My Tolkien essay arguing that Sam and Frodo are bent

So here's my Tolkien essay if anyone's interested. This is the longest lj entry evOR!



Mates
Love, Friendship and Homosexuality in The Lord of the Rings




‘Mates’, is an interesting noun in that its two principal meanings when it is applied to humans[1] seem to be opposite pairs. It is a gender-neutral term for married people on the one hand and a synonym of friend on the other. These seem very much to be opposites, first of all, one’s mate should be of the opposite gender, while one’s mates of the same. Otherwise would be quite unseemly, damn near uncouth even. There are many other opposites that apply to those two meanings. A mate is forever while mates come and go. Notice that the former is singular and the latter plural, one versus many. One should try to mate with one’s mate, but certainly not with one’s mates. One could go on for a while, but the general idea has been conveyed.
     The subject for this essay, homosexuality in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, specifically in regard to the characters of Frodo and Sam, is bound to be a tad on the touchy side for some. It is therefore necessary to make a few things clear from the outset. It is not the intention to assert that either of them were up to the kind of public schoolboy antics that tend not to be celebrated in respectable memoirs, neither any other character for that matter. In fact, were it not for some people having progeny, there would be nothing to indicate that anyone has sex at the end of the Third Age in Middle Earth (which perhaps would explain the depopulated landscape)[2]. Homosexual love need not be physical, it can be chaste just as well as heterosexual love. Love and friendship are not the same, and for this essay to succeed it must demonstrate that the relationship of Frodo and Sam is that of two people in love, rather than that of friends. The text clearly states that love exists between them. To take an example: “In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold [Sam] firm”[3]. This example is interesting because it is not entirely clear whether it is Sam’s love for Frodo or Frodo’s love for Sam that holds Sam firm. Admittedly that is why that particular passage was chosen. But it is not necessary a love that can be classed as homosexual. The text must indicate that there it is different from friendship.
     Before continuing, one question must be addressed, is there anything in Lord of the Rings that prohibits Sam and Frodo from having any sort of homosexual feelings for each other? Does the narrator say somewhere something along the lines of “When they clambered over the ridge, Sam and Frodo, who certainly did not have any sort of improper feelings for each other, first saw the ash rising out of Mount Doom.”? Even looking for passages of that nature none could be found. While there are no guarantees, to err is human after all, it seems unlikely that it was ever specifically addressed by the narrator at any point. At this point it is prudent to remember that the narrator of the novel is also a character, namely Frodo. The perspective is filtered through him, it is his voice that one hears telling the story, or as it is said in the last chapter before the appendices:

THE DOWNFALL
OF THE
LORD OF THE RINGS
AND THE
RETURN OF THE KING
(as seen by the Little People; being the memoirs of Bilbo and Frodo of the Shire, supplemented by the account of their friends and the learning of the Wise)[4]

Does the relationship of Sam and Frodo fit into the friendship patterns of Lord of the Rings? There are two main patterns, the friendship of equals, that of Legolas and Gimli, for instance, and then there is the friendship of lord and vassal, like Theoden and Merry. To formulate somewhat, one could say that when two people are of more or less equal power and standing in the world of the novel, they are equal in their friendship, when their power is inequal, the friendship becomes that of master and servant. A good exemplar of the different natures of friendship in Lord of the Rings is Gandalf. He is higher in power and standing to almost everyone and therefore interacts with them accordingly. He comes and leaves as he pleases and does not keep his lower-ranking friends in his full confidence. Only Galadriel, Elrond, Aragorn once he becomes Elessar and Saruman before his fall becomes apparent are his equals.
     When the fellowship is sundered so are the four hobbits. Their respective friendships develop along quite different lines. Merry and Pippin are good example of friends who are equal. They both start out as scions of two of the more renowned Hobbit families, both become part of the fellowship, grow in height due to the Entdraught, are made vassals of great kings of Men, gain honour on the battlefield and last but not least, clear the Shire of Saruman and his brigands. They are socially upwardly mobile equals. Frodo and Sam’s is of a different sort. They start out in the roles of master and servant, and that never changes, per se, but their relationship becomes more complex, less clear-cut. They never become equals either, one is, after all, the Ringbearer, even though Sam does carry the Ring for a while. It is also important to note that Frodo falls, gives in to the Ring while Sam does not, though to be fair, Sam never has to deal with the prolonged pressure of carrying the Ring. It is important to note that Frodo and Sam are not equal, nor do they ever become equal. Instead of starting off in the same place, like Merry and Pippin, and then moving upwards in parallel trajectories, Sam and Frodo are all over the place. Frodo starts out as an orphan in care of his kooky but well off uncle, and ends up a tortured saint. Sam’s change is harder to gauge. The snide answer is that he starts out as a gardener and changes into a gardener with some kickass fertilizer. It is true that he becomes the Mayor, and that he gets the girl, but that does not go a long way towards explaining Sam or his role within the novel. Of the four hobbits his place is hardest to define. Pippin and Merry are knights and Frodo is a saint. What is Sam then, the saint’s caretaker?
     There is a long line of European literature about masters who, for lack of better word, are complete idiots, and their long-suffering, smart servants. This is a tradition that can be traced from Menander to Terence to Cervantes to Diderot to Wodehouse. But Sam is no Jeeves, and Frodo no Wooster, but there are elements of those roles there. Sam does take care of his master’s needs. Frodo is completely single-minded. He wants to get the Ring to Mount Doom, but he does not have the slightest clue how to get there. Perhaps the best example of this is the scene in front of the Black Gate.

