Women in The Lord of the Rings

The roles of women in The Lord of the Rings have repeatedly been asserted to be insignificant, in a story about men for boys, though other commentators have noted the empowerment of the three major women characters, Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen.

Some commentators have accused Tolkien of placing women only in background roles while the male protagonists see all the action.[1] Arwen sewing Aragorn's banner, by Anna Kulisz, 2015, inspired by Edmund Leighton's 1911 Stitching the Standard

The work's author, J. R. R. Tolkien, indeed spent much of his life in an all-male environment, and did have conservative views about women. Much of the action in The Lord of the Rings is by male characters, and the nine-person Fellowship of the Ring is entirely male.

On the other hand, the Elf-queen Galadriel is powerful and wise; Éowyn, noblewoman of Rohan, is extraordinarily courageous, killing the leader of the Nazgûl; and the half-elf Arwen, who chooses to be mortal to be with Aragorn, the man she loves, is central to the theme of death and immortality that runs through the work.

Context
Main article: J. R. R. Tolkien
Secluded male environment: Pembroke College's Old Quad, where Tolkien had his teaching rooms

The author of the bestselling fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings,[2][3] J. R. R. Tolkien, was orphaned as a boy, his father dying in South Africa and his mother in England a few years later. He was brought up by his guardian, a Catholic priest, Father Francis Morgan, and educated at boys' grammar schools and then Exeter College, Oxford, which at that time had only male students. He joined the British army's Lancashire Fusiliers and saw the horror of trench warfare, with life as an officer made more bearable by the support of a male batman or servant. After the war he became a professor of English Language at the University of Leeds, and then at the University of Oxford, where he taught at Pembroke College.[4] At Oxford, he created an all-male literary group with another Oxford professor of English, C. S. Lewis, the Inklings.[5]

Among his influences, Tolkien stated that he enjoyed reading boy's adventure stories, such as those by Rider Haggard and John Buchan. Tolkien stated in an interview that Haggard's novel She was his favourite. He also said that he had specially liked stories about "Red Indians" when he was a boy.[6][7][8]

As seen in a letter to his son Michael Tolkien, he held conservative views about women, stating that men were active in their professions while women were inclined to domestic life.[9] While defending the role of women in The Lord of the Rings, the scholar of children's literature Melissa Hatcher wrote that "Tolkien himself, in reality, probably was the stodgy sexist Oxford professor that feminist scholars paint him out to be".[5]

Women, insignificant or powerful

A story about men for boys

The Lord of the Rings has repeatedly been accused of being a story about men for boys, with no significant women characters.[1] Catherine Stimpson, a scholar of English and feminism, wrote that Tolkien's women were "hackneyed ... stereotypes ... either beautiful and distant, simply distant, or simply simple".[10]

The Chicago Tribune stated that all the races from Hobbits to Elves, Dwarves to Wizards, get their due in the novel, but "Women, on the other hand, do not."[11] In its view, "Tolkien didn't think much about the female sex. Yes, he was happily married, and yes, he did have a daughter. But his wife, Edith Mary, and daughter, Priscilla, seemed to have practically no influence on his writing."[11] It quoted the scholar of medieval and Old English literature, Linda Voigts, as defending Tolkien, pointing out that, brought up in a male world and living among male scholars at a time when "Oxford was a boys' club",[11] he could not have been expected to be a modern feminist.[11] The paper states that the woman in the novel see little action, giving the example of Arwen. According to the paper, a strong-willed woman, Éowyn, was created when the teenaged Priscilla asked her father for a female character.[11]

The critics Candice Fredrick and Sam McBride, referencing the all-male Inklings group, wrote that "Middle-earth is very Inkling-like, in that while women exist in the world, they need not be given significant attention and can, if one is lucky, simply be avoided altogether."[5][12]

Three powerful women

Carol Leibiger, in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, and separately Maureen Thum, replied that Stimpson's charge was definitely disproven by Tolkien's vigorous characterisation of Éowyn (and in The Silmarillion by numerous strong female characters such as Lúthien).[13][14]

