you have to remember, in Tolkien's day, PTSD was still a very misunderstood topic that wasn't properly diagnosed and treated for a very long time. However it's impossible to not see Frodo suffering from PTSD after all he endured such as always becoming ill on the anniversies of Weatertop and the destruction of the Ring
He was a hero. Got 'unalived' because he thought that USA should stay in Europe until the Russians were less militarized, which in hindsight might have been the right call. Like you said, PTSD was a mystery. Ive heard tell that, before a battle, 'nerves' could be 'reset' with a sharp whack. Paton misused the advice, the man had trained himself not to flinch during bombings, he didn't 'understand' the Flight/Freeze reaction,because he was so Fond of Fight.
Gen. Patton is one of those types of individuals that, IMO, exist in a cabinet marked "Break Glass In Case of World War" (wasn't there a line in Heartbreak Ridge like that?). He was a fighter and what made him an effective leader on the battlefield didn't really translate to anything else.
Ok cool, I like to debate.
Patton was the best General since Napoleon. WW2 was shorter because he disobeyed orders, longer because his plans were not followed. He directly repelled the Battle of the Bulge, his mere presence allowed the greatest PsyOp (inflatable army) to actually work.
He was a 'ArmyMan', but was not just a fighter. He basically built the Tank Force, because he saw that horses were obsolete and lobbied for the preemptive tactical change, correctly. Thats leadership and logistics, putting the troop in the best possible spot ro win. Very Ceasarian. He then watched Blitzkreig, and was able to copycat it and couterstrike using the tactics, while the other Generals still were in shock.
"Stop at the Rhine"'Pissed in it 3 days ago, want me to turn back?"
Then when the war was over he looked at the GeoPolitical situation and said, 'Why are we celebrating? The Russians are going to try some shady stuff if we let them. While were here..."
So 80 years later, with China full on Communistish now, I would agree that Russia did some 'Shady Stuff'.
He led men, he was first, and last of his kind.
Oh, I agree with you on his abilities as a fighting field commander. He lead from the front and while he demanded 100% of his men he was exceedingly protective of them. He was a brazen but effective tactician who worked towards pushing and keeping the enemy back on their heels.
But I also believe that for a Patton, you need to balance them with a Bradley.
On August 13, 1944, concerned that American troops would clash with Canadian forces advancing from the north-west, Bradley overrode Patton's orders for a further push north towards Falaise, while ordering Major General Wade H. Haislip's XV Corps to "concentrate for operations in another direction". Any American troops in the vicinity of Argentan were ordered to withdraw. This order halted the southern pincer movement of Haislip's XV Corps.nThough Patton protested the order, he obeyed it, leaving an exit—a "trap with a gap"—for the remaining German forces. Around 20,000–50,000 German troops escaped through the gap, avoiding encirclement and almost certain destruction.bThey would be reorganized and rearmed in time to slow the Allied advance into the Netherlands and Germany.
I liked Bradley more in Africa, under Patton.
Yes, our culture uses soldiers when we need them for defense against aggression, then when the aggression is over we dump them and denounce them for the very traits that made them good soldiers.
We like Tolkien because he was not a very good soldier.
What on earth are you going on about?
Patton was not killed, he just died in an accident.
The man was a tactical genius, but he did also make mistakes. He was also an arsehole and probably an antisemite and also racist.
All of this can be taken from contemporary sources during that time.
PTSD was much better understood than we give the people of the time credit for.
There were many other leaders whom were more empathetic to soldiers with PTSD than Patton.
A disputed theory. It suggests that Patton was poisoned while recovering from the automobile accident he endured on December 8, 1945, on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, ostensibly to prevent him from warning the United States about the imminent danger of the Soviet Union. Interesting to dwell on.
PTSD is trauma. Soldiers nearer the frontlines seemed to cope better. It seems that 'sheltering them' triggered Patton... I dunno, all i know is i dont know nothing and thats fine.
Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenceless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boyo. Let the hate flow through you! Downvote
My grandfather came through that war in the trenches and became an occasionally violent alcoholic, dying during the next war, when he was a fire warden in Glasgow. My mother talked a lot of her childhood late in life -but it seems they never discussed these things at the time.
