The Song of Middle-earth: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbols and Myths. David Harvey
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moral civilisation. So it is that the hero is archetypal. He represents us all. His actions are an example for us to emulate and follow. By following in his footsteps we become the hero.
Within the life of the hero are a number of steps or stages. These may occur over his whole life or may be reflected within the Quest that he undertakes. His life or adventure follows a pattern, involving separation from the world, the achievement of a source of power and a life enhancing return.
The advent of the hero, his birth or his background, is shrouded with mystery or surrounded by miracle. Quetzal, Attis and Jesus are examples of the miraculous birth, accompanied by portents and prophecy. The hero may, upon birth, be cast out from his home which is what happened to Siegfried, Moses, Oedipus and Romulus. He may be fostered in a different environment, quite alien from his true origins, or be totally left in the wild, abandoned to nature. Such situations symbolise his universal origins and nature. He is at ease in any environment. He appreciates power and wealth, poverty and degradation. He communes with the wild side of man’s soul. He speaks the language of animals. He is at one with nature and with his humanity and is thereby the universal representative of man.
At an early stage of his development the hero will undergo some form of initiation during which time he will reveal a part of his potential as a mover of events. The initiation is a form of rite of passage and as such is as much an indication to the hero himself of his potential as it is to others. It is the dawning or awakening of self-realisation. The initiation may take place in the infancy of the hero, such as Herakles and the serpents or Odysseus and the boar, or at a later time, such as David and Goliath. Jesus had two stages of initiation; one, the Youth Christ at the Temple, is preliminary. The main initiation comes at the Baptism in the Jordan and is a prelude to His ministry. From that point the events in the life of the hero follow swiftly upon one another for Him.
Following the initiation, and preceding his great acts, the hero goes through a period of withdrawal. Having been confronted with the potential of his being he must, psychologically, come to terms with it. He has a choice in the manner of the use of his powers. The choice that he makes, the path that he selects to follow, must be the right one. Consequently the withdrawal phase is a period of inner trial, as well as self-confrontation. Yet from such period of withdrawal the hero emerges to undertake his most important feat, which is the Quest.
The Quest, as I have indicated, is a search for the self and the essence of man’s being. The hero may receive and refuse the call, as did Perceval. Such a character represents those of us who would rather avoid self-confrontation. Perceval avoided the confrontation with mystic reality. Gawain, on the other hand, asked the question and was held to be a true seeker. He saved the King and the Kingdom and is an imitation of Christ. The Quest inevitably involves magic, beasts or the supernatural, or a combination of all three. The wizards, dragons, demons, giants or mystic dreams and visions are all part and parcel of the effort that the hero must put into the achievement of his goal. They symbolise the darkness, ignorance or temptation that stands in the way of progress towards true understanding, awareness and self-realisation. They must be, and are, overcome. The Quest within the life of the hero reveals an eternal struggle for self-realisation. But frequently associated with the Quest and its achievement is the death of the hero which may be actual or symbolic. I can think of no better example of symbolic death than Aragorn’s passage through the Paths of the Dead in The Lord of the Rings, which I shall discuss more fully in a later chapter. The actual death of the hero is not final, and may often be linked with nature and the concept of rebirth. Thus, when Odin’s Quest for the runes results in his death, and Christ’s Quest in a similarly actual and symbolic way, we see the hero in death cradled in the promise of rebirth. The tree, on which both Odin and Christ perished, has its roots in the unknown – that final part of the Quest to be attained.
Associated with death is the descent to the Underworld. Because the death of the hero is so often sacrificial and to conquer death he has first to die, the hero faces that which man fears most – the ultimate unknown from which there is no return – death. The hero becomes the scapegoat for humanity by the frequently sacrificial nature of his death. He carries our sins with him and on our behalf descends to the Underworld to confront Death or the Lord of the Underworld, or the Ultimate Evil itself. If the death of the hero is of a symbolic nature so too is his descent to the Underworld. His descent is not as one who is dead but as if he were one dead. Thus, Christ, who physically dies, descends to Hell to deliver His ultimatum to Satan and commence the Harrowing of Hell. Orpheus descends as part of his Quest for Eurydice and conquers death with his musical skill. His is a symbolic descent and a symbolic challenge. His descent represents the power of love and the immortal nature of pure art.
It is by Resurrection that the hero returns – and again this may be actual or symbolic. By rebirth, death is defeated and the cycle of Nature is re-established. The hero evidences his universality as the Man in Nature by actual or symbolic rebirth and the confirmation of the established order of things. He has not only confirmed order but also his self-awareness and self-realisation. His rebirth is a return to the source of his origins, to take up the promised honour, kingdom or throne which was foretold before or at his birth. His resurrection is a fulfilment of being.
The final stage of the hero’s development is his Apotheosis, his reception into Heaven or the confirmation of his universal and immortal nature. Christ, Mithras, Dionysius, Elijah and Galahad are received into Heaven. Arthur, Charlemagne and Barbarossa are not dead but sleeping, awaiting a time to return. Their departure from the realms of reality is but temporary and death for them is not absolute. Immortalisation may take a number of forms. The hero may vanish, so that none may confirm his death. He may be received into Heaven or taken to a sacred isle or mountain. He may undergo some change at physical death that makes his passing so unique that it is not a natural death. And in the tales of the returning King the eternal hope and security of the renewal of the natural order of things is assured, such return being the re-establishment of the absolute archetypal and prototype natural order – the Golden Age.
Thus the hero is called to adventure and is set aside as one who is unique. That he may resist the call is evidence of the folly of flight from an omnipotent deity. His adventure involves the supernatural both in the form of aid and hindrance. By undertaking the Quest he crosses the threshold to put on trial himself and, as Everyman, all Mankind. His challenges may involve the eternal opposites – the meeting with the male side and a form of atonement with the father, and the confrontation with the female side; the woman as temptress Death, the Underworld and Resurrection represents a denial of the World, a confrontation with the Ultimate Question and the crossing of the return threshold to the real World. The hero is the master of the two Worlds, spiritual and temporal. He is Universal, Everyman, man in Nature, fulfilled and aware. He is the epitome of existence and achievement.2
It has been said by Northrop Frye and subsequently by other literary critics that the Quest myth has been the central myth of literature and the source of all literary genres. T. S. Eliot praised James Joyce for having invented a ‘mythical method’ or ‘continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity’3 which enables a modern writer to give ‘a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history’.4
Yet the Quest myth in literature is nothing new. Myth telling originally commenced as an oral tradition and, as society developed, the tradition and mythic tales were incorporated into the literature of the society. Ovid’s Metamorphoses are quaint tales and part of the Latin literary heritage. Yet they are myths of origins – of how things came to be. That myth telling was an oral tradition is confirmed in the Norse word saga which means ‘things said’. Saga, and its close relation epic which is an extension of saga, deal not so much with ‘true’ myth but with the ancestors or heroes of a society. Both rely heavily on ‘true’ myth for a background, and presuppose a knowledge of myth among the listeners. It is wrong to assume that the Eddas, the sagas of the North, and the Kalevala are representative of a written literary tradition for they are not. The Kalevala was not recorded in writing until as late as the 1830s and even though the tales have been written down there is a heavy oral tradition whose function is to stir the spirit of warriors to heroic action by praising the exploits of ancestors in the mead hall or before battle. The Chansons