Middle-earth Journeys

Interesting writing, Lindariel. Thanks for calling it to our attention. It does bring up some good questions. But I think that trying to understand Tolkien through modern feminism might be missing his point.

I tend to think that to argue that Eowyn sought death after Aragorn's 'rejection' is too simple psychologically. Gandalf himself reminded Eomer that his sister had been forced to tend Theoden during the years of his decline and how devastating that had been. But if I had to name the number one cause of Eowyn's behavior, it would have been hopelessness for Middle-earth, and a well-founded and realistic hopelessness at that. Didn't all the Rohirrim seek death in battle? It was their battle cry! No one realistically thought that the battle at Dunharrow would mean anything in regard to the fate of Middle-earth, even though Aragorn thought it might be meaningful personally.

It's important to remember that Eowyn wasn't able to be 'cured' by Faramir's love until it was at least probable that there was a future for good people in Middle-earth.

In regard to the feminist critique, I'm not sure that it applied as much to the culture of Rohan as it might to others. Do we think that Eowyn was the only woman in Rohan that was trained in the use of a sword?

I come back time and again to Eowyn's bitter words to Aragorn before he departs for the Paths of the Dead:

All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.

I think there is a great deal of truth in her words, and I think this is the heart of what the older woman in Salsify's piece is saying. Eowyn was raised very oddly -- treated for the most part like a young man until it came time for the young men to go off to war. Then, she was suddenly expected to act and feel like a woman, and of course she could not because she didn't know how.

As Salsify's character explains, that was Theoden's mistake -- he treated her like a woman. If instead he had continued to treat her as a younger "son" he had asked to stay behind and lead the people, Eowyn might have been able to accept the mantle of leadership with better grace. As it is, Eowyn views the responsibility as having been accorded to her as an afterthought, a duty no other man wanted, so give it to a woman.

I also object to the characterization of Eowyn as a love-sick maiden who wanted to die after being rejected by Aragorn. Tolkien's text really does not bear this out. Her despair and unhappiness began long before she ever laid eyes on Aragorn. I am reminded of Gandalf and Aragorn's words to Eomer in the Houses of Healing:

Gandalf: "You had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on . . . . who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in."

Aragorn: "Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man's heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned . . . . And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me; for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan."

Yes, she was grieved and disappointed when Aragorn refused to let her ride with him on the Paths of the Dead, but her despair was more that he had cut off a path of escape for her from the cage she felt closing around her, rather than a broken heart. And Aragorn himself says "in me she loves only a shadow and a thought."

Merry, I also agree with you that at the root of her despair was an absolute certainty that the world was going to come to an end very soon, and she did not want to meet oblivion alone, without the only kin left to her in the world -- her uncle and her brother.

So in the end, the "wild thing" -- the woman/man no one else understood her to be -- escaped, as Salsify's elder lady puts it, "out the window." And she condemns the young men for trying to judge Eowyn at all, because they are doing so by rules that are applied to men and women, and Eowyn really is neither.

Going to play Devil's Advocate Merry! I would agree that general hopelessness and the devastation of long term care for Theoden had definitely affected Eowyn. But at the time she rode away, Theoden was better and able to lead--the causative event for her was Aragorn's refusal to let her ride with him on the Paths of the Dead--and it was here she remarked that "these others," presumably Gimli and Legolas, had no more reason to ride with him than she, except that "They love thee." She begged him on her knees--what kind of powerful and desperate statement is that from a princess?

From then on, she speaks repeatedly of deliberately seeking death in battle; I am not sure the other Rohirrim felt that way except to believe that such a death was honorable. It would certainly be preferable to survive, but as you say, they had no illusions. But they were not suicidal--she was.

Gandalf certainly offers a context for Eowyn's mental state--but the telling analysis comes from Aragorn when he speaks to Eomer about her actually loving her brother more than Aragorn, because in him "it is but a shadow and a thought that she loves." He goes on to grieve that he cannot return the affection of such a lady as she.

Eowyn tells Faramir that she does not seek healing, but death and peace, in their first conversation. Later, when it is obvious that Frodo has triumphed, and the Captains are regrouping preparatory to coming back to Minas Tirith, she still refuses the joy of the time--declining her brother's invitation to join him. Faramir sees immediately that it is because she has not been summoned by Aragorn--and he offers his love.

"You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth.....But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle." (Faramir to Eowyn, The Steward and the King)

Faramir, ever wise, has found the source of her sorrow, and somehow, Tolkien tells us not how, he turns it--turns it to joy and love.