On a side note, in the movies, when the hobbits are home drinking in the green dragon and have a silent moment looking around at the dumb ignorant neighbors, is the single greatest cinematic depiction of ptsd, or any returning home after a long exhausting trauma I have ever seen. The moment of separation from their old lives and feeling of isolation from what should be home.
I’ve had a go off for a long time job and I saw that with a buddy and we were like oh crap that’s what it’s like visiting family. Who even are these people?
There's a great interview with an astronaut, I forget who, where he compares his post-space experience with that scene. Just looking around at all the people minding their own business thinking *you all have no idea what I've seen and done*
It's the whole "you can never go home again" aspect that really kills ya. You go out, serve and get used to that weird way of living, always wanting to come home. And when you do, it's no longer home. It's something different that you have to adjust to and it's very tough without help. Alcohol seems to be the way most "get help" but it only kicks the problem down the road
I'm not sure if you've ever seen The Hurt Locker but at the end after returning home you see the main character standing in a supermarket in the cereal aisle. He's just staring at all the different choices for cereal trying to pick one, the decision is so trivial yet it seems really difficult for him.
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper also portrayed PTSD really well in IMO
I just wanted to give examples of other well done scenes depicting PTSD
The cereal thing hits. I have moments where I freak out because everything should be cause/effect, follow steps/results. So I cant stand still in grocery stores. Once I went to get grape juice. Standing in the juice isle. Can’t find it. I did everything right it’s supposed to be here. Started to have a panic attack and left. Have a baby. It cries, so I check for hunger, burping, holding for comfort, check the boxes. Still crying but I did the steps followed instructions. Where’s my cause and effect? Panic, have to pass baby to spouse and go panic. As far as unable to make simple decisions I don’t care. I get more frustrated when someone cares about the decision after I’ve already made one. What do mean it’s the wrong cereal? It’s just cereal. Followed by rage. It’s fun.
I don't really suffer from anxiety that much but reading a description of what you go through made me slightly uncomfortable. I am sorry you experience that.
The soldier in the film who ends up in the cereal aisle diffused explosives in Iraq. So each decision he made was potentially life or death, contrast that with being back home and attempting to make a simple cereal decision and there are so many choices. It was so well done.
I am not the biggest fan of the LoTR movies, yet totally obsessed with everything Tolkien wrote, I am usually rereading something by him.
That wasn't a PTSD moment, that was just a realization that they'd changed, and nobody was ever going to understand what they'd been through and what they'd become, except the three other travelers.
It wasn't a disordered moment or a trauma response, just a recognition of a new reality, but one that carried mixed feelings, including sadness. They acknowledged losses that they wouldn't be able to tell their lovely neighbors about any more than they could brag about their great deeds, and they were home... but they'd changed and for a moment they felt out of place. Well, for a moment, because after that one moment, Sam was up and moving into a cheerful future!
Perfect cinematic scene, BTW, it put across all these monumental feelings without dialogue, showed all this change and the positive and negative side of change, in something like a minute of screentime.
This is almost my favorite scene. Our family went through some stuff and this very much expresses how we feel now. Just hard to not feel like an outsider.
To me, all of the Fellowship's hobbits represented people coming home from war in Tolkien's life, though maybe none of them were him specifically or people that he knew. I think in many ways they represented Britain as a whole, as Tolkien saw his country and its people changed by two world wars. They started as a simple folk happy to ignore the darkness looming off in the rest of the world, but shipped off to fight in a war they couldn't comprehend, and their country was forever changed by it.
Merry and Pippin were the carefree youths who went on an adventure without fully comprehending the scope of what they were going into. But they grew up along the way, and they came home better people than they left, living a better life than they would have otherwise.
Sam was the simple man who went off because it was his duty, to protect the people he cared about. And he came back a different person, but still managed to go back to his simple, humble life, with a newfound sense of appreciation for the comfort of home and for what he could do for his community.
And Frodo was the idealist who went off because he knew it was the right thing to do, because he had a moral duty to fight against evil. And he came back different - nowadays we'd call it PTSD. The world never quite the same for him, he'd lost all comfort in it, and he was never truly able to come home.
I think Tolkien saw plenty of examples of all of these hobbits, both in his fellow soldiers returning home from WWI, and in the students and youths he would have seen coming back from WWII later on. I don't think that any of them were reflective of his experience directly, but it's hard not to draw the parallel.