‘I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor and therefore I shall go,’ said Frodo. ‘If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come.’[5]

But Sam is not the one to dissuade Frodo. The scene continues.

Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they were come to the bitter end. But he had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone. Sam would go with him – and at any rate they would get rid of Gollum.[6]

It is Gollum who persuades Frodo from his suicidal path and suggests another way. If we continue using the Jeeves and Wooster model it is Gollum who is Jeeves. Therefore we have three-tiered hierarchy that goes from Frodo to Sam to Gollum. Frodo bosses both around, Sam Gollum, and Gollum neither, but tries to outwit both through trickery.
There is another way to look at the Sam-Gollum-Frodo relationship than in terms of master and servants. Sam and Gollum do not like each other. As the quote above indicates Sam would like nothing more than be rid of Gollum, and that feeling is reciprocated, but both are extremely beholden of Frodo. This is not dissimilar to a love triangle. This is not altogether inconceivable as this scene on the stairs of Cirith Ungol makes clear.

And so Gollum found [Sam and Frodo] hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo’s head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam’s brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master’s breast. Peace was in both their faces.
     Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress.
[…]
But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum – ‘pawing at master,’ as he thought.
‘Hey you!’ he said roughly. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Said Gollum softly. ‘Nice Master!’
‘I daresay,’ said Sam. ‘But where have you been to – sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain?’
Gollum withdrew himself[7]

Clearly there is jealousy, but is there love? Do these feelings fit the rubric of love as expressed elsewhere in the novel. The three major pairs of lovers are Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn and Sam and Rosie[8] Aragorn and Arwen are love writ huge. Such is its power that it is does not diminish throughout their lengthy courtship and even longer marriage and when Aragorn dies the despair of Arwen is such that she becomes so despondent that she, for lack of a better term, goes insane. In contrast, when Rosie dies Sam goes to the Grey Havens. This is not as dissimilar as it first seems. Arwen pleads with Aragorn not to die and then regrets having to die herself. She wanders into the forest that once was Lothlórien and after some time dies there. Sam’s decision to go to the Grey Havens is similar. The novel never actually says that he is taken across to Valinor. Here is the passage (in Appendix B):

He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the Towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over the sea, last of the Ring-bearers.[9]

By this point, after travelling hundreds of pages in the company of Sam the reader is inclined to believe that Sam went to happily ever after with his Frodo, but a moments thought reveals that it is impossible for Sam to have done so. Frodo was given passage by Arwen, not to mention that he was slowly fading out of Middle-Earth anyway, becoming transparent[10]. Sam would not have been given passage, it is clear that Sam loses the plot, so to speak. All we can hope is that Cirdán tends to him, and that he does not simply die somewhere in the wilderness. There are other elements of the relationship of Sam and Rosie that are mirrored in that of Aragorn and Arwen. Much like Aragorn Sam has to go do great deeds before he can win the hand of Rosie.
     The relationship of Sam and Frodo clearly does not fit that model. Is then everything said, hinted and intimated above about Sam and Frodo then recanted? Of course not, there is no reason that Sam’s relationship with Rosie need make any feelings of love towards Frodo impossible. There is another model for love, that of Faramir and Eowyn. Theirs is a love that heals and nurtures, to make an analogy, akin to a gardener tending a plant. It is not such a far-fetched analogy, their courtship takes place in a garden, Faramir draws analogies between her and flowers and to nurture her, puts her in an eastward facing window (so to speak).

‘Your window does not look eastward?’ [Faramir] said. ‘That can be amended.’
[…]
[Faramir says to Eowyn:] In the valleys of our hills there are flowers fair and bright, and maidens, fairer still; but neither flower nor lady have I seen till now in Gondor so lovely[11]

Sam’s love for Frodo is very closely linked to his gardening. When he bears the Ring it tempts him with visions of glory, but he resists.

