1. The Taming of Sméagol
The Fellowship was disbanded in connection with Boromir’s fall. Frodo and Sam crossed the river, Merry and Pippin were kidnapped, while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli set off after the orcs. We shall linger on the Fellowship and its dissolution for a moment.
We noted earlier that the Fellowship consists of nine men, none of whom – save for the minor figures Merry and Pippin – have a mother. Instead, one might say, they have the Ring, which symbolizes the Great Mother. The Ring is, in a sense, their mother totem; they are, in fact, “the Fellowship of the Mother,” without being aware of it. (Had there been awareness of the Mother, she would not have been a totem, but a human.) Thus, the Fellowship of the Mother leaves the elves of the Good Mother to pass through the wolves and winter of the Terrible Mother, entering deep caves and emerging on the other side to arrive at a new abode for elves. When they finally leave the domains of the Great Mother and pass the distinctly masculine Argonath, the company is dissolved, as if this transition broke a spell. This leads to Frodo setting out alone on his quest, encountering his mother-bound shadow, while Aragorn, for his part, establishes a relationship with the story’s first “ordinary” woman.
It is thus the male group, the Fellowship of nine (necessity, pregnancy) men, that “gives birth” to Frodo as a hero. Erich Neumann makes a remark to this effect: “The male group is the birthplace not only of consciousness and of the ‘higher masculinity,’ but of individuality and the hero.”[1] As part of the male group, it falls to the individual to achieve individuality through some form of initiation/transition, which the hero symbolizes.
But for Frodo to be born as a hero, that is, to accomplish the great deed alone (with the help of his “squire”), he must consciously separate himself from the group. We know that Frodo agonizes and hesitates before taking the necessary step into the darkness. Gandalf cannot help him this time, as he did when he awakened Frodo’s calling to leave the motherland. But that is how it must be. If Gandalf or anyone else urged him to take the boat across the river, he might as well do it unconsciously – and then it would be meaningless. He must make his own decision and separate from the group as a conscious act. But, of course, he hesitates.
While he agonizes alone in the forest, Boromir appears, as we commented earlier. He has sought out Frodo to urge him to come to Minas Tirith. If Frodo followed this advice, the group would travel intact to the patriarchal stone city with the dead tree. No separation would have occurred, and nothing would have fundamentally changed. Frodo would, in that case, remain part of the collective, unredeemed, following its leader’s wishes; his consciousness, personal calling, individuality, and role as a hero would remain in their infancy; that is, he would not have individuated. This would be a kind of madness, he realizes, as he sees the threat reflected in Boromir’s “distorted” face and “blazing” eyes. He decides: I must go, now, alone, and hurries to the boats to begin the great transition.
This is, in fact, the first independent decision Frodo makes and acts upon since leaving the Shire. Merry, Tom Bombadil, Aragorn, Gandalf, Elrond, and then Aragorn again have made the decisions, or at least guided him, from the Old Forest onward. They have, so to speak, carried the Bearer. But Aragorn, in all his wisdom, knew that the time had come for Frodo to go his own way, which is why he led them to the western shore, where they pulled up the boats at the foot of Amon Hen. Then Aragorn says: “Well, Frodo, I fear the burden rests on you. Your path is yours alone to choose.” This can be understood as a call to choose his own individual path. Frodo goes off to think, but in truth, he knows what he must do – he says as much to Boromir when the latter seeks him out. But he hesitates, because he is afraid. The temptation to simply follow Boromir – and thus Aragorn, and consequently the entire company – to Minas Tirith must be great. In this way, he could continue to go with the flow instead of breaking free and facing the darkness alone.
But, as we said, when Frodo sees that the easy path is madness (as opposed to individuation), he makes his decision and hurries to the boat. In other words, it is Boromir who delivers Frodo. He sacrifices himself so that the Bearer can break free from the group and follow his calling. This is how one can understand Aragorn’s otherwise strange exclamation, when Boromir, on his deathbed, laments that he has failed: “No! Few have gained such a victory.” Since everything revolves around the Bearer and the threat from the unconscious, Boromir has gained consciousness through sacrifice, in accordance with the archetypal dynamic of the symbol. A sacrifice always pertains to something greater than oneself and is a prerequisite for heightened awareness. (We will return to the symbolism of sacrifice later.) We are reminded of Matthew 16:25: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Boromir lost his life for a higher purpose, the Bearer, and in this way, he has won it. “You have not failed, you have conquered,” says Aragorn. Symbolically, Boromir is redeemed through his sacrifice, as we will revisit when we encounter Faramir.
The Inner Labyrinth
Frodo and Sam paddle across the river to the other side, a crossing that stands as the par excellence of river passages in this story. What might happen now that they have taken the step to the other side?