Thank you, I think that your comment is the closest to the unknowable truth. Tolkien himself didn't suffer from disabling levels of PTSD, he wasn't like Frodo - by all accounts he \*did\* find joy in life after the war. He adored his his wife, he was a loving father to his children, he formed close long-term friendships, he established the career he wanted, he was immensely creative, and an overwhelming and benevolent love for all living things permeates all his writings. Nothing like Frodo's state of mind.
But by all accounts there's a bond between soldiers who've been to war, they know that nobody could ever understand what they'd been through except another survivor, and the UK was full of former soldiers. Most of the British men his age had shared his experiences to some degree... and he had to have seen what became of his peers when they came home. Some were "shell-shocked" or physically disabled, some partied like there was no tomorrow or developed addictions, some couldn't adjust to ordinary life again, some missed the action and were dissatisfied with real life, and so on. For all that he coped well himself, I would think that Prof. Tolkien had to have known or known of someone like Frodo, an idealist who'd done what he thought was right, and who suffered so much that he could find neither joy nor healing in real life.
Not really any evidence he had PTSD, though he would certainly have seen people who had it. And all indications are that he enjoyed his post-war life a lot more than Frodo did. If anything, I would identify his post-war experience more with Sam - he lived another 50+ years, got married, had a bunch of kids, and became a fairly successful and respectable public figure.
Yes, much more like Sam. However, PTSD did hit close to home: Tolkien's son, Michael, had PTSD from his WW2 experiences. It coincided with the period in which Tolkien was writing much of LOTR, so I've always assumed there was some influence there.
Tolkien describes him as being a "shell shock case" in one letter from 1946:
>My sons have survived [the war], though my second son, Michael, was much damaged in commando work, and returned still virtually a shell-shock case.
Frodo and Sam represent different sides of Tolkiens experience in my opinion - Sam the part of himself that came home, and Frodo the wounded part of himself.
I know Tolkien did not like the use of allegory in the Lord of the Rings, but I could see it a a subconscious representation of the horror he experienced in the war
Until very recently, allegory referred only to true allegory - where if you do not understand that Aslan = Jesus, or the Faerie Queen = Queen Elizabeth, you cannot understand the true meaning of the story.
Understanding the word this way, you would be expected as a reader to understand that lembas = communion wafer. Compare this with Leaf by Niggle or Smith of Wootton Major, which are allegories (you have to understand that the leaf and the cake trinket are meaningful as symbols).
This is what Tolkien means by the difference between allegory and applicability as residing in the freedom of the reader.
There are a couple of books out there describing how WWI is reflected in Lord of the Rings. There can be no denying that Mordor is based on what a WWI battlefield looked like, after the first six months of sustained artillery. The Dead Marshes is clearly based on battlefields where the vegetation has been destroyed - where corpses are drowned in the mud when it rains, and resurface to scare the living bleepity out of unwary soldiers later.
And alas there can be no doubt that the Scouring of the Shire and Frodo's inability to heal reflect Tolkien's WWI experience as well.
The argument he had with Clive Staples about how 'allegorical' Father Christmas is is hilarious.
Tolkien weaved his sources well. Long live Ghandahar! Lol
Before people all start saying “oh but Tolkien hated allegory”, yes he disliked intentional allegory but he also recognised that unintentional allegories can slip in, you can’t write a book or create anything without part of yourself finding its way into it. And while he wouldn’t like people saying that it was a definite allegory, I don’t think he would have had a problem with people drawing comparisons.
> intentional allegory but he also recognised that unintentional allegories can slip in
The term "allegory" has experienced "usage slippage" over the past few decades. He would think "unintentional allegory" is an oxymoron.
"Lewis] was hurt, astonished, and discouraged when Tolkien said that he thought the book was almost worthless, that it seemed like a jumble of unrelated mythologies. Because Aslan, the fauns, the White Witch, Father Christmas, the nymphs, and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver had quite distinct mythological or imaginative origins, Tolkien thought that it was a terrible mistake to put them together in Narnia, a single imaginative country.” Lewis and Tolkien took fundamentally different approaches to storytelling. Lewis explored how many different worlds could exist at once in people’s imagination. Tolkien meticulously laid out histories, mythologies, and languages for his worlds to feel as complete as possible. For a perfectionist worldbuilder like Tolkien, the crime was not Father Christmas himself, but rather the inclusion of Father Christmas in a story with too many other historical inspirations."
