“Above All Shadows Rides the Sun”: Resurrection and Redemption in J.R.R Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis's
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“ABOVE ALL SHADOWS RIDES THE SUN”: RESURRECTION AND REDEMPTION IN J.R.R TOLKIEN’S THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND C.S. LEWIS’S THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA by Jaye Dozier, B.A. A thesis submitted to the Graduate Council of Texas State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of the Arts with a Major in Literature May 2016 Committee Members: Robert Tally, Chair Steven Beebe Nancy Grayson COPYRIGHT by Jaye Dozier 2016 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSION STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgment. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work I, Jaye Dozier, refuse permission to copy in excess of the “Fair Use” exemption without my written permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I dedicate this to my family, friends, and all who have supported this endeavor and believed in the importance of fantasy as a revelation of deeper truths. To my committee members, Dr. Grayson and Dr. Beebe, who have stretched my mind and passion for literary studies from the Inklings to the Romantics, and to my chair Dr. Tally, who allowed a scatterbrained graduate student to explore the intersecting realms of fantasy and spirituality with enthusiasm and guidance. I am honored and blessed to know you all. The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. —J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache. —C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 II. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DIVINE ..................................................... 19 Gandalf: “the mover of all that has been accomplished” .......................... 21 Aslan: The Breaker of Stone ..................................................................... 35 III. THE RISE OF THE ANTAGONIST ............................................................. 47 Tolkien and the Complication of Evil: Sauron ......................................... 52 The Effects of Evil: Saruman and Gollum ................................................ 60 Lewis and the Manifestation of Evil ......................................................... 70 Jadis: The White Witch ............................................................................. 75 Lady of the Green Kirtle: The Emerald Witch ......................................... 79 IV. THE FIGURATIVE RESURRECTION OF MEN ........................................ 86 Aragorn: “The crownless again shall be king” ......................................... 87 Frodo: The Reluctant Ring-bearer ............................................................ 98 Eustace and Edmund: Redemption Through the World of Narnia ......... 106 V. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 119 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................. 125 v I. INTRODUCTION At an otherwise ordinary faculty meeting at Oxford University in 1926, two men would begin a friendship that would change the relatively segregated realms of academia and fantasy forever. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have been celebrated the world over for inviting audiences into their perilous, enchanting worlds of Middle-earth and Narnia, but their love of fantasy extends far beyond the borders of the Shire or Cair Paravel. In many ways, these two men discovered a mutual attraction for Story itself through the Nordic myths that laid a hushed spell over the imagination, light and thick as snow, and ancient folk tales that wove an enchantment of magic and mystery over the heart as quick and steadily as a loom. These stories did more than entertain; they gave a spiritual experience of joy itself. Tolkien’s and Lewis’s common love for legend and myth spurred them into an academic crusade of sorts to redeem these stories from their general association with “lower” forms of art, meant more for children’s enjoyment than professional, in-depth analysis. In “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien argues, “the common opinion seems to be that there is a natural connection between the minds of children and fairy-stories, of the same order as the connection between children's bodies and milk. I think this is an error […] Actually, the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history” (4). By bringing these stories into the mainstream of scholarship and the public reading sphere, fantasy would be properly removed from its marginalized shelf of “children’s stories” and appreciated for its individual importance. In radically different ways, Tolkien and Lewis created fantastic worlds, characters, and stories in order to represent “higher” truths that may not have been as 1 accessible or effective if presented in other genres or modes. As devout Christians, both men found that their devotional or religious messages were best delivered, as it were, obliquely, through the medium of fantasy. For these authors, mythic or fantastic narratives made possible a much richer or deeper understanding of the basic truths of their faith. In particular, Tolkien and Lewis each emphasized the themes of resurrection and redemption in their respective tales of Middle-earth and Narnia. In this thesis, I will examine the significance of the themes of resurrection and redemption in The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, and I argue that the fantastic mode or genre chosen by these authors enhances the resonance or effectiveness of the Christian concepts upon the reader. Both Tolkien and Lewis wrote extensive essays over their interpretation of what makes a story powerful—the pulse that pumps life through a narrative that goes deeper than character development and social criticism—and it is in these essays that the fundamental purpose of their own stories are revealed. In 1939, Tolkien stood at a podium and delivered a presentation known as the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. This heavily edited, revised, and expanded lecture first appeared in print (with some adjustments) in a Festschrift volume entitled Essays Presented to Charles Williams edited by Lewis, compiled in memoriam for his friend and retitled “On Fairy Stories.” There, Tolkien explains the definition, origin, and necessity of fairy-stories, and their unique ability to unveil the desires of the human condition. Perhaps one of the strongest points of the essay explores the significance of fairy-stories for both adults and children (which he carefully distinguishes from that of “Fairy Tales”) and the specific ways these stories allow us to analyze and critique our own worlds from 2 the perspective of another. Tolkien defines fairy-stories as stories specifically about the “Perilous Realm” of Faërie and the men who adventure upon its “shadowy marches” rather than the “relatively rare, and not very interesting” stories of “fairies” themselves (4). Although he claims to be anything but a professional on the subject, “a wandering explorer (or trespasser) in the land, full of wonder but not [professional] information,” Tolkien stresses that defining the world of Faërie is a vain quest; just as one cannot catch the air, the qualities of the Faërie land are equally indescribable. This is not to say that these qualities are imperceptible, however; although he claims that separately analyzing the ingredients will not reveal the secret of the whole, “the air that blows in that country” carries a power none can deny or ignore. To seek the origin of such stories, according to Tolkien, is to seek the origin of “the language and the mind” (6). By connecting fairy-stores to the overall genre of fantasy, Tolkien stresses the importance of these stories “not a lower, but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent” (48). By reading about the perils and adventures of men in the Faërie realm, the reader comes to see their own world in a clearer, more reflective light. According to Tolkien, “the magic of Faerie is not an end in itself, its virtue is in its operations: among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires” (5).