2. The Shadow of the Past
We learn that Frodo follows in Bilbo’s footsteps - wandering alone, considered somewhat peculiar, and described as “well-preserved.” What drives first Bilbo and then Frodo to wander? For hobbits, such excursions are indeed unusual. Hobbits are most content at home in their round, cozy burrows or in their immediate surroundings. Bilbo and Frodo possess something uncommon: a calling. (Notably, they are also the only two who know Gandalf.) Frodo does not yet understand this calling, but something within him urges him to leave the Shire, making him restless due to this unrecognized summons.
Another significant trait that sets Frodo apart from most hobbits is his curiosity about the world beyond their borders - a world unmapped by hobbits. He not only wanders far and alone but also engages in conversations with strangers, gathering knowledge about the unknown world in this way. Without knowing what awaits him, or even if anything does, Frodo prepares for adventure. Jung emphasizes the necessity of consciously and willingly embracing the challenges of individuation, rather than being overtaken by its negative, repressed form.
“Anyone who is destined to descend into a deep pit had better set about it with all the necessary precautions rather than risk falling into the hole backwards.”[1]
Bilbo, on the other hand, was more or less dragged into adventure by Gandalf and the dwarves, unprepared for the quest. He became something of a secondary figure. Though he returned safe and wealthy, the underlying issue persisted and was passed on to Frodo.
The tidings Frodo hears concern evil in Mordor, brewing war, and multiplying monsters. In psychological terms, the symptoms of something amiss grow harder to ignore. An inner rebellion is stirring, and unconscious conflicts are beginning to surface.
Nine years after his last visit, Gandalf reappears and taps on Frodo’s window. The wizard has conducted investigations and reveals that the ring is highly dangerous. Bearing the ring means sooner or later being controlled by it. While the bearer believes he possess the ring, in truth, the ring possesses him. This has a psychological parallel in complexes or archetypes, which can dominate the ego if it lacks a conscious, distanced relationship with them. The ring-bearer does not so much use the ring as the ring uses him, much like a complex can drive a person in a particular, destructive direction while he rationalize it as his own will. Jung noted that everyone now knows people “have complexes,” but few realize that complexes can have us - a far more critical insight.[2] The ring, broadly representing the mother archetype, is a symbol of this unfortunate dynamic.
Frodo’s ring is one of the “rings of power.” Gandalf explains that its possessor neither grows, ages, nor renews. In other words, the ring is a dead end; the bearer cannot develop but remains trapped in its psychological state. Eventually, he become invisible - that is, lost in the darkness of the unconscious, “like a will-less slave.” “The powers of darkness will engulf him.” Gandalf articulates what was previously only hinted at: the danger of the ring - or the Great Mother - is being engulfed, dissolved, ceasing to exist as an individual.
Readers of The Lord of the Rings may find it unsettling to view the ring as a symbol of the Great Mother, knowing it was created by a distinctly masculine figure, the primary adversary of the forces of good. That the ring represents a dangerous bond with the Great Mother while the hobbits are in the Shire seems clear, as the environment is maternal, and its inhabitants are essentially children. But how do we reconcile this with the Lord of the Rings? We ask the reader for patience on this matter; the meaning shifts as we delve deeper into the story’s darkness. What is true in the Shire may not have the same value in Mordor. The ring is a symbol, representing something largely unknown and uniting opposites (unperceived by the ego) within itself. In the context of the Shire, we perceive the symbol one way, but in another context, it may express something different without the content itself changing.
To determine if this is indeed the Ring, Gandalf casts it into the fire. Fire is the judge, discerning the genuine from the counterfeit. He then hands it to Frodo, cool to the touch, and asks him to look for markings. They appear: “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.” The ring’s power lies in its allure and its ability to “bind in the darkness.” We are reminded that Frodo lives in a dead end with his binding ring, which risks paralyzing him in the maternal domain. The story, we understand, is about breaking free from the bond the ring represents. On the journey to liberation, Frodo repeatedly risks being bound, paralyzed, or drowned - characteristic threats associated with the Dark Mother. As an archetype, the symbol exerts immense pull, threatening to draw the ego into its darkness.
We previously noted that the “strange creatures” stirring at the Shire’s borders and rumors of approaching darkness can be interpreted as symptoms of a reaction against the ego’s one-sidedness. In his fateful conversation with Frodo, Gandalf describes this very dynamic. He reveals that the Dark Lord returned around the time Bilbo found the ring in the caves beneath the Misty Mountains, which we can understand as a direct compensation - the Dark Lord emerges as the ring is found. Since then, Bilbo has lived in peace and freedom in the lush, hilly Shire, while Sauron, as a counterforce, has grown stronger in the unconscious. Now, this force (these symptoms) has finally reached the borders of the Shire (consciousness).