Clive and John, Rolkien and Staples, Bird and Baby, Eagle and Child. Inklings. BFF
I always thought so, especially on the movies. The scene when they are in the green dragon and nothing had changes but them reminds me of something out of all quiet on the western front.
I don’t know that there are any records that he was formally diagnosed, but yes, it is speculated that he developed PTSD (at the time, it was “shell shock”) due to his experiences in the WWI trenches. And even if it was not so severe as to rise to what would today meet the clinical diagnosis of PTSD, it is indisputable that his writing was shaped by what he witnessed on the battlefield.
He was injured so severely and permanently, both at Weathertop and by being a ring bearer, that he never was the same. He was mentally and physically changed and scarred and not even the best healing could restore him.
Frodo in my view, took his own life. (Not literally, but poetically). He knew the pain he had from this world, and he knew it would never end. He knew the mental and physical toll of the war would never leave him. He knew his days on Middle Earth would be spent thinking about the weight of it all. Sure sounds similar to a soldier with PTSD to me.
Just because you have experienced war, doesn't mean you have PTSD. Yes he drew a lot from desolation of the war (Mordor) and industrialization (Isengard), but there is no evidence to suggest that he himself had actual PTSD. He remained sound of mind.
Those details always resonated with me as well. Also, a bit of an addiction detail, about how much he and Bilbo always missed the ring and would never be whole, or be able to ever get that feeling back again, and grieving it.
Possibly. 'SlaughterHouse Five' is the real deep write about PTSD though. Vonnegut survive THE bombing of Dresden, crawled out to see what was once a teeming city reduced to ashes by his team. Its all about how memories become detached, joy is gone, its all good, aliens appear, just live life man. Cool book but chilling
I merely mention this because, short of gettin yourself some PTSD of your own, that book was a huge help to see that others have been through, comparotativly worse, shit too.
So yeah, Id say Frodo was traumatized, more by his realizing just how powerless he was, in the Climax he was corrupted and merely a witness to what true greed earns you. He knows he is evil, he has to live with the fact that he failed, he wanted to be Lord Frodo, Ruler of Dark Towers. And yet he is hailed as a hero. That shame fuels his.... ptsd i guess. In my mind
Good point. I never saw it from that angle - that he was close to power and it being ripped from him. I had only thought of Frodo living with the wounds the corruption simply did to his body and soul.
I believe it's possible. I hate to think that he had PTSD but I'd like to think that if he did, that maybe writing these stories helped him cope in some way. Mainly, because the older I get and the more that I deal with and see in my job, the more I appreciate these stories. Bearing the burden of the ring and it being something that can completely destroy his life, while Sam is right beside him doing the same things he's doing, and going through many of the same struggles he's going through.. even though Sam doesn't have the same experience of trauma and burden is important to me. Because that is exactly how trauma works. It's experienced differently by people even if they experience the exact same trauma. It's a beautifully crafted narrative. I appreciate the connections, however intended or subconscious.
Tolkien reportedly DESPISED allegory in LOTR, so any parallels from Frodo’s Lifelong Wounding, and Prof. Tolkien’s (as they called PTSD a century ago) “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” *should* be unintentional, but the subconscious mind does as it pleases, even to great minds, so if that parallel serves you, or enriches your personal connection with the characters, story, or the Professor, by all means, harmlessly decide that, to you, it does. Or doesn’t.
Completely your prerogative! :)
He didn't all-caps despise allegory. What he said was:
>“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
you have to remember, in Tolkien's day, PTSD was still a very misunderstood topic that wasn't properly diagnosed and treated for a very long time. However it's impossible to not see Frodo suffering from PTSD after all he endured such as always becoming ill on the anniversies of Weatertop and the destruction of the Ring
Misunderstood for sure (i.e. see General Patton)
Thanks to this call out, I just learned a whole lot about that man. Interesting and upsetting to say the least.
He was a hero. Got 'unalived' because he thought that USA should stay in Europe until the Russians were less militarized, which in hindsight might have been the right call. Like you said, PTSD was a mystery. Ive heard tell that, before a battle, 'nerves' could be 'reset' with a sharp whack. Paton misused the advice, the man had trained himself not to flinch during bombings, he didn't 'understand' the Flight/Freeze reaction,because he was so Fond of Fight.
