9. The Grey Havens

From the moment Frodo opens the door to Gandalf and lets in the shadow, he is never truly happy again. He becomes a serious and reflective, often despondent hobbit; relieved when a danger has passed, glad to see a friend again, capable of smiling wistfully, even laughing at something amusing, but he never again becomes a happy hobbit. On the contrary, he is withdrawn, at times ill, repeatedly tormented by his wounds. He takes a fatherly joy in Sam’s happiness, and so on, but for his own part the shadow is irretrievably a part of life.

Is this the reward for all his toil? Is it not usually the case that the hero, that symbol of the individuation process, after completing his task lives happily ever after? Should not the wise Frodo now be enlightened and free from conflict, walking a few inches above the ground with a benevolent smile toward the unsuspecting folk who still struggle with the problems of everyday life?

If we dwell on individuation, which in our reading runs like a thread through the tale, there is nothing in Jung to suggest that it would lead to either enlightenment (in the sense of transcendence and freedom from conflict) or happiness. In an earlier commentary (“On Herbs and Rabbit Stew”) we noted that while Jung considered Taoism and its yin and yang to illustrate the human psyche very well, he was sceptical of “enlightenment” as a goal. There is likewise nothing to suggest that Jung himself strove toward any particular goal; transformation, however, often expressed as symbolic rebirth, is central to his work.[1] (His own process of transformation is described in Liber Novus, "The Red Book," which was not published until several decades after his death.) We have also seen that Frodo undergoes precisely such a transformation – yet he is not, to invoke the second Jung quotation in the previous commentary, rewarded for it, nor can he be said to be enlightened in any spiritual or religious sense. He remains who he was, but irreversibly changed – he is now conscious of the shadow, the feminine, and the Self. He has, as one sometimes says, integrated these previously unconscious dynamics into his conscious life. The darkness is no longer repressed, yet neither is Frodo liberated from it – he is, once again, conscious of it. Before the quest his life was, broadly speaking, unconscious and without meaning; after it, conscious and meaningful.

"Conscious realization ... stops the painful content from being repressed. And though this may seem to cause the individual more suffering, he is at least suffering meaningfully and from something real. Repression has the apparent advantage of clearing the conscious mind of worry, and the spirit of all its troubles, but, to counter that, it causes an indirect suffering from something unreal, namely a neurosis. Neurotic suffering is an unconscious fraud and has no moral merit, as has real suffering."[2]

Although Jung holds that the religious attitude is necessary in the second half of life,[3] if for no other reason than for the sake of meaning – which certainly introduces some form of spirituality into conscious life – this does not amount to any kind of spiritualization. For Jung the concrete in life – the earth and the body, if you will – is essential to individuation. The body itself, limiting and physical as it is, is a precondition, since it is what determines that one is a specific individual: were one a spirit oneself, one could not relate to the spiritual. "It is the essential metaphysical meaning of the earth that it gives specification to things, that it makes things distinct."[4] In our culture the body – symbolically synonymous with the earth – tends to be the shadow that the spiritually or intellectually striving person seeks to transcend. But according to Jung it is the soil from which the Self grows. The pursuit of "enlightenment" implies that the body, the earth, and the darkly feminine are left below while the head ascends toward the heavens. The result, however, is a dissociation, "characteristic of a neurosis."[5] Just as the alchemists repeatedly insisted that the highest is concealed in the lowest, so for Jung truth rises from the earth,[6] or, to put it another way, the soul is often found in the shadow.[7] The body, everyday life, and conflict are the prima materia of individuation.

We have described Jung's view of suffering and the necessity of the body and the shadow for individuation, in order – with Frodo's torments in mind – to address the widespread misconception that Jungian psychology aims toward a goal, and that this goal would be some form of enlightenment in the sense of liberation from our human predicament.

In a filmed conversation, Sonu Shamdasani, editor of the Red Book and professor of the history of Jungian thought, is asked by Peter Forshaw, a specialist in the history of alchemy, how Jung viewed the Philosopher's Stone as the "goal" of the adept.[8] Forshaw was curious because alchemists often express that they attain the lesser stones, while the true stone perpetually eludes them. Can individuation and the union of opposites – which corresponds to the Philosopher's Stone – ever truly be realized, according to Jung? Shamdasani replies that for Jung individuation is an ongoing process and that the ultimate goal lies beyond the grave. In the course of the conversation, Jungian analyst Hans van den Hooff interjects that his reading of Jung gives no indication that he strove toward a goal – rather, Jung was essentially a phenomenologist, he says; that is, he studied experience, the dynamics and structure of the psyche, without presuppositions. They agree that Jung was engaged in the documentation and mapping of unconscious processes, not in attaining any form of enlightenment akin to the Philosopher's Stone.