In Gandalf’s account of the ring’s origin and its journey to Frodo’s possession, we encounter recurring images. Isildur severs Sauron’s finger (a castration theme we will see many times); he later dies in a river, just as Frodo’s parents did; Déagol finds the ring in the water; Sméagol demands it, claiming it as his due on his birthday, just as it is Frodo’s birthday when the ring is passed to him; Sméagol strangles (suffocates) Déagol, takes the ring, and retreats as Gollum to underground caves, just as Bilbo - who found the ring in this dark, damp environment - brings it to his burrow beneath the earth.
These repetitions of symbols are significant, as they demonstrate that we are not cherry-picking to prove a thesis but rather drawing on recurring themes that form a cohesive pattern in the story.
Both archetypes and complexes constitute and/or create patterns. In this context, archetypes can be described as psychic behavioral patterns that humans perpetually repeat. When trapped in a complex, we experience a pattern of personal repetitions, both in our reactions and our experiences. A negative mother complex, for instance, can give rise to unfortunate patterns in our lives, particularly in our relationships with women. We may begin to recognize the pattern but remain unable to break free, as it stems not so much from ourselves as from something autonomous within us. An apt symbol for this is the ring, which signifies a bond with something desired or undesired - negatively, a magical shackle. Bound to the ring, one goes round and round, trapped in a pattern, a situation - in a dead end.
Fortunately, Bilbo and Frodo have Gandalf, the inner impulse striving to break free from this negative pattern. Gollum was not so lucky. Gandalf explains that Gollum is in a constant state of turmoil, hating everything - the caves, the sun, the ring, himself. Yet he is powerless to change, as the ring has him; he is caught on its monstrous carousel. From a psychological perspective, he is ensnared in his complexes, which tend to be affective and destructive. Being unconscious, he cannot address them and instead identifies with these forces of darkness, so to speak. When the ring takes over, Gandalf explains, one can no longer choose one’s fate. The ring seeks its own destiny, with the bearer merely a means. Yet, Gandalf adds encouragingly, something else influences the course of events: something intended for Bilbo to inherit the ring from Gollum, and for Frodo to inherit it in turn. Was it the ring’s will that it came to Frodo, or were other forces at play, leading to this unlikely sequence?
It turns out Gandalf has met Gollum. It is fitting that the content Gandalf represents knows both the ego (Frodo) and the shadow (Gollum). Gandalf recounts that Gollum, under questioning, insisted he received the ring from his “grandmother.” This is untrue but symbolically significant. Gollum’s grandmother, Gandalf notes, was a “matriarch.” Symbolically, there is a deeper truth in Gollum’s claim that he received the ring from the matriarch on his birthday: he was born into the circle of the Great Mother.
Gollum’s account is thus more consistent with the story’s inner dynamic, especially as we are still in the maternal Shire, than Gandalf’s. However, its feminine, ensnaring center conflicts with the story’s masculine aspirations, where Gandalf’s role is to propel Frodo toward adventure. Consequently, Gandalf offers a more masculine account aligned with his goal: Sméagol/Gollum murdered Déagol out of greed, was then ostracized, and vanished into the Misty Mountains. The mother is absent from Gandalf’s narrative; if she were the enemy, the heroic theme would collapse, and the adventure would unravel. Jung observes: “As Goethe says of the Mothers, ‘Even to speak of them dismays the bold.’”[3] No hero sets out to battle his mother; the dynamic and the enemy must be cloaked in masculinity. Gandalf becomes part of the concealment of the feminine as the story’s foundational element, as invisible to the hobbits as water is to fish.
As the Wise Old Man, Gandalf knows what he is doing when he appeals to the hobbit’s unconscious calling. Frodo ultimately offers himself heroically, sacrificing his personal safety for his people’s sake, to carry the ring out of the land. We can imagine Gandalf quietly breathing a sigh of relief. The impulse toward adventure (or individuation) he represents has finally prompted Frodo (the ego) to leave his dead end, his mother’s embrace. He likely would not have done so had he known what awaited him. All he knows in this moment is that he must leave safety - a significant step in itself - but he has no inkling of what it will entail. He harbors a fantasy of Rivendell, the elves’ home and perhaps Bilbo’s as well, but he is unaware of the darkness that truly awaits him, which, as a small hobbit, he has spent his life justifiably avoiding.
Footnotes
[1] Carl Gustav Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. 2nd ed. Vol. 9, part 2 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Bollingen Series 20. Princeton. (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.) par. 125.
[2] Carl Gustav Jung, "A Review of the Complex Theory," in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed., vol. 8 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series 20 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.) par. 200.
[3] Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and ed. Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Pantheon Books, 1963), p. 101