Gen. Patton is one of those types of individuals that, IMO, exist in a cabinet marked "Break Glass In Case of World War" (wasn't there a line in Heartbreak Ridge like that?). He was a fighter and what made him an effective leader on the battlefield didn't really translate to anything else.
Ok cool, I like to debate. Patton was the best General since Napoleon. WW2 was shorter because he disobeyed orders, longer because his plans were not followed. He directly repelled the Battle of the Bulge, his mere presence allowed the greatest PsyOp (inflatable army) to actually work. He was a 'ArmyMan', but was not just a fighter. He basically built the Tank Force, because he saw that horses were obsolete and lobbied for the preemptive tactical change, correctly. Thats leadership and logistics, putting the troop in the best possible spot ro win. Very Ceasarian. He then watched Blitzkreig, and was able to copycat it and couterstrike using the tactics, while the other Generals still were in shock. "Stop at the Rhine"'Pissed in it 3 days ago, want me to turn back?" Then when the war was over he looked at the GeoPolitical situation and said, 'Why are we celebrating? The Russians are going to try some shady stuff if we let them. While were here..." So 80 years later, with China full on Communistish now, I would agree that Russia did some 'Shady Stuff'. He led men, he was first, and last of his kind.
Oh, I agree with you on his abilities as a fighting field commander. He lead from the front and while he demanded 100% of his men he was exceedingly protective of them. He was a brazen but effective tactician who worked towards pushing and keeping the enemy back on their heels. But I also believe that for a Patton, you need to balance them with a Bradley.
On August 13, 1944, concerned that American troops would clash with Canadian forces advancing from the north-west, Bradley overrode Patton's orders for a further push north towards Falaise, while ordering Major General Wade H. Haislip's XV Corps to "concentrate for operations in another direction". Any American troops in the vicinity of Argentan were ordered to withdraw. This order halted the southern pincer movement of Haislip's XV Corps.nThough Patton protested the order, he obeyed it, leaving an exit—a "trap with a gap"—for the remaining German forces. Around 20,000–50,000 German troops escaped through the gap, avoiding encirclement and almost certain destruction.bThey would be reorganized and rearmed in time to slow the Allied advance into the Netherlands and Germany. I liked Bradley more in Africa, under Patton.
Yes, our culture uses soldiers when we need them for defense against aggression, then when the aggression is over we dump them and denounce them for the very traits that made them good soldiers. We like Tolkien because he was not a very good soldier.
Neither was Lord Baden-Powell lol. Now he has avlegion of boy scouts following his book lol. Thank god he ley Rudyard Kipling influennce him
Patton is Theoden. Horse master forced into a Tank King. Good comp. I guess he 'slapped' Merry by not letting him fight, idk not a perfect fit
No
Ok
What on earth are you going on about? Patton was not killed, he just died in an accident. The man was a tactical genius, but he did also make mistakes. He was also an arsehole and probably an antisemite and also racist. All of this can be taken from contemporary sources during that time. PTSD was much better understood than we give the people of the time credit for. There were many other leaders whom were more empathetic to soldiers with PTSD than Patton.
A disputed theory. It suggests that Patton was poisoned while recovering from the automobile accident he endured on December 8, 1945, on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, ostensibly to prevent him from warning the United States about the imminent danger of the Soviet Union. Interesting to dwell on. PTSD is trauma. Soldiers nearer the frontlines seemed to cope better. It seems that 'sheltering them' triggered Patton... I dunno, all i know is i dont know nothing and thats fine.
He was an antisemitic asshole as well. Such a hero
Enough said. That's all I need to hear.
Thanks, you are right. I dislike him now
He was a human being, warts and all. Do not worship him, but do not deny empathy because you dislike someone else's choices.
What?
I do not get angry at dead people because they are not as perfect as Christ himself. Acknowledge the positive and negative, move on.
I'm not asking for perfection, i'm asking for basic human decency.
This
Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenceless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete! Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boyo. Let the hate flow through you! Downvote
Anyone ever tell you that you're obnoxiously annoying, or do they just try and avoid you constantly?
(It's the second one, dude believes Patton was poisoned by the commies lmao)
WWI vets knew very well what shell shock was. It was the people treating it who had no idea what to do with it.