After following Aragorn’s adventures in the west, we reunite with Frodo and Sam “on the third day,” lost in “a troublesome labyrinth of hills.” That the adventure begins with being lost in the wilderness is an archetypal image, perhaps most famously known from The Divine Comedy. They are lost in a labyrinth; below the cliff they stand on lie gray, fermenting marshes and fog; they find themselves in a formless landscape with dead trees; they smell the stench of decay. Frodo finds himself in the stage that alchemists called nigredo, the depressing, confused beginning of the work. He says it was his fate to go to Mordor, which “the third day” symbolizes. Fate and calling, as has been evident, are essential elements in the story, as they suggest that something beyond the ego is driving; moreover, it is hard to imagine anyone whose fate it is not – where this necessity we have spoken of does not exist – to go to Mordor, to undertake this nightmarish journey. Only the one who is driven to do so consciously enters the darkness. But Frodo says this is his fate, and that they will surely find a way. The wise Frodo does not surrender the helm to fate or the unconscious, but he shows confidence that something greater than himself is at work in the process. For Frodo, it is about walking the narrow path forward, not giving in to either side, and, as we have discussed, enduring the conflict, being a conscious bearer of it.
The situation is desperate in “the labyrinth.” Frodo and Sam try to find a way, climbing down into a ravine while thunder rumbles ominously. Frodo feels pressed. They hear the cry of a Ringwraith, and Frodo slips down into complete darkness. He sees nothing. The “nothingness” of the Ringwraiths recurs as a symbol. But the hobbits press on and wander under the pale light of the moon.
At last, they manage to escape the labyrinthine Emyn Muil. Exhausted, they sit down to rest. Then they see a creature climbing down the very cliff face they themselves descended with the help of a rope. Sam exclaims: “It’s that Gollum! Snakes and adders!” We see how representatives of the Terrible Mother are consistently linked to snakes. The author, as if to emphasize the presence of the Terrible Mother, describes the creature as a “nasty spider.” (We will also see how Gollum is tied to the spider motif in “Shelob’s Lair.”) Moreover, they see him “in the pale moonlight.” It is a small black figure with slender limbs, climbing “like a great hunting insect-like creature.” It moves downward headfirst, “as if sniffing its way.” We are reminded of the black rider who, in the Shire, dismounted and crawled forward, sniffing like an animal.
Frodo believes Gollum cannot see them, he says, because they are wearing the elven cloaks. But Gollum has a keen sense of smell, and moreover, the author writes, “he hears as well as elves.” In this scene, Gollum is explicitly linked to the Terrible Mother, but now the author makes an unexpected association with elves and thus the Good Mother. A glimmer of hope is suggested, and Gollum, after all, originally came from a matriarchal and, as far as we know, peaceful hobbit society. There is still a memory of this within him, as the story makes clear during the journey.
The hobbits assume it is pointless to try to slip away now. Better to take the initiative. Sam sneaks forward to overpower the creature. The first thing we hear Gollum say in the story is “My precious,” because he belongs to the Ring, to the mother-bond. He then hisses that he hates the moon that “spies” on him, suggesting not only an ambivalent relationship with the mother image, as we have already touched upon, but also repeating what we discussed earlier, namely how the opposites of invisibility and being observed belong to the Ring’s symbolism. But he also expresses that he hates those who have stolen the Ring. He hates virtually everything except the Ring.
When Sam sees Gollum up close, he is filled with anger and disgust. Later, he also calls Gollum “a filthy creep.” A theme that follows Gollum is that Frodo accepts him while Sam despises him. That is, Frodo, unlike Sam, can accept what Gollum represents.
Gollum falls the last three meters, “in his fall flailing his arms and legs about, like a spider whose thread has snapped.” Sam throws himself at him, but Gollum gains the upper hand, his fingers groping to strangle the hobbit. Frodo comes to the rescue and holds his sword to Gollum’s throat. Gollum releases Sam, falls to the ground, and whimpers. Frodo feels pity and addresses him as Sméagol, the identity he had in the bosom of the Good Mother, before the One Ring consumed him.
After some struggle, Gollum, on his own initiative, swears by the Ring that he will not harm the hobbits. “How dare you?” says Frodo. “Think carefully: One Ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. … It will hold you fast.” That Gollum swears by the Ring itself is consistent, as it symbolizes the only value he now knows; he is, as mentioned, consumed by it and exists in its world. But one can also note how Gollum, with this oath, binds himself to the Ring and to Frodo. The Ring “holds fast” to them both.
In this chapter, as has been evident, all the symbols of the Terrible Mother that we have previously encountered are repeated, such as fog, Ringwraith, darkness, moon, snake, spider, binding, and strangling (while paralyzation and drowning follow in the next chapter). This is, of course, not a coincidence but an unveiling of the archetypal pattern that now once again takes a prominent place in Frodo’s story. To emphasize this, we can compare it with Aragorn’s further adventures – they have an entirely different character, with predominantly different imagery. Frodo and Aragorn are the two most central figures in the story, but, as noted, they have different fates and have now gone their separate ways. While Frodo confronts Gollum in the domain of the Terrible Mother, Aragorn, accompanied by Legolas and Gimli, hurries across the plains of Rohan. One could say that Aragorn’s fate is the outer world – war, kings, and women – while Frodo’s is the inner: labyrinths, monsters, and darkness.