The theologian Ralph Wood replied that Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen are far from being "plaster figures": Galadriel is powerful, wise and "terrible in her beauty"; Éowyn has "extraordinary courage and valor"; and Arwen gives up her Elvish immortality to marry Aragorn. Further, Wood argued, Tolkien insisted that everyone, man and woman alike, faces the same kinds of temptation, hope, and desire.[1]

The scholar of English literature Nancy Enright stated that while there are few female characters in The Lord of the Rings, they are extremely important in defining power, which she identifies as a central theme of the novel. She comments further that even the apparently heroic male figures such as Aragorn and Faramir "use traditional masculine power in a manner tempered with an awareness of its limitations and a respect for another, deeper kind of power".[15] She argued that Faramir's brother Boromir, who fits the picture of the powerful male warrior hero, is in fact "weaker morally and spiritually"[15] than those who exercise the deeper kind of power, and noted that Boromir falls while the "less typically heroic characters",[15] including all the women (and the apparently unheroic Hobbits) survive.[15] She specifically denied that the absence of women in battle, Éowyn excepted, and among the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring, meant that female power and presence are not important in the novel.[15] On the contrary, she wrote, the women embody Tolkien's critique of the conventional view of power, and illustrate his Christian view that selfless love is stronger than selfish pride and any attempt to dominate by force.[15]

Liebiger wrote that while Tolkien's female characters appear like "chaste medieval ladies of courtly romance", doing little but encouraging their menfolk to be heroic, Shelob is a disgusting female monster, and the few prominent women are in fact extremely powerful. Further, Tolkien's attitude to destructive masculine power is "compatible with that of contemporary feminists".[13]

Ann Basso commented that all the women in The Lord of the Rings are either noble, like Arwen and Galadriel, or simple rustics, like Rosie Cotton, with one exception: Goldberry, the River-woman's daughter, wife of Tom Bombadil. Basso calls Goldberry an Eve figure to Galadriel's Mary. She is in a way domestic and hospitable, but (like Bombadil) she remains an enigma, perhaps a water sprite, perhaps the Vala Yavanna herself.[16] In a letter, Tolkien wrote that Goldberry "represents the actual seasonal changes" in "real river-lands in autumn".[17]

Weronika Łaszkiewicz noted that "Tolkien's heroines have been both praised and severely criticized",[18] stating that his fictional women indeed have an ambiguous image, of "both passivity and empowerment".[18] She suggested that this could be a result of his personal experience. Firstly, women in early 20th century England normally stayed at home and looked after the children, she noted, and Tolkien expected as much of his wife Edith, even though she was a skilful pianist. Secondly, his environment was overwhelmingly male, and other Inklings, especially Lewis, believed that "full intimacy with another man was impossible unless women were totally excluded" from their intellectual and artistic discussions; Łaszkiewicz notes that Edith resented the Inklings meetings.[18][19]

Brian Rosebury wrote that Tolkien gave his mother's memory "something of the numinous intensity which radiates from the adored, benevolent, intimately present or achingly distant, feminine figures of his work",[20] naming Galadriel, Arwen, Goldberry and the remote Varda/Elbereth. He adds that the differing interests of Tolkien and his wife Edith may be "dimly discernible" in the estrangement of the Ents and the Entwives, while their long-delayed romance is evident in Elrond (as Father Francis Xavier, Tolkien's guardian), who forbids Aragorn to marry Arwen unless he becomes king of Gondor and Arnor. He notes that the delayed marriage of the servant-hobbit Sam Gamgee and Rosie Cotton is a homelier echo of the theme.[20]

Galadriel
Galadriel's support of the Fellowship of the Ring has been compared to that of Circe and Calypso for Odysseus in Homer's epic.[21] Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus by John William Waterhouse, 1891
Further information: Galadriel

