Chapter Two: The Shadow of the Past
An aptly named chapter, as this one is nearly all exposition. In my experience this the chapter that really seperates the Tolkien readers from the non-Tolkien readers. I mean, this is the chapter where many people put the book down and stop reading.
I was a born Tolkien reader, I guess, because I don’t recall having any difficulties reading this when I was ten. I loved the chapter. Though now, on my umpteenth reread, the transition from expository stuff and Sam’s inn segment to lengthy dialogue with Gandalf seems a bit abrupt.
One thing I like about this chapter is that, though it is exposition, it’s mainly told through dialogue.
It’s Gandalf telling Frodo (and the reader) the information Frodo needs to know about his ring and its dark nature; it’s also where Frodo, as hero, “hears the call”, and despite initially rejecting the burden of it, decides in the end to follow it: indeed, Frodo seems excited at the prospect, even though, as he notes, this is no grand adventure a la Bilbo, but rather he is “fleeing danger into danger.”
Of course, Bilbo’s journey was, in reality, no picnic either: but the tone of Bilbo’s light-hearted tale was doubtless made possible by the fact that it had indeed ended as happily and ideally as a fairy tale could. There is no guarantee here that Frodo will come out as well as Bilbo thinks, though the reader assumes he will of course; and when the “desire to follow Bilbo flames up in his heart”, you have to conclude that Frodo, too, deep downwants to go.
Of course there is the matter of Frodo (and Bilbo) being Chosen. (By whom? It’s not made clear, and Gandalf himself mentions it more as a matter of faith than from a point of knowledge: but one can assume they have been chosen by Illuvatar, God himself — because it sure as hell wasn’t Sauron, who has hitherto — hitherto, mind you — not even been aware of the existence of Hobbits.)
It’s also interesting to note that Frodo has been dreaming about far mountains and travelling abroad for some time now, and gathering news from the various refugees (mostly dwarves, it seems) passing through the Shire. Of course dreams in Middle Earth are sent by the Valar: there can be no doubt that Frodo has been Chosen, and Gandalf’s “faith” is rooted in his submerged memories of “theWest that is forgotten.”
But speaking of refugees, who are these dwarves? As far as I know at the time of the story there are only three dwarf kingdoms that we know about. One is Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The other would be The Iron Hills. And the last would be the dwarf mines in the Ered Luin, West of the Shire. Perhaps these dwarves are coming from the Iron Hills, but my feeling is that they must be coming from somewhere further east, where Sauron holds sway…unless it is just that they are more sensitive than most and are merely coming West due to the shadow that had fallen on their hearts (as I think Gloin later puts it in Rivendell.) And we get the news again about the Bounders (i.e., border police) being busier than ever, which we already knew from the Prologue.
It’s interesting how the Hobbits react to the rumored rise of the Shadow in the East: most of them just don’t buy it. It’s all just a bunch of malarkey. There are no dragons, except for the Green Dragon, the pub they congregate in. Frankly if it is not in front of their face, they just don’t believe it, whether it’s wars in the East, dragons from Bilbo’s stories or hints of Ents on the northern moors. (Was it an Entwife Hal saw in the North? An Ent? Or was it just, as Ted Sandyman asserts, just a tall tale? This question is left open.)
This denial of course resonates true even to day with modern society’s climate change deniers and anti-science movements…and indeed, it is a central theme in GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire.
Say what you will, Sauron’s Ring is pretty damn cool and he has awesome handwriting.
What can we say about the Ring? Here we learn:
- It begins to obsess its bearer.
- Evil deeds done using the power of the Ring seem to magnify its effects; and acts of mercy, pity, goodness, seem to shield somewhat against it’s malignancy.
- It wants to get back to Sauron and finds ways to betray its wearer or slip off his finger when it deems it’s time is right.
- It lengthens days but not life. The bearer fades into a spirit eventually; tougher individuals like Hobbits (i.e., Gollum) become slowly twisted by it, both physically and spiritually.
- It “gives power according to the stature of the bearer.” In Smeagol-Gollum’s case, that means he gets to steal and learn dirty little secrets and stir up the shit between people: until his grandmother tosses him out on his ear.
- It has writing on it that can only be seen when heat is applied.
Of course really the heart of this chapter is Finding of the Ring by Smeagol, the Hobbit’s vile Gollum. And it is a potent little myth, isn’t it?
- Man (or Hobbit) finds treasure.
- Other man covets treasure.
- Second man murders first man.
- Treasure brings power to the second man
- but ultimately ruins him and leaves him isolated, lonely and secretly yearning for companionship or at least, death.
I guess it’s inspired by that Norse myth of the three men who get Loki’s treasure and one of them kills the others, turns himself into a dragon and flies away — interesting because I believe that Fanfir and Sigurd are the ultimate inspiration for the Hobbit; and I reckon that that mining that myth further is what gave Tolkien the idea to base his story around the “treasure” that Bilbo found.
But there are shades of Cain and Abel myth here to: the murder of a brother (or a cousin/friend) based on envy. And of course there is something very Christian in Tolkien’s view of power being this irredeemably corruptive influence.
The only other thing that really strikes me here is Sam. Sam is quite a talker at the Green Dragon inn and reveals himself to be a dreamer and a bit of a poet: something which he is mocked for. But he doesn’t seem to care. He knows in his heart what is right and good and the cynical, ever-practical ways of his fellow-hobbits doesn’t seem to effect him too much. Sam himself is a hero, as much as Frodo.
However there is still a weird bit of class weirdness going on here: Frodo’s dealing with Sam, his servant, seems frightfully snooty and condescending, in a way that just puts me off. I know that I am dealing with a seventy year old book written by a man from a country where class was a really well-defined and almost obvious thing, but it’s hard to relate to it. It’s hard to relate it to American notions of class without assigning a racial element to it, which makes it all the more distasteful (though it shouldn’t really: either way, this class system belongs in the past and not in the present.)
But Sam is a more complex character than Frodo or Gandalf gives him credit for it; and seeing as we’ve already seen Sam’s true character of the poetic dreamer when he is in our cups, we really have no excuse for seeing him the same way at the end of this chapter.
Some isolated notes to round this chapter out:
- glimpses of the past: Gil-Galad, Elendil, Isildur.
- Mention of Aragorn, “the greatest huntsman in this age of the world.”
- living in rural Europe really makes the Sam/Ted debate come alive. These sort of village pubs are dying out, being replaced by glossier, adertisement heavy corporate drinking establishments; but when you find one and sit in it for a drink or a bite to eat there is a certain homey warmth that I think Tolkien, almost effortlessly, manages to convey.
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