence. The real heroes are those who sacrifice themselves outside of the war, doing away with the ultimate instrument of war. Again, I could go on.
I could be and maybe am reading far too much into it (a valid, if not easy, critique). As a pacifist, I do not pretend not to have my biases. However, I think it is plausible that Tolkien was nearly there as well, but could not be. I think Frodo was very much an expression of some side of himself: one that abhorred violence and yet could not help but see the necessity of it (perhaps because he had never been shown any alternative?), and yet considered even this concession a defeat. Tolkien was, after all, a Christian, and one of Christianity’s most distinguishing points is that the “Great War” is won by an act of anti-violence, of non-violence, through the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth. And Tolkien had seen the terrible things of war and violence firsthand. I am reminded of Bonhoeffer, a contemporary, who struggled with the same question, so applicable in that time (and ours as well, but perhaps less pressing): what are we to do with violence in the face of Evil when we have a gospel that calls us to make Peace? Tolkien’s best answer, I think, was Frodo and his anti-quest. And I believe that is a powerful distinction from others of his era (indeed, for all the admiration I have for Lewis, I still find his essay “Why I Am Not a Pacifist” rather distasteful and incredulous in argumentation). By no means am I suggesting that Tolkien went all the way to pacifism – I don’t think he could have. But I am suggesting that Tolkien did not, perhaps, view violence as the end or even a proper means, but an evil one that sometimes was necessary. And even this, I think, he viewed as a defeat.
This is a rather incomplete post/study. There is much to be asked, much to be examined, much to be said, and I am as of yet no literary or Tolkien scholar. I do not pretend to say anything definitive. And maybe Tolkien did not have so precisely a thought out view as I’m suggesting. But then again, Tolkien is of the most precise and exacting writers I know of. And I think the question of violence in Frodo and The Lord of the Rings is a valid one, and one that should be addressed. I believe that Tolkien had something to say on the subject, and it is something we might consider in the future.
Tolkien lived through one of the most violent eras there ever was. Two World Wars passed in his time, one of which he was personally a part of. He came to realize, rather than was born into, a world where wars that spanned the globe, chemical warfare, the hateful march of the Nazis, the devastation of the atomic bomb, the extreme mechanization of violence. And this full-scale scope of violence, and the terror that it must invoke, is portrayed vividly in his writing, namely the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which while we know is not allegorical, is most certainly applicable, to the World Wars which Tolkien’s generation saw.
The above quotation is the word of Gandalf in the chapter entitled “The Last Debate.” Sauron’s forces, attacking Minas Tirith, have been defeated on the Pelennor Fields, and now the leaders of the “good guys” are debating what to do next. Now, I have purposely left out certain statements not because I want to twist Tolkien’s words, but rather to highlight a concept which I think is strong but subtle in his writing. Statements such as in the last sentence, where Gandalf adds that “but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it may be.” Obviously Gandalf is making the point that there is no force of arms strong enough to defeat Sauron. Tolkien is not making a statement against violence; he simply stating that their violence is not strong enough to overpower Sauron’s violence.
Or is he?
Auden rightly uses this passage in his excellent study to show that the tact of Good in Tolkien’s war is – and indeed, must – be different from the tact of the Enemy.[2] And the Ring, as a symbol, is central to this. Gandalf does make the point in said passage that “Without [the Ring] we cannot by force defeat his force,” but he says immediately proceeding, “In wisdom or great folly it has been sent away to be destroyed lest it destroys us” (emp. mine). To go beyond Auden, who is examining Tolkien’s expression of the conflict of Good and Evil, I would like to speculate on Tolkien’s view of violence, and make two points: that Frodo’s deed is an act of anti-violence (not exactly non-violence), which is the true hope of the entire story (which Gandalf himself points out in said passage), and that Tolkien sees the use of violence (I think symbolized by the Ring, which is a device used to control and dominate “wills others than one’s own,” which is perhaps always what violence is used for) as evil, if albeit a necessary one.
We must have as our center Frodo, the little “hero,” quite unlike the mythic archetypal Hero, of a small folk, a little timid (though certainly not weak, as he is sometimes portrayed) and certainly daunted by this terrible task which he has chosen (or has been laid upon him – choice, chance, and fate being another interesting study of paradox within the Tolkienian canon). If we follow Frodo’s journey through the entire story, we find an interesting progression. At the beginning, when Frodo first hears that the secret of the Ring has been compromised to the Enemy by the admission of Gollum, he bemoans the fact that Bilbo did not kill Gollum to begin with.