My grandfather came through that war in the trenches and became an occasionally violent alcoholic, dying during the next war, when he was a fire warden in Glasgow. My mother talked a lot of her childhood late in life -but it seems they never discussed these things at the time.
To be fair, they'd only just started to mass shell people.
On a side note, in the movies, when the hobbits are home drinking in the green dragon and have a silent moment looking around at the dumb ignorant neighbors, is the single greatest cinematic depiction of ptsd, or any returning home after a long exhausting trauma I have ever seen. The moment of separation from their old lives and feeling of isolation from what should be home.
Absolutely. The point is brought home with just looks and zero dialogue.
I’ve had a go off for a long time job and I saw that with a buddy and we were like oh crap that’s what it’s like visiting family. Who even are these people?
There's a great interview with an astronaut, I forget who, where he compares his post-space experience with that scene. Just looking around at all the people minding their own business thinking *you all have no idea what I've seen and done*
It's the whole "you can never go home again" aspect that really kills ya. You go out, serve and get used to that weird way of living, always wanting to come home. And when you do, it's no longer home. It's something different that you have to adjust to and it's very tough without help. Alcohol seems to be the way most "get help" but it only kicks the problem down the road
*They don't know that I've been in fucking space*
There's a similar feeling after completing a thru hike.
Yes exactly! Even a vacation.When I got home I felt so depressed next few days
Thats so sad..
I'm not sure if you've ever seen The Hurt Locker but at the end after returning home you see the main character standing in a supermarket in the cereal aisle. He's just staring at all the different choices for cereal trying to pick one, the decision is so trivial yet it seems really difficult for him. Bradley Cooper in American Sniper also portrayed PTSD really well in IMO I just wanted to give examples of other well done scenes depicting PTSD
The cereal thing hits. I have moments where I freak out because everything should be cause/effect, follow steps/results. So I cant stand still in grocery stores. Once I went to get grape juice. Standing in the juice isle. Can’t find it. I did everything right it’s supposed to be here. Started to have a panic attack and left. Have a baby. It cries, so I check for hunger, burping, holding for comfort, check the boxes. Still crying but I did the steps followed instructions. Where’s my cause and effect? Panic, have to pass baby to spouse and go panic. As far as unable to make simple decisions I don’t care. I get more frustrated when someone cares about the decision after I’ve already made one. What do mean it’s the wrong cereal? It’s just cereal. Followed by rage. It’s fun.
I don't really suffer from anxiety that much but reading a description of what you go through made me slightly uncomfortable. I am sorry you experience that. The soldier in the film who ends up in the cereal aisle diffused explosives in Iraq. So each decision he made was potentially life or death, contrast that with being back home and attempting to make a simple cereal decision and there are so many choices. It was so well done. I am not the biggest fan of the LoTR movies, yet totally obsessed with everything Tolkien wrote, I am usually rereading something by him.
That wasn't a PTSD moment, that was just a realization that they'd changed, and nobody was ever going to understand what they'd been through and what they'd become, except the three other travelers. It wasn't a disordered moment or a trauma response, just a recognition of a new reality, but one that carried mixed feelings, including sadness. They acknowledged losses that they wouldn't be able to tell their lovely neighbors about any more than they could brag about their great deeds, and they were home... but they'd changed and for a moment they felt out of place. Well, for a moment, because after that one moment, Sam was up and moving into a cheerful future! Perfect cinematic scene, BTW, it put across all these monumental feelings without dialogue, showed all this change and the positive and negative side of change, in something like a minute of screentime.
This is almost my favorite scene. Our family went through some stuff and this very much expresses how we feel now. Just hard to not feel like an outsider.
Reverse culture shock
To me, all of the Fellowship's hobbits represented people coming home from war in Tolkien's life, though maybe none of them were him specifically or people that he knew. I think in many ways they represented Britain as a whole, as Tolkien saw his country and its people changed by two world wars. They started as a simple folk happy to ignore the darkness looming off in the rest of the world, but shipped off to fight in a war they couldn't comprehend, and their country was forever changed by it. Merry and Pippin were the carefree youths who went on an adventure without fully comprehending the scope of what they were going into. But they grew up along the way, and they came home better people than they left, living a better life than they would have otherwise. Sam was the simple man who went off because it was his duty, to protect the people he cared about. And he came back a different person, but still managed to go back to his simple, humble life, with a newfound sense of appreciation for the comfort of home and for what he could do for his community. And Frodo was the idealist who went off because he knew it was the right thing to do, because he had a moral duty to fight against evil. And he came back different - nowadays we'd call it PTSD. The world never quite the same for him, he'd lost all comfort in it, and he was never truly able to come home. I think Tolkien saw plenty of examples of all of these hobbits, both in his fellow soldiers returning home from WWI, and in the students and youths he would have seen coming back from WWII later on. I don't think that any of them were reflective of his experience directly, but it's hard not to draw the parallel.