I admit I have always had trouble with this sudden transformation, but that is another discussion altogether. As you said, modern feminism does not truly work with Tolkien's characters--Eowyn seems to be somewhat of an archtype of the strong woman warrior of the North who could be tamed by the right man, and indeed--Faramir and she actually speak in such terms about "taming the Shield Maiden." It seems to me that Tolkien sees this as her rightful place--and that the warrior, however laudable and great and useful her deeds, is not right for her.

You give me things to think about Lindariel--a great deal seems to hang on any interpretation of Eowyn because she is one of just a handful of female characters, she is the only human woman, and we know more about her than any other female character. She must carry the banner for women in Tolkien for many people who are not familiar with the backstories of his strong female elves in the Sil and the Histories, or with Morwen of the Children of Hurin. For readers of LOTR, she's all there is. But in the end, Tolkien almost presents her search for validation in a male world as an aberration, and she becomes the healer and wife she is supposed to be. More importantly,she finds joy in it. I wonder if for him, that was the point of all her angst. I doubt he ever intended her to be a modern female hero-but I also think that being able to see and discuss her actions and place as a woman in the world he created is yet more evidence of the layers and timelessness of this work--each generation of readers brings something new to the experience.

I always enjoy playing devil's advocate, too, librislove, and you make good arguments!

But I also think you expect Eowyn's feelings to turn on a dime, as it were. Years of shame don't disappear in a few weeks, and someone who faces death on a battlefield, especially the terror of the Witchking, can't fall in love at the first sign of good news. I think Tolkien portrays her healing as a gradual kind of thawing. It must have taken a while for her to believe that the eucatastrophe was true.

Can we really say that Eowyn was 'suicidal'? I know she said she looked for death in battle--that supports your case. But she did actually fight the Witchking: she didn't just stand there and let him decapitate her! Was she looking for death or was she looking for honor?

I think she was trying to defend Theoden, no more or less. In any case, she would not, even in despair, have countenanced the dishonorable death of simply allowing herself to be killed. But she would have welcomed death.

I know that we cannot expect Eowyn's feelings to turn on a dime, but I cannot find any evidence that Tolkien wrote Eowyn as though her change of heart took time. Rather, it seemed like a result of Faramir's interaction with her suddenly opening her heart. At least to me..

I guess it is no secret by now that Eowyn is not my favorite character. I quickly lost patience with her focus on herself as the land fell down around her and everyone else, including her hoped for lover Aragorn did their duty whether they wanted to or not. He, and others, were patient with her and generous in their assessment of her behavior. But--is it just possible that Tolkien wrote her this way to show us how she grew up--grew anyway into what his conception of a noblewoman in his Third Age Middle Earth was?

For what it's worth--as a young woman I thought she was wonderful, and I am not sure if I have grown up, or just lost my tolerance for the passion of youth.....

There's so much Tolkien DOESN'T tell us about Eowyn's inner life, especially during her time in the Houses of Healing. We are only given brief vignettes, and this makes it seem like her feelings towards Aragorn and Faramir change on a dime. But I think Faramir makes a very important statement about her in "The Steward and the King" that isn't often discussed:

"Then if you will have it so, lady," he said: "you do not go [to the Field of Cormallen], because only your brother called for you, and to look on the Lord Aragorn, Elendil's heir, in his triumph would now bring you no joy. Or because I do not go, and you desire still to be near me. And maybe for both these reasons, and you yourself cannot choose between them. Eowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?"

A few paragraphs later, Tolkien states, "Then the heart of Eowyn changes, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her."

Faramir is a very perceptive man! I think the implication is that Eowyn's feelings for Faramir have grown and blossomed over an extended period of time, during which she has been in a great deal of emotional turmoil over a number of other issues: dealing with the aftermath of her injuries (how helpless and useless she must have felt with BOTH arms injured -- one broken, the other cold and lifeless!) and the lingering effects of the Black Breath and Grima's dreadful whisperings; coming to terms with the deaths of her uncle and cousin (whom she really never had a chance to properly mourn); facing the possibility of losing her dear brother, the very last of her near kin; dealing with the guilt she MUST feel for having left her people leaderless; and looking day after day into the growing dark of Mordor and the virtual certainty of annihilation.

Plus, she clearly feels that she has ridden all this way to find glory and honor and freedom in death, only to find that she has basically traded one cage for another! The image of her restlessly pacing the halls and gardens of the Houses of Healing -- unable to leave, unable to fight, unable to do ANYTHING -- is very palpable. "I cannot lie in sloth, idle, caged."