All-seeing

The Elf-queen Galadriel, Lady of Lothlórien, is the most powerful female character in Middle-earth.[13] Tolkien portrays her as all-seeing, able to read people's thoughts.[5] She uses this power to test the loyalty of each of the Fellowship in turn; David Craig comments that Tolkien would not have had a man do this, so it is "a gendered moment".[13][22] She gives each of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring a personal gift, chosen to assist them with the quest to destroy the One Ring, and with their personal journeys, as with her gift to Sam the gardener of a box of earth to restore the fertility of his garden, the Shire.[5]

Homeric
Further information: Shelob

Mac Fenwick compares Galadriel and what he sees as her monstrous opposite, the giant and evil spider Shelob, with the struggle between the good and the monstrous female characters in Homer's Odyssey. Like Galadriel, Circe and Calypso are rulers of their own secluded magical realms, and both offer help and advice to the protagonist. They help Odysseus to avoid destruction by the female monsters, the Sirens who would lure his ship on to the rocks, and Scylla and Charybdis who would smash or drown his ship; Galadriel gives Frodo the Phial of Galadriel, which by her power contains the light of Eärendil's star, able to blind and ward off Shelob in her darkest of dark lairs. Galadriel's gifts, too, are Homeric, including cloaks, food, and wisdom as well as light, just like those of Circe and Calypso.[21]

Éowyn
Further information: Éowyn

Classic woman warrior
Further information: Women warriors in literature and culture

Jessica Yates wrote that Éowyn meets all the requirements for a classic woman warrior: a strong identity; skill in fighting; weapons and armour; a horse; special powers, seen when she turns the Ringwraith's prophecy of doom back onto him; and being modest and chaste.[5][23] Leibiger added that Éowyn is the only strong human female in The Lord of the Rings (Galadriel and Arwen being Elves), noting that her rejection of the woman's place in the home leads her to fulfil the prophecy about the leader of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-King of Angmar, that "not by the hand of man will [he] fall".[13]

The scholar of feminism Penny Griffin wrote that in the Peter Jackson film Return of the King, Éowyn is "probably the movies' closest approximation to an SFC [Strong Female Character]".[24] Her credentials for this, Griffin noted, include rebelling against the injunction to stay behind when the Riders of Rohan go off to fight, disguising herself as a man, riding to battle, and fighting the leader of the Ringwraiths. The feminist effect is spoiled, Griffin stated, when her story ends (according to Tolkien's text, not the film) with her disavowing battle and marrying Faramir to live "happily every after".[24]

Fierce commitment to peace

Melissa Hatcher wrote in Mythlore that The Lord of the Rings has as a central theme the way that "the littlest person, a hobbit [Frodo Baggins], overcom[es] the tides of war": that the real power is that of healing, protecting, and preserving.[5] She noted that Éowyn tries the path of the warrior and then becomes a healer, and that some academics have interpreted her choice as weak submission. Hatcher stated that instead, Éowyn is following Tolkien's "highest ideal: a fierce commitment to peace", embodying the "full-blooded subjectivity" that Tolkien believed necessary for peace.[5] She described Éowyn as "a complete individual who fulfills Tolkien's theme of peace, preservation, and cultural memory."[5]

All six ingredients of happiness

Hatcher cited the philosopher Gregory Bassham's list of the six essential ingredients of happiness in Middle-earth, namely "delight in simple things, making light of one's troubles, getting personal, cultivating good character, cherishing and creating beauty, and rediscovering wonder", and stated that these are all seen in Éowyn and the Hobbit Sam, the gardener who inherits Frodo's Bag End and restores the Shire, "but in very few others".[5][25]

Arwen
Further information: Arwen

Symbol of the unattainable

Arwen is depicted as extremely beautiful; she is in Hatcher's view "a symbol of the unattainable, a perfect match for the unattainable Aragorn in Éowyn's eyes."[5] Leibiger wrote that Arwen's lack of involvement follows the general Elvish pattern of retreating to safe havens already established in The Silmarillion and continued in The Lord of the Rings.[13]

Chooses mortality
Main article: The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen

Enright wrote that Arwen, like Christ, is an immortal who voluntarily chooses mortality out of love, in her case for Aragorn. She granted that Arwen is not a conspicuous character, and unlike Éowyn does not ride into battle, but stated that her inner power is "subtly conveyed" and present throughout the novel.[15]