In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lives still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm[12]

This quote alone will do little to convince anyone that the bond between Sam and Frodo are more than that of friendship. As I said above, the text must indicate a bond that is clearly not that of friends, and interestingly it does. When Frodo has been captured by Shelob the spider, Sam charges. His attack is described with this analogy:

No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.[13]

The word ‘mate’ has been discussed already, so hopefully the significance of this analogy is clear. There are many arguments to put forth for the claim that Sam and Frodo are not just mates in the meaning ‘friends’. Besides that the novel likens them to mated animals, there is the fact that Sam and Rosie move into Bag End. The way that transpires is not as straightforward as Frodo asking Sam and Rosie to move in with him. When the damage done to Bag End by Saruman and his men has been fixed, Frodo asks: “When are you going to move in and join me, Sam?”[14] Sam then tells Frodo that he and Rosie have drawn together. But he does not happily proclaim it to Frodo, first he “look[s] a bit awkward”[15]. In fact when he has told Frodo about his impending marriage, he is still hesitant as to which to choose, he “feel[s] torn in two”[16]. Frodo solves Sam’s dilemma by saying that Bag End has plenty of room for all three.
     Two things bear noting. The first is that Frodo assumes that Sam is going to live with him at Bag End and that to Sam living with Frodo at Bag End would preclude him from marrying Rosie. Being a servant to or a friend of someone does not stop anyone from marrying, but being already married does. Indeed one of the primary rituals of marriage has already been fulfilled between them, Sam gave Frodo a ring, the Ring, and he gives it to Frodo “kneeling before him”[17], in the posture of a man asking a woman’s hand in marriage. In all but asking directly, this is a proposal.
     There is a proposal, but is there a wedding? The feast to honour them in the chapter “The Field of Cormallen” after returning from Mordor is not at all dissimilar to a Christian marriage ceremony. It is not exactly alike, but there are parallels. When reading the quote that follows, keep in mind a Christian wedding.

As they came to the opening in the wood, they were surprised to see knights in bright mail and tall guards in silver and black standing there, who greeted them with honour and bowed before them. And then one blew a long trumpet, and they went on through the aisle of trees beside the singing stream. So they came to a wide green land
[…]
And as the Hobbits approached swords were unsheathed, and spears were shaken, and horns and trumpets sang, and men cried with many voices and many tongues:

Long live the Halflings! Praise them with great praise!
[…]
And so the red blood blushing in their faces and their eyes shining with wonder, Frodo and Sam went forward
[…]
taking them by the hand, Frodo upon [Aragorn’s] right and Sam upon his left, he led them to the throne, and setting them upon it, he turned to the men and captains who stood by and spoke, so that his voice rang over all the host, crying:
‘Praise them with great praise!’[18]

The analogy is not perfect, but the parallels are strong. The celebrating crowd that Frodo and Sam walk through to be met by Aragorn, who, even though he has not assumed the mantle yet, is described in this passage, when Sam and Frodo lay their eyes on him, as “kingly”[19], and therefore functions as a kind of priest-figure, setting them upon a throne and commanding the crowd to praise them. But of course they are not meant to stay with each other forever. The Ring, the one Sam gave to Frodo on bended knee, is destroyed.
     As stated above there are two things that bear noting about the scene where Sam informs Frodo that he and Rosie have drawn together, that the text is silent about Frodo’s reaction to it. It records his words, which are jovial enough, but what he thinks is not recorded. It is noted that Frodo feels “more lucky himself” than the married couple, but only because “there was not a Hobbit in the Shire that was looked after with such care.”[20] His feelings on the marriage itself are meticulously not put forth, which is interesting considering that it was Frodo who wrote it down.
     So, are Sam and Frodo homosexuals? One could say that it does not matter whether they are or not, they love one another and that is enough. However, that would be copping out, a non-answer, rather than an answer. We have a word for people who love members of the same sex, and that is homosexual, as stated above. Sexuality is not who one has sex with, but who one is attracted to. Whether Sam is bisexual or not is besides the point, he has a homosexual relationship with Frodo[21], they are in love and effectively married to each other. Perhaps, to risk a little speculation, the reason that their marriage seems to get annulled is that they do not conjugate it, but whether they do or not is immaterial. Return again to Sam leaving Rosie upon her death, he heads for the Grey Havens hoping that he can claim passage on a ship going to Valinor. He wants to live forever by Frodo’s side, instead of dying by Rosie’s. One can almost see, in the minds eye, a weathered inscription scratched into the bark of a tree, F+S 4EV♥R



Endnotes


1 Presumably the same applies when speaking of non-humans such as elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs and Tory voters.
2 By contrast Silmarillion is quite a bit saucier.
3 The Return of the King, 210
4 The Return of the King, 374
5 The Two Towers, 304
6 The Two Towers, 304-5
7 The Two Towers, 407
8 Lovers in the full physical sense of the word.
9 The Return of the King, 476
10 “to the wizard’s eye there was a faint change, just a hint as it were of transparency, about [Frodo]” – Fellowship of the Ring, 293
11 The Return of the King, 288
12 The Return of the King, 210-11
13 The Two Towers, 423
14 The Return of the King, 370
15 The Return of the King, 370
16 The Return of the King, 370
17 The Return of the King, 224
18 The Return of the King, 278-80
19 The Return of the King, 279
20 The Return of the King, 371
21 Frodo never seems to be interested in anyone but Sam.