After our discussion on Monday, I felt some greater attention should be paid to Ursula Le Guin’s essay, “The Child and the Shadow,” specifically on the idea of fantasy being the natural genre of exploring the human internal struggle of good and evil. Le Guin, in her paper, observes that fantasy stories often address a moral dialectic between good and evil, but are able to do so without oversimplifying said struggle because they act in the realm of instinct not consciousness. (Le Guin, 61-63) Observing fairy tales, Le Guin comes to the conclusion that the hero or heroine of these stories is tied to a greater vision, one that sees “what is appropriate to be done, because he or she sees the whole, which is greater than either good or evil.” (Le Guin, 62)
Vision seems to be a key part of understanding the struggle of good and evil, and Le Guin seems to be arguing that fantasy and fairy tale operate on a level free from “the one-sided, shadowless half-truths and conventional moralities of collective conscious,” that enables a degree of clarity into these questions that societal preoccupations obscure. (Le Guin, 62) That being said, they seem to even transcend sensory registers according to Le Guin: “Though they use words, they work the way music does; they short-circuit verbal reasoning, and go straight to the thoughts that lie too deep to utter.” (Le Guin, 57)
What does this then mean for our decidedly good characters like Aragorn and Sam who, as we discussed in class, are at times racked with indecision and have no idea what choice is good, but simply have to make a decision and hope it was the right one. If knowing what is to be done is their heroism as Le Guin argues, then can we call the game-changing acts that Aragorn and Sam perform heroic? I think our discussion of narrative mercy highlights the fact that the moral struggle of good and evil operates on a different level from the conscious minds of the characters or even the readers. Sam does not know that abandoning Frodo to save the ring is the right decision, and finding Frodo still alive later, he in fact feels that he made the wrong choice leaving him. Yet he does manage to rescue Frodo from the Orcs because his goodness, his heroism is not in his control. His heroism is not in knowing what to do, but making a choice and trusting that he will figure it out later, and for his decisive action, the narrative rewards him with putting him in the position of goodness, of heroism.
In fact it is the figures who have tried to control the outcomes of the narrative, that watch all others with an omnipresent gaze, that finds themselves on the side of evilness, of corruption. As we discussed in class, the allure of the one ring is control, the power to exact one’s will upon everyone around them. People of seemingly noble intentions are drawn to the ring, like Boromir who wants to use the ring to save the people of Gondor. And even Frodo who holds no intention of using the ring, but wants to destroy it to save the shire ends up succumbing to it in the end. The ring is shown to have the capacity to corrupt anyone regardless of the goodness of their intention, that mortals have a limited will to struggle against the ring, and any instances of giving in to the ring’s temptation of power puts one’s will in a greater position of vulnerability with respect to the ring.. Yet this same narrative mercy saves Frodo in the end with Gollum’s fateful trip, because it is not whether or not Frodo succeeds or fails that determines his heroic status in the narrative; it is his resolve to try despite knowing if it is pointless or not that is rewarded by the narrative. As Tolkien himself wrote in a draft of a letter to Miss J. Bum, “there exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power. In which case (I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected: the general sanctity (and humility and mercy) of the sacrificial person.” (Tolkien, Letter 191) Sacrifice is the key. Frodo and Sam and Aragorn’s sacrifice of their certainty and sense of control in favor of action is what makes the narrative deem them heroic.
This idea of sacrificing one’s senses, one’s methods of control, brings us back to Le Guin’s idea that fantasy is the perfect medium for conveying this sacrifice to uncertainty because fantasy as a genre involves transcending the senses, the norms of collective consciousness, straight to the unconscious. In a way, the genre of fantasy is accomplishing this very same goal of appealing to instinct by speaking directly to it. While the characters feel a sacrifice of their peace of mind in the appeal to instinct, it is a value added in Le Guin’s conception of the genre as it cuts out the filter of collective consciousness and allows us to understand good and evil on a primal level, a level unfiltered. While Le Guin argues that fantasy is the natural medium for conveying the inner complexity of good and evil to children, I would argue that it has just as much efficacy for adults because as is evident with the Hans Christian Anderson story, it is easy to lose access to that instinctual level in adult life when is steeped in societal norms and pressures for survival. I argue, and I think that Le Guin would agree, that fantasy is a great tool for adults to reconnect with their unconscious and consider good and evil free from the filtering of societal paradigms.