As noted, Jung wrote and illustrated the Red Book in order to document his own transformation. It is of course striking that Frodo does precisely the same: he documents his adventure in his red book and bequeaths it to the world. Figuratively speaking, this is what each of them gives back to his respective community.

Just as Frodo works on his book – in this chapter we see him almost exclusively in his study – sometimes beset by pain, memories and illness, Jung reveals that his long life neither aimed at nor achieved any form of exaltation or freedom from affliction. Near the end of his life he writes:

"I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions – not about anything, really."[9]

This does not describe a man who has attained an elevated goal through lifelong striving, but a conflicted, honest and conscious man who has, in his own way, individuated, and who continues to work tirelessly even past eighty, driven by his daimon.

In Frodo we see how our tale offers a true illustration of individuation, as it draws to a close with Frodo in his study – not particularly happy, neither rewarded nor exalted; but largely peaceful, creative and considerate; an ordinary, rather solitary hobbit who has been through so much, and wishes to tell the world about it, on the chance that it may be of value to the community he was compelled in some measure to leave behind in order to find himself – or, to put it another way, to follow his calling; an individual undertaking that has indirectly benefited society in the highest degree.

*

The hobbits set to work in earnest to clear up and restore order – men, women and children alike. Sam plants seeds in the places where the ruffians have wrought the worst devastation. The small silver nut he plants where the Party Tree once stood. (Compare the White Tree of Minas Tirith.) The felled tree symbolizes that a phase of life has come to an end,[10] and the newly planted one, naturally, that a new phase begins. The Party Tree is most closely associated with Bilbo, who stood beneath its crown while he gave his speech, put on the Ring – and vanished. It was a joke that no one but Bilbo appreciated. But as we discussed in the corresponding chapter, Bilbo is an "immature" character, a symbol of the hobbits' infantilism, if so seemingly condescending a word may be permitted. Unlike Frodo he does not individuate, which, as noted, means that Frodo inherits the burden. It falls to him to answer, as Jung says, the unanswered questions of his forfathers:

"I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished."[11]

The following year a mallorn tree grows up where the silver nut was planted – the only one of its kind west of the mountains and east of the sea, and among the finest in the world. Jung says: "The tree [is] the outward and visible sign of the realization of the self."[3] The year is characterized by abundance and fertility and glimpses of beauty beyond compare. Many fair and sturdy children are born with golden hair, which was uncommon among hobbits. "No one was ill, and everyone was pleased." The harvests are good and the pipeweed flourishes. Sam is especially active in this burgeoning fertility, which naturally follows from the quest, the union of opposites, and the release of previously bound creative energy.

Yet Frodo himself lies ill despite all that has been said, clutching his jewel and murmuring as if in a dream that "it is gone and now all is dark and empty." We know, of course, that the darkness must go somewhere. While the hobbits are happy among trees, flowers and pipeweed fields, Frodo harbors this darkness – he bears it, so to speak, on behalf of them all. But because he has his star, his soul, he does not succumb to it; nor to the opposites he carries: the star's concretization of the highest individual value on the one hand, and the darkness and emptiness on the other. He is alone – neither Sam nor anyone else knows that he lies ill. But then, we are told, the "attack" passes. The star-jewel is "the treasure hard to attain" in this tale.

Sam and Rose marry and move into Bag End at Frodo's suggestion. That Frodo and Sam live under the same roof underscores that they are symbolically the same person, and with Rose the feminine has been integrated into their life. Apart from the then tiresome Lobelia, no woman has ever been at Bag End – neither in The Hobbit nor in The Lord of the Rings – but now a woman lives here permanently.

The following year Sam and Rose have their first child. Their marriage represents the union of opposites. Sam and Rose are the only ones in the tale to have children – the "fruit" of the union. According to "Appendix B" in The Return of the King, the child's birthday coincides with the first day of the Fourth Age. That it is a daughter who represents the new age is significant. The girl has golden hair and is named – at Frodo's suggestion – Elanor, "the sun-star," and thereby represents a new consciousness for a new era. She will also inherit the Red Book that Frodo is working on in his study and tend its legacy in the new age.

Frodo shows Sam the book when he finally has completed his part. He tells him that Sam is to fill the remaining blank pages with his part of the story. One might say that Frodo passes the torch to Sam – Sam becomes the man while Frodo becomes the soul. We have already seen time and again that Frodo grows increasingly passive in outward life while Sam grows increasingly active. The Shire is now Sam's world, not Frodo's – for Frodo belongs in ever greater measure to the invisible world.