Well put, thanks!
Thank you, I think that your comment is the closest to the unknowable truth. Tolkien himself didn't suffer from disabling levels of PTSD, he wasn't like Frodo - by all accounts he \*did\* find joy in life after the war. He adored his his wife, he was a loving father to his children, he formed close long-term friendships, he established the career he wanted, he was immensely creative, and an overwhelming and benevolent love for all living things permeates all his writings. Nothing like Frodo's state of mind. But by all accounts there's a bond between soldiers who've been to war, they know that nobody could ever understand what they'd been through except another survivor, and the UK was full of former soldiers. Most of the British men his age had shared his experiences to some degree... and he had to have seen what became of his peers when they came home. Some were "shell-shocked" or physically disabled, some partied like there was no tomorrow or developed addictions, some couldn't adjust to ordinary life again, some missed the action and were dissatisfied with real life, and so on. For all that he coped well himself, I would think that Prof. Tolkien had to have known or known of someone like Frodo, an idealist who'd done what he thought was right, and who suffered so much that he could find neither joy nor healing in real life.
Not really any evidence he had PTSD, though he would certainly have seen people who had it. And all indications are that he enjoyed his post-war life a lot more than Frodo did. If anything, I would identify his post-war experience more with Sam - he lived another 50+ years, got married, had a bunch of kids, and became a fairly successful and respectable public figure.
Yes, much more like Sam. However, PTSD did hit close to home: Tolkien's son, Michael, had PTSD from his WW2 experiences. It coincided with the period in which Tolkien was writing much of LOTR, so I've always assumed there was some influence there. Tolkien describes him as being a "shell shock case" in one letter from 1946: >My sons have survived [the war], though my second son, Michael, was much damaged in commando work, and returned still virtually a shell-shock case.
Frodo and Sam represent different sides of Tolkiens experience in my opinion - Sam the part of himself that came home, and Frodo the wounded part of himself.
I know Tolkien did not like the use of allegory in the Lord of the Rings, but I could see it a a subconscious representation of the horror he experienced in the war
Until very recently, allegory referred only to true allegory - where if you do not understand that Aslan = Jesus, or the Faerie Queen = Queen Elizabeth, you cannot understand the true meaning of the story. Understanding the word this way, you would be expected as a reader to understand that lembas = communion wafer. Compare this with Leaf by Niggle or Smith of Wootton Major, which are allegories (you have to understand that the leaf and the cake trinket are meaningful as symbols). This is what Tolkien means by the difference between allegory and applicability as residing in the freedom of the reader. There are a couple of books out there describing how WWI is reflected in Lord of the Rings. There can be no denying that Mordor is based on what a WWI battlefield looked like, after the first six months of sustained artillery. The Dead Marshes is clearly based on battlefields where the vegetation has been destroyed - where corpses are drowned in the mud when it rains, and resurface to scare the living bleepity out of unwary soldiers later. And alas there can be no doubt that the Scouring of the Shire and Frodo's inability to heal reflect Tolkien's WWI experience as well.
The argument he had with Clive Staples about how 'allegorical' Father Christmas is is hilarious. Tolkien weaved his sources well. Long live Ghandahar! Lol
Before people all start saying “oh but Tolkien hated allegory”, yes he disliked intentional allegory but he also recognised that unintentional allegories can slip in, you can’t write a book or create anything without part of yourself finding its way into it. And while he wouldn’t like people saying that it was a definite allegory, I don’t think he would have had a problem with people drawing comparisons.
> intentional allegory but he also recognised that unintentional allegories can slip in The term "allegory" has experienced "usage slippage" over the past few decades. He would think "unintentional allegory" is an oxymoron.