“What a pity Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”
“Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without needed.”
Gandalf then explains that because Bilbo began his journey with the Ring with such an act of Pity, or Mercy, he was able to resist the great power of the Ring for a long time, resilient beyond any creature Gandalf knows of.[3] This is not the full extent of Frodo’s violent capabilities (which are by no means even average, being the even-tempered Hobbit that he is): in the Barrow Downs he makes to wound a Wight and does the same to a Nazgul later at Amon Sul, and in Moria stabs a Troll. However, at some point Frodo begins to make a turn. He won’t kill Gollum, citing the same pity which stayed Bilbo, and continues to show mercy to Gollum throughout the story. But perhaps more amazing, as they trek through Mordor, Frodo suddenly throws down his sword, an Orc blade he has taken up, declaring, “There, I’ll be an orc no more…and I’ll bear no weapon, fair or foul. Let them take me if they will!”[4] By the time Frodo gets back to the Shire, his abhorrence of violence is nearly complete. He will not take part in the fighting, even though Merry and Pippin are as gung-ho as one could want, and actually resists their inclinations several times, to the disdain of Merry (who has been quite influenced by his Rohirrim friends). While the others fight, he takes care of the wounded and tries to keep Hobbits from unnecessarily killing prisoners and other Hobbits, and later will not allow Saruman to be killed (perhaps in part taking this que from Gandalf, who shows mercy to Saruman twice, although Frodo only sees the second encounter). In the end, the violence which Frodo “agrees” to is almost a sigh of defeat: “All the same…I wish for no killing, not even of the ruffians, unless it must be done, to prevent them hurting hobbits.”[5]
What has happened to this hobbit? If there is anyone who has seen the “need” of violence used as a means to an end, it is Frodo, yet he hardly has the stomach for it. And this cannot be attributed to a lack of courage. Frodo, it has already been soundly proved, is no coward. Yet he won’t fight. Now we cannot imagine that Tolkien is just going with the artistic flow here. Tolkien was a craftsman of words, and was more capable perhaps than anyone else in the world at his time of being able to use the English language to say exactly what he wanted to say. And again, it must be pointed out that he was a WWI veteran, had witnessed the death of several of his closest friends, and had seen real violence up close in a way most of us cannot imagine. Whatever Tolkien said about violence through Frodo is indeed, I would contend, well-planned and significant. But before we draw any conclusions, we must look at two more points: Frodo as a symbol of Peace and the Ring as a symbol (at least in part) of violence and domination.
For this first point, as I have yet no proper training in Norse mythology, I must rely heavily on Tom Shippey’s splendid analysis in J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, who examines Frodo as an arcane mythic symbol (the arcane being significant).[6] “The question is, what sort of name is Frodo – the one name out of all the prominent hobbit characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which Tolkien does not mention or discuss?”[7] Frodo, beyond being most likely derived from frothi, the Old Norse word for “wise” or “the wise one”, in Shippey’s estimation comes from a Nordic myth about the father of the Norse hero Ingeld. Ingeld, a true Hero archetype shinning with Mythic power, is committed to vengeance and violence. Frothi, his father, on the other hand, was before his downfall a harbinger of peace. “The peace of Frothi” refers to a golden age, supposedly concurrent with the time of Christ, where the king Frothi maintained absolute peace in his realm, and as far as I can glean, without violence (sort of; the peace was “ground out” from a magic mill by a giantess who eventually revolts because Frothi will not allow her rest). But the point is that the myth of Frothi, not well-remembered compared to the heroic advent of his son Ingeld, is one which echoes of peace. This mimesis seems apparent. Frodo, indeed, seems to be a “peacemaker,” and does so with an act of anti-violence, which will now be discussed.
The Ring certainly represents in some respect violence and willful domination, which is in my estimation, the ultimate manifestation of violence. Sauron created it as an agent which would allow him to control the minds, designs, and wills of all those who also wore the magic rings and so gain domination of Middle-earth. Everywhere the Ring goes, violence follows, a manifestation of its evil. Isildur is betrayed to his death. Sméagol murders Déagol to obtain it (which, remembering that Sméagol is a kind of hobbit, is very significant). Boromir tries to take it by force. Those who wish to use it for “good” wish to use it for violence – to overthrow Sauron. Saruman, who wants to obtain it, wishes to do so in order to replace the Dark Lord with his own overlordship. The Dark Lord himself wishes to regain it so that his power (which he gave to make it) will be complete and he can rule Middle-earth without challenge, making use of violence and slavery and torture in his dark rule, as he learned from his master. I could go on, but this is a blog, and I really am (believe it or not) shooting for brevity.