At last Frodo asks Sam to accompany him on a journey – it will take no more than two weeks and he will return safe and sound. Sam naturally wants to go, but he has Rose and Elanor – he feels torn. "Poor Sam!" says Frodo. "It will feel like that, I am afraid. But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be."

These are remarkable words. What does Frodo mean when he says that Sam will, to his regret, feel torn, that he will be healed, that he was meant to be whole? Is it not Frodo who suffers the conflict and will be healed? One way of looking at it is that the image of "Frodo and Sam" should in fact be regarded as a single personality, and that Frodo's words are addressed to them as a unit. "Frodo and Sam" is divided: the fertile garden and the darkness and emptiness; the star and the wound from the Witch-king's blade; the daughter, but also the elves, the dreamland Sam longs to revisit – and the Grey Havens, whose distant murmur calls to Frodo. It pulls in different directions. But it need not always be so, Frodo says, and one might entertain the thought that once Frodo is no longer immediately present, Mordor – or the underworld – fades from Sam's life, his family and his work. He becomes firmly rooted in the soil of the Shire, absorbed in the role of father, free to devote himself entirely to this life. In this way both are healed – the one with both feet on the ground in the wholeness that family constitutes; the other a spirit who will always be present, but more like an ancestor one occasionally thinks of than an intermittently ailing man with whom one shares a house. When Sam's work as father and Mayor is done, they are reunited – in the later part of life it is once again time to turn the gaze inward. (When Sam is old he too sails over the sea, in his capacity as Ring-bearer.)

Some time later they ride away. In the forest beneath the stars they encounter elves, among them Elrond and Galadriel. Bilbo is with them too. Then they continue westward. Sam understands what is happening. Frodo says: "Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. ... I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me."

Frodo repeats Sam's dividedness but is now more explicit that it concerns the Frodo-aspect of the personality. Sam cannot fulfill his outward duties and simultaneously "be" Frodo. He also says that he tried to save the Shire and that this has now been accomplished. This too is at first glance somewhat remarkable. But it may be understood as meaning that the Shire represents the conscious sphere which at the opening of the tale was subsumed in the Great Mother – that is, the personality was largely unconscious, which in the long run becomes untenable. One might imagine that the hobbits would either have faded away like the spirits we have come to know, or that the Tyrannical Father would sooner or later have broken through with his devastation. Through Frodo's quest a conscious relationship was established with both the Mother and the Father – and this is what "saved the Shire."

They reach the Grey Havens where Gandalf awaits them. The time has come for the spirit-beings to leave at last the Middle-earth that no longer belongs to them. Merry and Pippin come riding up on their horses, for once again they have seen through Frodo's plans – they laugh and weep at once. Gandalf, Galadriel, Bilbo and Frodo step onto the ship as it sets sail. The last thing they see is Galadriel's phial glimmering in Frodo's hand.

We spoke of how Galadriel's starlight was concretized through the quest into Arwen's star-jewel. Now, as Frodo disappears into the distance like a spirit among spirits, the concrete dissolves – but the starlight glimmers on forever.

The three remaining hobbits ride home to the Shire in silence. Merry and Pippin then go their separate ways, and Sam rides home to Bag End. He steps into the warm and welcoming home where Rose receives him, sets food before him and places little Elanor in his lap. "Well, I'm back," he sighs.

Here, at last, is the wholeness toward which the tale was bound.

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Footnotes

[1] See, for instance, Jung, ”Concerning Rebirth”, CW 9i.

[2] Jung, ”Analytical Psychology and Education”, CW 17, par. 154.

[3] See, for instance, Jung, ”Psychotherapists or the Clergy”, CW 11, par. 509: ”Among all my patients in the second half of life ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”

[4] Jung, Nietzsches Zarathustra, p. 47.

[5] Sharp, ”Dissociation”, Jung Lexicon.

[6] Jung, Aion, par. 131f.

[7] Jung, Visions, s. xxxi.

[8] Sonu Shamdasani, Peter Forshaw, and Hans van den Hooff, "Infinite Fire Interview – on Jung & Alchemy," Embassy of the Free Mind, YouTube-video, publicerad den 4:e november 2016, (24:30), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qitlxOt2kxY.

[9] Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 391.

[10] Edward C. Whitmont and Sylvia Brinton Perera, Dreams, A Portal to the Source (Hove and New York: Routledge, 1989), s. 138.

[11] Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, s. 260.

[12] Jung, ”The Spirit Mercurius”, CW 13, par. 243.