The poor girl -- and she is really just a young girl at heart -- is utterly and completely devastated and confused! So, when beyond all hope the eucatastrophe occurs, and the world DOESN'T come to a dreadful end, and everyone DOESN'T die, and she must face life once again, she simply doesn't know what to do with herself, or all of the muddled, confused, unidentifiable things she is feeling.

It is Faramir, bless him!, who brings clarity and light and love to her at last. It isn't that she suddenly stops loving Aragorn and starts loving Faramir, but that she finally at last understands her own feelings.

It is also important that Faramir confesses his love to her first. She has already been through the terrible experience of revealing feelings to Aragorn that could not be returned. Part of the reason she cannot go to the Field of Cormallen is that she is too ashamed and embarrassed to face him again. In order for her to be able to admit to her feelings for Faramir, she needs to be certain of his love for her first.

Ultimately, Eowyn's greatest difficulty is that she is, as Gandalf pointed out, a person born with the spirit and courage of a man trapped in a maiden's body. On top of that, she has been raised much more like a young man than a young woman, and spent the vast majority of her life in a household completely dominated by men and constantly full of warriors coming and going. She has probably never had any suitors, other than the odious and unwanted attentions of Grima, and she really doesn't know how to BE a normal young woman of her time.

Merry brought up the question of whether there were other women who had been trained to fight like Eowyn -- other "shieldmaidens." Since the term shieldmaiden even exists, I would say yes, but they were probably not trained formally as Eowyn was. I suspect that many women of Rohan learned to handle weapons -- especially the women who lived out on the farms and pastures of the Westfold -- not with the sense of turning them into an organized fighting force, but so that they would have some skills to defend themselves in case they are attacked while the men are out in the fields or off on patrol. But Eowyn herself defined the place of women in Rohan when she said so bitterly to Aragorn, "All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more."

In Eowyn, Tolkien created a very unique character for her time and place -- the rare female warrior. She represents Brunnhilde and the Amazons -- all of those "unnatural" female warriors who must be tamed by the hand of Man. And Eowyn is, in a sense, "tamed," but in a far more civilized manner certainly than Brunnhilde -- not by a man who bests her and claims her in marriage, but by a man who declares his love, upholds her worth and valor in his eyes, stretches out his hand, and gives her the CHOICE and the FREEDOM to decide her own future.

And that's really what she wanted after all -- FREEDOM.

Good stuff, Lindariel. If we take as a given that Eowyn, born a princess into a martial culture that saw the soldier as the highest ideal, internalized those values to the point she saw little use in the traditional functions of women, could her exposure to Faramir--a fine and brave, but reluctant captain of soldiers whose real nature tended toward lore, learning, music, healing and peace--have shown her that such pursuits were in fact honorable? That war is not the only way to find greatness, and that greatness itself may not be the only, or even the best, end one can hope for? Is this perhaps the change that Tolkien meant for her to embody? This is a side of male greatness and honor she has never seen before--even Aragorn has not had much chance to show her that he too has this side to his character. This interpretation might get us away a bit from Eowyn's female angst, and cast her in the role of all the glory bound soldiers Tolkien saw marching off to war under the orders of disastrously martial regimes whose illusions and misplaced conceptions of patriotism and honor destroyed both them and the idealistic youths who fought their war. He couldn't save them, but he could have Eowyn and Faramir show us the way. Thoughts?

At any rate, Tolkien was so rich and complex in his writing and thought, it's probably ALL these various interpretations and ten more we have not thought of and five more we never will....

This has been fascinating reading! I wish I had something to add of my own but everything has been so well argued all I can say is how much I've enjoyed following it. It drove me to find out what Tolkien himself said about Eowyn and I found the following in his letters:

From a draft letter to a reader c. 1963

Eowyn: Is is possible to love more than one person (of the other sex) at the same time, but in a different mode and intensity. I do not think that Eowyn's feelings for Aragorn really changed much; and when he was revealed as so lofty a figure, in descent and office, she was able to go on loving him and admiring him. He was old, and that is not only a physical quality: when not accompanied by any physical decay age can be alarming or awe-inspiring. Also she was not herself ambitious in the true political sense. Though not a 'dry nurse' in temper, she was also not really a soldier or 'amazon', but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis.

Tolkien adds that Faramir 'understood Eowyn very well':

He was motherless and sisterless (Eowyn was also motherless), and had a 'bossy' brother. He had been accustomed to giving way and not giving his own opinions air, while retaining power of command among men..... I think he understood Eowyn very well.

