Frodo's faith

Christian Century, Sept 6, 2003 by Ralph C. Wood

AT THE END of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings, as King Aragorn is preparing to die, he utters his final words to Arwen, his elven queen--words that contain a hint of resurrection: "In sorrow must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!" The account of Arwen's own burial contains another hint of resurrection: "She laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed." Here as elsewhere in the trilogy, Tolkien obliquely suggests a hope for radically renewed life beyond "the circles of the world."

Christian hope concerns precisely a radical change that breaks the cyle of the world's endless turning. It takes the natural human aspiration to happiness and reorders it to the kingdom of heaven. Such hope is not a general optimism about the nature of things, nor a forward-looking confidence that all will eventually be well. Instead, it is hope in a future that God alone can and will provide.

Such a distinctively Christian hope is not an explicit part of the Lord of the Rings, yet all members of the Fellowship of the Ring stake their lives on a future realization of the Good beyond the bounds of the world. Their devotion to their quest does not depend upon any sort of certainty concerning its success. They are called to be faithful rather than victorious. Often the fellowship finds its profoundest hope when the prospects seem bleakest.

Near the end of their wearying journey, Frodo and Sam are alone, deep within Mordor, crawling like insects across a vast wilderness. All their efforts seem finally to have failed. Even if somehow they succeed in destroying the Ring, there is no likelihood that they will survive, or that anyone will ever hear of their valiant deed. They seem doomed to oblivion. Yet amidst such apparent hopelessness, Sam--the peasant hobbit who, despite his humble origins, has gradually emerged as a figure of great moral and spiritual insight--beholds a single star shimmering above the dark clouds of Mordor:

   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 Shadow was only a
   small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever
   beyond its reach.... Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his
   master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles
   and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast
   himself into a deep and untroubled sleep.

This meditation is noteworthy on several counts. Fearing Gollum's treachery, Sam has never before allowed himself to sleep while Frodo also slept. That he should do so now is a sign of transcendent hope--the conviction, namely, that their ultimate well-being lies beyond any foiling of it by Gollum's deceit or Sauron's sorcery. For Sam not to be vexed by Frodo's fate is to have found hope in a future that will last, no matter the outcome of their errand.

More remarkable still is Sam's discernment of the relative power of good and evil, light and darkness, life and death, hope and despair. The vast darkened sky of Mordor, illumined by only a single star, would seem to signal the triumph of evil once and for all. Yet Sam is not bound by the logic of the obvious. He sees that star and shadow are not locked in a dualistic combat of equals, nor are they engaged in a battle whose outcome remains uncertain. He discerns the deep and paradoxical truth that the dark has no meaning apart from the light. Light is both the primal and the final reality, not the night that seeks to quench it. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

SAM'S INSIGHT, excellent though it is, cannot be sustained apart from a fellowship such as the nine friends have formed and a quest such as they have been charged to fulfill. It also requires a sustaining story--one that is rooted in their history and that sums up and embodies not only their own struggle against Sauron but also the struggle of all the Free Peoples of Middleearth against similar evils.

There are many competing stories that vie for our loyalty, and Sam tries to distinguish them, to locate the one hope-giving story:

   We shouldn't be here at all [Sam says to Frodo], if we'd known more
   about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The
   brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I
   used to call them. I used to think that they were things the
   wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they
   wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a
   kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with
   the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.
   Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths
   were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots
   of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they
   had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear
   about those as just went on--and not all to a good end, mind you; at
   least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good
   end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not
   quite the same--like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best
   tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I
   wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"