In this inner world, he is almost immediately confronted with his shadow. When Frodo and Gollum look at each other, the author writes: “In some way they were alike and not strangers to each other: their thoughts could meet.”
The Shadow
As the quote makes clear, the characters Frodo and Gollum are connected. We have seen several times how the author establishes relationships between opposites – elves replacing black riders, Old Man Willow replacing the Party Tree, Galadriel who can read Sauron’s thoughts, the spider motif appearing in connection with the elven queen, Aragorn taking charge of the palantír that opens a connection to Barad-dûr, and so forth. An explicit tension arises between these opposites, giving the story its dynamic, energy, and forward momentum, but also a hint of potential coniunctio as the story strives for balance.
Gollum symbolizes what happens when one becomes trapped in the dark domain of the Great Mother. He withdrew from the world with his ring, began to loathe light, dwelt in deep, water-filled caves, entirely consumed by himself and his ring. He existed in a kind of nothingness when Bilbo, by chance, hurried through the caves and found his ring. This separation from the ring sparked a faint consciousness in Gollum, forcing him out of the cave system in pursuit of his beloved, this concretization – or indeed totem – of the Great Mother.
Frodo caught a glimpse of this terrifying development when Bilbo wanted to see the ring in Rivendell. Frodo cautiously took it out, but when Bilbo reached for it, Frodo quickly hid it again. “To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him.”
It is clear that Bilbo, as previously mentioned, would have become a Gollum himself had he not left the ring in Bag End at Gandalf’s urging. Frodo realizes this. Gollum was once a hobbit, just like both he and his uncle, and he knows that this is the consequence of bearing the ring too long and using it too much. In other words, he can feel sympathy for the hateful, pathetic creature. It is, so to speak, not Sméagol’s fault that he became Gollum.
We can linger on a few details in the scene above. That a shadow falls between them signifies that the unconscious gains the upper hand when the ring is revealed. In connection with this, Bilbo seems to transform into a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face (perhaps reminiscent of a baby dependent on its mother) and bony, grasping hands. These skeletal fingers we recognize from other representatives of the Terrible Mother, such as Old Man Willow and the Ringwraiths. They express an unquenchable hunger, a permanent desire that can never be satisfied.
It is also an interesting detail that Frodo feels an impulse to strike Bilbo when the latter reveals his desire. He feels disgust at Bilbo’s weakness. This is not an uncommon emotion that follows shadow projections. Frodo must be strong and wise, bearing the ring without giving in to it. His own desires are suppressed for the sake of his ego’s strength. When Bilbo himself now manifests the weakness and desire that Frodo reasonably carries within but refuses to acknowledge, he suddenly feels the urge to lash out at his otherwise beloved uncle; just as we all feel disgust, perhaps hatred or shame, and want to push away what manifests our shadow, whether we see it externally as projections or feel it as inner impulses.
Fortunately, this “shadow” that fell between them is quickly fleeting. Bilbo is wise and understands what happened to him, asking Frodo to put the ring away, while Frodo’s impulse was, of course, only momentary. But perhaps he learned something from this experience, and perhaps he recalls Gandalf’s words back in the Shire, that Bilbo’s pity for Gollum was a sign of strength and that Gollum may yet play a greater role in the adventure than anyone suspects. For now, it is Frodo who shows pity for him. He manages to accept his shadow, which is among the hardest things one can do. Jung says:
“That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. ... But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself – that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then?”[2]
Frodo sees, as Tolkien suggests in the quote above, himself in Gollum and shows sympathy and acceptance, even when others – like Sam and later Faramir – do not. When Frodo releases Gollum, addresses him as Sméagol, and asks him to guide them further, the latter undergoes a slight transformation. He begins to behave like a joyful dog whose master has shown kindness, he starts speaking more normally, with less hissing and whining, and, not least, addresses the hobbits directly rather than talking to himself. He emerges from his isolation, his complete alienation; he expresses joy, and a great deal of energy begins to flow through him. Psychologically, this corresponds to an integration of shadow qualities, which releases energy that was bound up in the unconscious’s complexes.
But Frodo does not do this naively or carelessly. We have not mentioned it specifically, but this acceptance (and demand for a pledge) comes only after considerable struggle, that is, after a difficult confrontation with the shadow. Frodo feels some trust, but he does not let this still primitive energy run free to do as it pleases. He ensures here, too, that he holds the helm, that he is the captain of the ship, while remaining vigilant and attentive to where this now guiding energy leads him. Once again, he finds a balance between opposites and manages to walk the narrow path forward.
Footnotes
[1] Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, p. 144.
[2] Jung, "Psychotherapists or the Clergy," CW 8, par. 520.