“It is a gift!” -Boromir

 J.R.R. Tolkien heart-wrenchingly wrote this about the death of his own wife, his Luthien, “But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos” (Letter 340). As he so often does, Tolkien captures several of the core lamentations about the human condition: the loss of a loved one, the finitude and suffering of life, and the sometimes seemingly cruel apathy of the universe. In a phrase, fear of death. While Edith's may have been among the worst losses Tolkien endured in life, it certainly was not his first. He had been well acquainted with the barbs of the human condition long before he penned The Lord of the Rings and even before the first rough conceptions of The Silmarillion took root. Indeed, the following could be said of Tolkien and his legendarium: “So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began.” And so Tolkien wrestled with his conception of mortality, or expressed his understanding of it, by putting it in dialogue with immortality throughout his works. A theme which he explores from the first pages of The Silmarillion to the Akallabêth to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Yet, it is in the final story of Arwen and Aragorn in Appendix A where his findings are condensed. In the end, we find Tolkien provides an argument more so than final answers to the great debate, which is all anyone can do. 

When Aragorn reaches the end of his time on earth, Arwen is distraught. “She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her” (Appendix A). Interestingly enough, Aragorn himself seems long reconciled with the notion of death, saying, “To me has been given not only a span of thrice that of Men of Middle-Earth, but also the grace to go at my will, and give back the gift. Now, therefore, I will sleep” (Appendix A). The inversion of the usual roles here is certainly not unintentional by Tolkien. 

Prior to this interaction, it is Men who label their mortality as the Doom of Man, and it is the Elves who label it the Gift of Men. In every letter he discusses the topic, Tolkien reminds and reasserts it is the Elves who call it the Gift of Men because that is how they perceive it as immortals. Tolkien writes, even if mortality is a product of the Fall, the Elves can only see it as a positive gift: “It should be regarded as an Elvish perception of what death — not being tied to the 'circles of the world' – should now become for Men, however it arose” (Letter 208). Arwen herself admits she used to scorn the wicked, foolish men who resented the great gift that "as Time wears even the Powers shall envy" (Silmarillion). That is precisely Tolkien’s way of wrestling with morality. So very many of us succumb to the fears of Ar-Pharazon and dread the prospect of death and dream ever after immortality. Tolkien points out, quite simply, that immortality may not be as an exciting prospect as all that. “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view,” and the very thing we see as our doom is seen to be a gift by others (Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). The reverse is also true: Men throughout Tolkien's legendarium cling to life and envy the Elves for their unending ones. As Tolkien describes it, “The 'Elves' are 'immortal', at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death” (Letter 131). Meanwhile, “The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world. Since the point of view of the whole cycle is the Elvish, mortality is not explained mythically: it is a mystery of God of which no more is known than that 'what God has purposed for Men is hidden': a grief and an envy to the immortal Elves” (Letter 131). The debate can be summarized as such, “Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete” (Letter 186). 

One man's view of death, perhaps one we could all adopt, at least relative to the unfortunate fate of the Elves.

Thus the inversion in the final chapter of the story of Arwen and Aragorn is stunning. Even an Elf comes to lament and bitterly resent the cruel fate of Men. But Aragorn is King, he is a wise and studied man. He seems to have realized the following truth long ago, and passes it along to Arwen in their last moments when her grief is culminating, “I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world” (Appendix A). Certainly not a coincidence by Tolkien, Aragorn encapsulates one of the key arguments for why death ought to be seen as a Gift rather than a Doom: the Elves are condemned to wallow in the misery and regret of lost things till the end of days, and there will be no comfort or escape from the misery, loss, and fading of things to be found on earth, but in death there may yet prove some release from this fate. He reminds her of the options in front of her, “The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall be there evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men” (Appendix A). And here is where Tolkien enters as close to an answer on life after death as he will, Aragorn says in closing, “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory” (Appendix A). Though none, not even the Elves, know what lies beyond Death, it is perhaps better than being bound to eternity. To continue to live after loss maintains only the memory of what once was. Death brings the possibility of something more, something beyond, something, Tolkien believes, more than mere memory. Perhaps even many meetings and reunions await, just as Luthien and Beren passed together "beyond the confines of the world," for it is written, "and yet at last they met once more, and long ago they passed away in the forest singing sorrowless" (A Knife in the Dark).

Moreover, Tolkien again comments on if Death is a consequence of the Fall of Man, then “A divine 'punishment' is also a divine 'gift', if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments' (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained: a 'mortal' Man has probably (an Elf would say) a higher if unrevealed destiny than a longeval one” (Letter 212). And it is perhaps only with this understanding can we understand that death is a gift of God and should be treated and respected as such. There are few things more heinous than rejecting a gift from God, especially since the very act is impossible: “To attempt by device or 'magic' to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of 'mortals'. Longevity or counterfeit 'immortality' (true immortality is beyond Ea) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith” (Letter 212). Not only is it offensive to God, it is an impossible undertaking to deny the gift and will of the Creator, the very attempt of which can lead to, in a particularly egregious case, the intervention of God himself in the Numenoreans revolt against mortality.  Indeed, Tolkien summarizes his findings as such, “Death is not an Enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with a Ringwraith” (Letter 208). Moreover, “The attempt to escape it is wicked because 'unnatural', and silly because Death in that sense is the Gift of God (envied by the Elves), release from the weariness of Time. Death, in the penal sense, is viewed as a change in attitude to it: fear, reluctance. A good Númenórean died of free will when he felt it to be time to do so” (Letter 156). There is, perhaps, no one better to come to this understanding, as well as espouse and exemplify this view than Aragorn son of Arathorn, both because of his relationship with Arwen, as well as because his ancestry fell from grace so spectacularly precisely by being consumed by this fear and the confusion over "immortality" (more aptly, eternal memories- and nothing more- than things that once were and have been lost) and "mortality" (escape from the loss and the opportunity for more than despairing memories). 

When we realize immortality is hardly, if at all, a better gift, and in some ways is more obviously worse than the unknown potentialities of Death, and pair that with the acceptance and reverence of gifts of a good Creator, as well as acknowledging it is an unescapable aspect of the human condition, we can at least see an argument on why we ought to accept Death, maybe even as a gift, even if we are still left clueless as to what lies beyond the horizon. Tolkien writes his concern was with, “Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees.” Perhaps death is a fool's hope, but there is at least hope in it, nonetheless. And so Tolkien once again has gotten the better of himself, transmuting the greatest sorrow of Man into wisdom. We can, and perhaps should be sorrowful that things come to an end and loved ones (at least temporarily) abandon us in their escape from Time. Tolkien’s mourning of Edith as well as Arwen’s mourning of Aragorn are justified, it is a testament to the quality of time they had together, only enhanced by its fleeting nature. Grief is the price we pay for love. Both should heed Gandalf’s parting words, “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” Their grief is expected, but they are not justified to despair. The rules are already set, perhaps in our favor, and so we cannot "plead to the inexorable Mandos" anymore than we can stop the sun from setting. We should grieve, but remember to appreciate that while the inexorable Mandos taketh, it also giveth all the things we so fear to lose. "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. .... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires” (Letter 43). As Pippin says in the face of certain doom, "That's got to count for something."

To Hope without guarantees,

Tom B(ombadil)