And so, to resist the Enemy, one cannot use the Ring against him. It is evil, it creates violence. Fire cannot be used to fight fire. Rather, the Ring, and so the Evil bound about it and contained within it, must be “unmade,” destroyed. And how will it be done? Will an army force their way into the Black Lands and cast it into the fire? No. It will be brought by Frodo (with the magnificent support of dear Sam Gamgee), a small hobbit who makes peace not by the sword but by an act of sacrifice given willingly for all those in grave danger of the violence which the Enemy threatens. This quest, an anti-quest really, not meant to find something but to be rid of something, is to destroy a symbol of evil and violence. And it is done not by violence (which would be trying to fight fire with fire, force by force – useless, I think, in Tolkien’s estimation) but by anti-violence. The real heroes are those who sacrifice themselves outside of the war, doing away with the ultimate instrument of war. Again, I could go on.
I could be and maybe am reading far too much into it (a valid, if not easy, critique). As a pacifist, I do not pretend not to have my biases. However, I think it is plausible that Tolkien was nearly there as well, but could not be. I think Frodo was very much an expression of some side of himself: one that abhorred violence and yet could not help but see the necessity of it (perhaps because he had never been shown any alternative?), and yet considered even this concession a defeat. Tolkien was, after all, a Christian, and one of Christianity’s most distinguishing points is that the “Great War” is won by an act of anti-violence, of non-violence, through the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth. And Tolkien had seen the terrible things of war and violence firsthand. I am reminded of Bonhoeffer, a contemporary, who struggled with the same question, so applicable in that time (and ours as well, but perhaps less pressing): what are we to do with violence in the face of Evil when we have a gospel that calls us to make Peace? Tolkien’s best answer, I think, was Frodo and his anti-quest. And I believe that is a powerful distinction from others of his era (indeed, for all the admiration I have for Lewis, I still find his essay “Why I Am Not a Pacifist” rather distasteful and incredulous in argumentation). By no means am I suggesting that Tolkien went all the way to pacifism – I don’t think he could have. But I am suggesting that Tolkien did not, perhaps, view violence as the end or even a proper means, but an evil one that sometimes was necessary. And even this, I think, he viewed as a defeat.
This is a rather incomplete post/study. There is much to be asked, much to be examined, much to be said, and I am as of yet no literary or Tolkien scholar. I do not pretend to say anything definitive. And maybe Tolkien did not have so precisely a thought out view as I’m suggesting. But then again, Tolkien is of the most precise and exacting writers I know of. And I think the question of violence in Frodo and The Lord of the Rings is a valid one, and one that should be addressed. I believe that Tolkien had something to say on the subject, and it is something we might consider in the future.
It is has long been one of my favorite lines from all of Tolkien when Frodo says to Sam, who laments that Frodo is to leave the Grey Havens never to return: “I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”[8] This is, I think, the center of Frodo’s quest. Sacrifice for others. Frodo is the great tragic hero, who would hardly be remembered, and yet it was his great quest, his great sacrifice, not as memorable in the common consciousness as the great deeds of Merry and Pippen in the Shire[9] or Aragorn or Gandalf or all other Heroes, that would save the Shire and the day. Frodo is a Hero of a different kind.
[1] LotR 862. All quotations and page numbers from The Lord of the Rings are from the Houghton Mifflin One Volume Edition.
[2] W. H. Auden, “The Quest Hero,” Understanding the Lord of the Rings (eds. Isaacs, Neil D. and Rose A. Zimbardo, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 31-51. It is also significant that, while Auden does not deal with this (the material was not yet available), the war against Morgoth in the First Age was not won by the violence of the Elves and Men either. Rather, it was an act of intercession by Eärendil, the great Mariner.
[3] LotR, 54; Gandalf remarks that Bilbo is the only person he knows of ever to have given up the Ring of his own accord.
[4] LotR, 916.
[5] LotR, 986-987.
[6] Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 182-187.
[7] Shippey, 183.
[8] LotR, 1006.
[9] LotR, 992-993.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Die-hard Creationism...
Check out this link here for a story about an argument which occured in Scotland over Creationism versus Evolutionism. Apparently three people were arguing the issue, getting progressively drunker as they did so, and it culminated in the creationist stabbing the evolutionist. The story doesn't give too many details, but gosh! Three cheers for violent, brash, destructive fundamentalism.
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