He adds later on:

Criticism of the speed of the relationship or 'love' of Faramir and Eowyn: In my experience feelings and decisions ripen very quickly (as measured by mere 'clock-time', which is actually not justly applicable) in periods of great stress, and especially under the expectation of imminent death. And I do not think that persons of high estate and breeding need all the petty fencing and approaches in matters of 'love'. This tale does not deal with a period of 'Courtly Love' and its pretences; but with a culture more primitive (sc. less corrupt) and nobler.

Fascinating stuff! Of course how Tolkien understood Eowyn and how Eowyn comes across to readers need not necessarily be the same thing - characters take on a life of their own beyond the author's 'take' on them and words and events can be read many ways once they leave an author's brain and are put on a page. But it's interesting to see how he saw her.

I wonder what he really means by not a 'dry nurse' in temper. I know what a wet nurse is so I am supposing he means not, by nature, a typical high born wife and mother.

Thanks for finding all of those citations, Iolanthe. I was planning to do just that today.

I do have one more element about Eowyn to throw into the conversation that I do not believe we have discussed before and that is to consider what her prospects were within the culture of Rohan. While Theoden was alive, she was the chief lady of Meduseld, standing essentially in the place of Theoden's late wife. We do get to see her serving her ceremonial roles as cup bearer, hostess, and chatelaine.

However, after Theoden's death, what is to be done with Eowyn? If Theodred had not died, then she would have served in this same ceremonial role until he married, at which point his wife would become Queen. The case would be the same with Eomer, so no matter who inherits the throne, Eowyn would probably be looking at the prospects of an arranged marriage, but to whom?

All of the prominent Marshalls of the Mark (with the exception of her brother Eomer) -- Elfhelm and Erkenbrand -- were already married. Marriage to a captain would probably be deemed beneath her station as Rohan's only Princess, so someone like Eothain is probably out of the question. That rules out marriage to a military man of suitable station.

A wealthy landowner then? What kind of life would that seem to a young woman raised in the martial atmosphere of Meduseld?

That leaves her with marriage to a prominent nobleman from an allied country -- Gondor -- a land she has never seen and a people she does not know. It must certainly have been a frightening prospect to think about the possibility of leaving the only home she has ever known and marrying a stranger who may wind up caging her even more tightly than she is already caged now.

Enter Aragorn -- a valiant, noble man who treats her with kindness, understanding, and respect. A decisive leader of men whose presence alone engenders loyalty and inspires courage in everyone around him. Here is a man who could honorably take her away from a life that is slowly but surely strangling her. A man who seems to understand her and who just might let her spread her wings. He could be the one who could at last give her what she needs most -- FREEDOM.

No wonder she falls for him! And then he kindly but firmly closes the door on what she must see as her only honorable prospect for escape, and it becomes the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Aragorn's rejection does factor into her decision to abandon her duty, disguise herself as a man, and depart with the Rohirrim for what she views as certain death, but it is only one of many factors.

librislove, I can understand your liking Eowyn less as you mature. I can see that. This conversation has made me reconsider her character, too.

I've been considering this, now, from Tolkien's point of view. I'm not sure we know a lot about Eowyn's development as a character or as an engine for making the plot move forward. But I'm thinking that he might have known that he wanted to have a sheildmaiden archetype from early on. I'm only guessing that he wanted to have the pun about the witchking not being killed by a man in there--a little philology joke! So, as the author, he needs to tell us about Eowyn's motivation for being at the Pelennor. Maybe he could have made Rohan have an Amazon force!

But we know from other stuff in his letters that he has certain beliefs about the fundamental nature of women--rightly or wrongly. So she gets to be an Amazon for a while, but not permanently. How to get her there and back again?

I guess I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I would have liked her better had her sadness about Aragorn not entered into the motivation. Would it have been possible for her to have decided that she was as skilled a fighter as most of the men and ridden off to Minas Tirith just because she could have made a contribution and she didn't want the good 'guys' to lose?

It would but somehow that seems much less of a story. It loses heart, somehow, and Eowyn seems less real. The fact that there is weakness as well as strength makes her appeal to me more.

Her strong spirit, stifled by the prospects that Lindariel has laid out above. has to burst out somehow and not in a way that's either sensible or considered. If she dashed off to save Rohan because she could and because it was right then everything that really makes her Eowyn goes with it and she's just a rather feisty maiden who wants to show she's as good as the guys. Add in the despair and desperation at losing Aragorn and you have a real woman instead of a 2D heroine and the makings of a real tragedy. Much better story!

Okay, Iolanthe, I think you're right, too, which means I've probably contradicted myself many times here!

That's the joy of a good debate!

Why are there only FotR chapters to discuss? Can we open TT and RotK chapter threads too?