“Elves and Men are just different aspects of the Humane,” Tolkien noted in Letter 181. That is to say, he did not construct and depict Elves and Men as two separate and independent species. Rather, in Middle-earth, Tolkien was observing and portraying two different modes of human existence.
“Death” functions as the anchor where these two modes of being both meet and diverge. Mortal Men are doomed to die, while Elvish “immortality” is not truly eternal life. Elves will also perish eventually, but only with the end of Arda. Death for them is so distant as to become almost unimaginable, producing a mode of existence that ostensibly resembles infinity. Their distinct modes of being yield two radically different psychologies, in which Men and Elves experience history differently, approach Eru differently, and ultimately participate in Arda differently. More importantly, both of these worldviews can still be found within modern humanity itself. Tolkien’s construction of Men and Elves is therefore not escapist mythology, but a genuine reflection — even a prophetic reflection — of real-world human existential conditions.
At the turn of the millennium, philosopher Susan Buck-Morss argued that the central project of the twentieth century had been “the construction of mass utopia.” The crisis of modernity was the collapse of traditional authority — religion, monarchy, transcendence itself. In response, humanity attempted to construct dreamworlds of its own.
For a moment, it seemed as if we had succeeded. Not because our dreams had been fulfilled, but because we once again believed that history possessed meaning, direction, and destiny. History had its subject — not one guaranteed by God, but one discovered and justified by humanity itself: technological progress, revolution, liberation, communism (even fascism, in the case of the Third Reich). The world remained enchanted because it still appeared intelligible, and because we believed ourselves to be progressing toward a future already visible on the horizon.
In both premodern religious societies and the ideological dreamworlds of the twentieth century, one finds a profound sense of confidence — even passion (fanaticism, in its extreme forms). Where there is certainty about the structure of reality, there is little room for weariness.
“There is no weariness in the eyes of the Elves” (“Athrabeth” 316). The Elves, in many ways, resemble this enchanted condition. In the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, Andreth’s anxiety and despair stand in stark contrast to Finrod’s almost instinctive certainty. Finrod possesses an unwavering trust in Eru and in the coherence of His Creation. Everything belongs within the design of the One. Even death, for the Elves, ultimately remains part of a meaningful cosmic order.
This is the crucial point: although Elves will eventually perish with Arda, they never truly experience death as existential anguish. Death remains comprehensible, integrated into the structure of the world. Moreover, the death of the Elves comes with the death of the world itself. They are never burdened with confronting the terror of an unknown world (or afterlife of soul) continuing without them.
Men, however, are different. As Andreth says: “we have no certainty, no knowledge” (“Athrabeth”311), Men are perpetually haunted by uncertainty because death may arrive at any moment. They cannot rehearse or prepare for its arrival, nor can they fully conceptualize what lies beyond it.
If Elves embody a state of enchantment, then Men embody disenchantment. They no longer possess confidence in the intelligibility of the world. In its place emerge frustration, melancholy, and radical skepticism. And this condition feels profoundly reflective of our own age.
After the collapse of the twentieth century’s dreamworlds since WW2 and Cold War, humanity was once again thrown into a vacuum of authority and meaning. We no longer believe that history necessarily progresses toward a utopian redemption. We have lost our dreams, and in many cases, we have even become exhausted by the very act of dreaming itself. Suddenly Andreth’s questions no longer sound mythological — they sound exactly contemporary:
Are we the Children of the One?
Are we not cast off finally?
Or were we ever so?
Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World? (“Athrabeth” 320)
While the Elves are still speaking of Eru, Estel, and divine Creation, Men have begun to suspect that the foundation itself may already be broken. This is what makes Tolkien’s portrayal of Men astonishingly prescient. Writing within the twentieth century — an age still filled with ideological passion and historical confidence — Tolkien had already begun imagining the spiritual condition of the twenty-first: life in a disenchanted world.
Yet Tolkien does not simply advocate a return to enchantment, and this becomes clearest in the “Old Hope” of Men.
According to Andreth, some believe that Eru himself will enter into Arda and heal the Marring of Melkor from within history itself. Since Melkor’s corruption is structural and permanently woven into the fabric of the world, Arda cannot save itself through its own internal logic. Redemption must come from outside — from the foreign, the transcendent. Once again, Tolkien redirects us toward Men, the Guests of Arda, who remain perpetually disenchanted yet still long for re-enchantment, precisely because they belong somewhere beyond the world they inhabit.
Yet the truly remarkable moment comes from Finrod. For the first time, the Elf who had previously spoken with complete certainty begins to hesitate. His language changes — he begins to say “maybe,” “I guess,” “I propound,” and so forth. He does not abandon faith in Eru’s design, but he comes to realize that perhaps the design is not something static and completed, but something gradually unfolding: Eru’s plan may not operate like a finished blueprint, and Arda itself may still be in the process of becoming.
Here Tolkien moves away from deterministic futurism altogether. As the Ainulindalë declares, “in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past.” Even Men, the Second Children, emerge as something unforeseen, beyond the vision of the Valar.
And perhaps this is Tolkien’s deepest warning against modern ideological enchantment. Having witnessed the catastrophes of the twentieth century, Tolkien understood how easily attempts to restore absolute meaning, historical certainty, and collective destiny can harden into totalizing ideologies.
Thus Tolkien does not offer re-enchantment in the traditional sense. He does not secure and restore to us a stable “subject of history.” Instead, he leaves us with something more fragile, but perhaps also more humane: the possibility that meaning emerges not from certainty about history’s predetermined destination, but from our openness to becoming itself — a condition of perpetual unfolding and transcendence. In a disenchanted world, what we require is not renewed faith in a fixed historical destiny, but faith in humanity’s capacity to continue participating in an unfinished world.
Work Cited:
Tolkien, J. R. R. “Ainulindalë.” The Silmarillion, edited by Christopher Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin, 1977, pp. 15–30.
Tolkien, J. R. R. “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.” Morgoth’s Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One, edited by Christopher Tolkien, vol. 10 of The History of Middle-earth, Houghton Mifflin, 1993, pp. 303–66.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Letter 181.
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