-Alyse
Vision seems to be a key part of understanding the struggle of good and evil, and Le Guin seems to be arguing that fantasy and fairy tale operate on a level free from “the one-sided, shadowless half-truths and conventional moralities of collective conscious,” that enables a degree of clarity into these questions that societal preoccupations obscure. (Le Guin, 62) That being said, they seem to even transcend sensory registers according to Le Guin: “Though they use words, they work the way music does; they short-circuit verbal reasoning, and go straight to the thoughts that lie too deep to utter.” (Le Guin, 57)
What does this then mean for our decidedly good characters like Aragorn and Sam who, as we discussed in class, are at times racked with indecision and have no idea what choice is good, but simply have to make a decision and hope it was the right one. If knowing what is to be done is their heroism as Le Guin argues, then can we call the game-changing acts that Aragorn and Sam perform heroic? I think our discussion of narrative mercy highlights the fact that the moral struggle of good and evil operates on a different level from the conscious minds of the characters or even the readers. Sam does not know that abandoning Frodo to save the ring is the right decision, and finding Frodo still alive later, he in fact feels that he made the wrong choice leaving him. Yet he does manage to rescue Frodo from the Orcs because his goodness, his heroism is not in his control. His heroism is not in knowing what to do, but making a choice and trusting that he will figure it out later, and for his decisive action, the narrative rewards him with putting him in the position of goodness, of heroism.
In fact it is the figures who have tried to control the outcomes of the narrative, that watch all others with an omnipresent gaze, that finds themselves on the side of evilness, of corruption. As we discussed in class, the allure of the one ring is control, the power to exact one’s will upon everyone around them. People of seemingly noble intentions are drawn to the ring, like Boromir who wants to use the ring to save the people of Gondor. And even Frodo who holds no intention of using the ring, but wants to destroy it to save the shire ends up succumbing to it in the end. The ring is shown to have the capacity to corrupt anyone regardless of the goodness of their intention, that mortals have a limited will to struggle against the ring, and any instances of giving in to the ring’s temptation of power puts one’s will in a greater position of vulnerability with respect to the ring.. Yet this same narrative mercy saves Frodo in the end with Gollum’s fateful trip, because it is not whether or not Frodo succeeds or fails that determines his heroic status in the narrative; it is his resolve to try despite knowing if it is pointless or not that is rewarded by the narrative. As Tolkien himself wrote in a draft of a letter to Miss J. Bum, “there exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power. In which case (I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected: the general sanctity (and humility and mercy) of the sacrificial person.” (Tolkien, Letter 191) Sacrifice is the key. Frodo and Sam and Aragorn’s sacrifice of their certainty and sense of control in favor of action is what makes the narrative deem them heroic.
This idea of sacrificing one’s senses, one’s methods of control, brings us back to Le Guin’s idea that fantasy is the perfect medium for conveying this sacrifice to uncertainty because fantasy as a genre involves transcending the senses, the norms of collective consciousness, straight to the unconscious. In a way, the genre of fantasy is accomplishing this very same goal of appealing to instinct by speaking directly to it. While the characters feel a sacrifice of their peace of mind in the appeal to instinct, it is a value added in Le Guin’s conception of the genre as it cuts out the filter of collective consciousness and allows us to understand good and evil on a primal level, a level unfiltered. While Le Guin argues that fantasy is the natural medium for conveying the inner complexity of good and evil to children, I would argue that it has just as much efficacy for adults because as is evident with the Hans Christian Anderson story, it is easy to lose access to that instinctual level in adult life when is steeped in societal norms and pressures for survival. I argue, and I think that Le Guin would agree, that fantasy is a great tool for adults to reconnect with their unconscious and consider good and evil free from the filtering of societal paradigms.
-Alyse
2 comments:
I enjoyed your exploration of the moral significance of the fantasy genre here, and especially the focus on the deliberate choice of Aragorn and Sam as opposed to the almost irrational certainty that LeGuin identifies in other fantasy heroes. But I wonder if the contrast here doesn't reveal that LeGuin's framework is inadequate for understanding Tolkien. Reason matters for Tolkien; prudence is a virtue. It is not the highest virtue, and I agree that Frodo's resolve to do the right thing is ultimately what Tolkien says redeems him despite his failure.
A further thought: would you connect Frodo's dedication to doing the right thing despite his weakness to the desperate resolve of Beowulf to face death without hope?
~LJF
Sacrificing control is key—I think you are right here. But sacrificing it to what? There I am less sure that Tolkien means instinct. Le Guin points to the unconscious, but why should the unconscious give us correct directions? LJF is right to point to the importance of reason, but my guess is that there is yet another power at work in Tolkien's thinking, he is just reluctant to name it in his fantasy. RLFB
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