References
  1. Wood, Ralph C. (2003). The Gospel According to Tolkien. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 2–4. ISBN 978-0-664-23466-9.
  2. Jane Chance (1980) [1979]. The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Epic. Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England. Macmillan. pp. 97–127. ISBN 0333290348.
  3. Wagner, Vit (16 April 2007). "Tolkien proves he's still the king". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
  4. Carpenter, Humphrey (1978) [1977]. Tolkien: A Biography. Unwin. pp. 24, 38, 39, 41, 60, 80, 89, 91, 114–115, 122. ISBN 0-04-928039-2.
  5. Hatcher, Melissa McCrory (2007). "Finding Woman's Role in The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 25 (3). article 5.
  6. Nelson, Dale (2013) [2007]. "Literary Influences, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 366–377. ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
  7. Carpenter, Humphrey (2000) [1977]. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-61805702-3.
  8. Shippey, Tom (2000). J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Harper Collins. pp. 127, 347–348. ISBN 0-261-10400-4.
  9. Carpenter, Humphrey; Tolkien, J. R. R. (2000). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin. letter 43 to Michael Tolkien, 6-8 March 1941. ISBN 978-0-618-05699-6.
  10. Stimpson, Catharine (1969). J.R.R. Tolkien. Columbia University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-231-03207-0. OCLC 24122.
  11. Butler, Robert W.; Eberhart, John Mark (1 January 2002). "In Tolkien, it's a man's world, and with good reason". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  12. Fredrick, Candice; McBride, Sam (2001). Women Among the Inklings: Gender, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Greenwood Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0313312458.
  13. Leibiger, Carol A. (2013) [2007]. "Women in Tolkien's Works". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 710–712. ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
  14. Thum, Maureen (2004). Croft, Janet Brennan (ed.). The 'Sub-Subcreation' of Galadriel, Arwen, and Éowyn: Women of Power in Tolkien's and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. pp. 231–256. ISBN 978-1887726092.
  15. Enright, Nancy (2007). "Tolkien's Females and the Defining of Power". Renascence. 59 (2): 93–108. doi:10.5840/renascence200759213. ISSN 0034-4346.
  16. Basso, Ann McCauley (2008). "Fair Lady Goldberry, Daughter of the River". Mythlore. 27 (1). article 12.
  17. Carpenter, Humphrey; Tolkien, J. R. R. (2000). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin. letter 210 to Forrest J. Ackerman, June 1958. ISBN 978-0-618-05699-6.
  18. Łaszkiewicz, Weronika (2015). "J.R.R. Tolkien's Portrayal of Femininity and Its Transformations in Subsequent Adaptations". Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies (11(4)): 15–28. doi:10.15290/cr.2015.11.4.02. ISSN 2300-6250.
  19. Partridge, Brenda (1983). Giddings, Robert (ed.). No Sex Please—We're Hobbits: The Construction of Female Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien: This Far Land. Vision and Barnes & Noble. pp. 179–197. ISBN 978-0389203742.
  20. Rosebury, Brian (2003) [1992]. Tolkien : A Cultural Phenomenon. Palgrave. pp. 137–138. ISBN 978-1403-91263-3.
  21. Fenwick, Mac (1996). "Breastplates of Silk: Homeric Women in The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 21 (3). article 4.
  22. Craig, David M. (2001). "'Queer Lodgings': Gender and Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings". Mallorn, a journal of The Tolkien Society (38): 11–18.
  23. Yates, Jessica (2000). "Arwen the Elf Warrior?". Amon Hen, a journal of The Tolkien Society (165 (September 2000)): 11–15.
  24. Griffin, Penny (2015). Popular Culture, Political Economy and the Death of Feminism: Why women are in refrigerators and other stories. Taylor & Francis. p. 223. ISBN 978-1-317-58036-2.
  25. Bassham, Gregory (2003). Bassham, Gregory; Bronson, Eric (eds.). Tolkien's Six Keys to Happiness. The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. Open Court. pp. 49–60. ISBN 978-0812695458.
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