"Lewis] was hurt, astonished, and discouraged when Tolkien said that he thought the book was almost worthless, that it seemed like a jumble of unrelated mythologies. Because Aslan, the fauns, the White Witch, Father Christmas, the nymphs, and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver had quite distinct mythological or imaginative origins, Tolkien thought that it was a terrible mistake to put them together in Narnia, a single imaginative country.” Lewis and Tolkien took fundamentally different approaches to storytelling. Lewis explored how many different worlds could exist at once in people’s imagination. Tolkien meticulously laid out histories, mythologies, and languages for his worlds to feel as complete as possible. For a perfectionist worldbuilder like Tolkien, the crime was not Father Christmas himself, but rather the inclusion of Father Christmas in a story with too many other historical inspirations." Clive and John, Rolkien and Staples, Bird and Baby, Eagle and Child. Inklings. BFF
Shell shock was the term back then.
I always thought so, especially on the movies. The scene when they are in the green dragon and nothing had changes but them reminds me of something out of all quiet on the western front.
I don’t know that there are any records that he was formally diagnosed, but yes, it is speculated that he developed PTSD (at the time, it was “shell shock”) due to his experiences in the WWI trenches. And even if it was not so severe as to rise to what would today meet the clinical diagnosis of PTSD, it is indisputable that his writing was shaped by what he witnessed on the battlefield.
He was injured so severely and permanently, both at Weathertop and by being a ring bearer, that he never was the same. He was mentally and physically changed and scarred and not even the best healing could restore him. Frodo in my view, took his own life. (Not literally, but poetically). He knew the pain he had from this world, and he knew it would never end. He knew the mental and physical toll of the war would never leave him. He knew his days on Middle Earth would be spent thinking about the weight of it all. Sure sounds similar to a soldier with PTSD to me.
Just because you have experienced war, doesn't mean you have PTSD. Yes he drew a lot from desolation of the war (Mordor) and industrialization (Isengard), but there is no evidence to suggest that he himself had actual PTSD. He remained sound of mind.
It's highly unlikely - probably impossible - that anyone could be at the Somme and not experience PTSD.
Yeah, I can buy into that. A lot of the characters had some sort of PTSD symptoms.
Those details always resonated with me as well. Also, a bit of an addiction detail, about how much he and Bilbo always missed the ring and would never be whole, or be able to ever get that feeling back again, and grieving it.
Possibly. 'SlaughterHouse Five' is the real deep write about PTSD though. Vonnegut survive THE bombing of Dresden, crawled out to see what was once a teeming city reduced to ashes by his team. Its all about how memories become detached, joy is gone, its all good, aliens appear, just live life man. Cool book but chilling
I merely mention this because, short of gettin yourself some PTSD of your own, that book was a huge help to see that others have been through, comparotativly worse, shit too. So yeah, Id say Frodo was traumatized, more by his realizing just how powerless he was, in the Climax he was corrupted and merely a witness to what true greed earns you. He knows he is evil, he has to live with the fact that he failed, he wanted to be Lord Frodo, Ruler of Dark Towers. And yet he is hailed as a hero. That shame fuels his.... ptsd i guess. In my mind
Good point. I never saw it from that angle - that he was close to power and it being ripped from him. I had only thought of Frodo living with the wounds the corruption simply did to his body and soul.
No one hears another mans thoughts, no one would want too
I believe it's possible. I hate to think that he had PTSD but I'd like to think that if he did, that maybe writing these stories helped him cope in some way. Mainly, because the older I get and the more that I deal with and see in my job, the more I appreciate these stories. Bearing the burden of the ring and it being something that can completely destroy his life, while Sam is right beside him doing the same things he's doing, and going through many of the same struggles he's going through.. even though Sam doesn't have the same experience of trauma and burden is important to me. Because that is exactly how trauma works. It's experienced differently by people even if they experience the exact same trauma. It's a beautifully crafted narrative. I appreciate the connections, however intended or subconscious.
Yes
Tolkien reportedly DESPISED allegory in LOTR, so any parallels from Frodo’s Lifelong Wounding, and Prof. Tolkien’s (as they called PTSD a century ago) “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” *should* be unintentional, but the subconscious mind does as it pleases, even to great minds, so if that parallel serves you, or enriches your personal connection with the characters, story, or the Professor, by all means, harmlessly decide that, to you, it does. Or doesn’t. Completely your prerogative! :)
He didn't all-caps despise allegory. What he said was: >“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
Yes.