Volume 11 Number 2 Article 4

Fall 10-15-1984

No Exit: The Hero as Victim in Donaldson

Gordon E. Slethaug

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Recommended Citation Slethaug, Gordon E. (1984) "No Exit: The Hero as Victim in Donaldson," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 11 : No. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss2/4

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Abstract Study of Thomas Covenant as a transformation of the standard fantasy hero, who is not permitted (in Tolkien’s words) “the Escape of the prisoner.” his fantasy world Covenant is victim and victimizer, whose eventual “acceptance of his own weakness and evil” allows him to subdue Lord Foul.

Additional Keywords Donaldson, Stephen R.—Characters—Thomas Covenant; Heroism in Stephen R. Donaldson

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss2/4 Page 22 MYTHLORE 40: Autumn 1984 TVo The Hero as Victim in Donaldson Gordon E. Slethaug

And he who wields white wild magic in t hetsecondary world - the very foundation gold of escape - depends upon the innocent hero's is a paradox - marked superiority to his primary world. for he is everything and nothing, hero and fool, In The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the potent, helpless - Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson transforms and with the one word of truth or this view of fantasy based on escape by treachery writing of a diseased man who can neither be he will save or damn the Earth cured of his leprosy nor put off his despair because he is mad and sane, as he enters the secondary world. Thomas cold and passionate, Covenant is paradoxically the weakest, most lost and found.1 culpable of men, subject to the severest limitations of his real world as he is thrust In his essay "On Fairy-Stories" J. R. R. in the role of hero in the secondary world. Tolkien counters the typically Freudian slur In the real world, he is the victim of at escapist fantasy by distinguishing between disease, social bigotry, and self-pity. In the "Flight of the Deserter" and the "Escape the secondary world he additionally perceives of the Prisoner."* The Deserter is one who of himself as the victim of metaphysical cannot cope with the world and so wants to sources beyond his control. His refusal to escape, but the prisoner is he who needs a abandon feelings of victimization in order to reprieve from diseased vision, the charnel accept pure responsibility for the well-being house of life, long enough to recover a of others in the secondary world ultimately fresh, untainted, prelapsarian view. turns him into a victimizer, not Just a Tolkien, of course, implies that he himself, victim. He is both escaping prisoner and his fantasy heroes, and his readers are among deserter in flight. But as victim and the escaped prisoners, fleeing from the victimizer, he comes to realize his primary to the secondary worlds for that essentially human dimension, and it is fresh vision. through an acceptance of his own weakness and evil that he is finally able to transcend It is for this reason of escape - them and subdue, but not defeat. Lord Foul. momentarily abandoning the decayed world and Within this series, the author Donaldson recovering fresh vision - that Tolkien's never allows himself the luxury of a complete heroes so clearly follow the pattern of the escape nor does he allow that for hero and hero as described, for instance, by Lord reader. It is this refusal to permit escape Raglan in The Hero.3 According to this view, which gives the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the hero comes of honorable and royal the Unbeliever its special message, interest, lineage, but he must escape from his home and and distinction. It is this quality that go to a foreign location where he gains his separates it from Tolkienesque fantasy. And education and maturity among strangers. it is this factor which gives it an Within this formulation, the innocent, noble especially American cast, in the manner of origins of the hero are essential mainly to Hawthorne, Melville, Ellison, and Barth where establish a kind of hereditary access to innocence cripples, leading to despair over heroism, though the hero is seldom able to the knowledge of pain, suffering, and evil. effect any heroic accomplishments where he is born. His birth place serves mainly as a Although little is said of Covenant's springboard to admit him to a secondary early life, it is clear that he has not location, the first having little significant suffered. Once a golden boy - a healthy, bearing on the second. After trials and creative, and successful novelist, innocent contests that test his implicit nobility and of pain, suffering, and real evil, husband of manhood, giving him the opportunity to the beautiful Joan, father to Roger, and suffer, grow, and prove his heroism, the hero owner of a nice home - Covenant’s childlike is given suitable rewards and allowed to innocence of illness and ignorance of despair return to his starting point, although he may do not prepare him for the trauma of painful have been touched in such a way by the and certain death. Rather than assisting him secondary world that he becomes a sort of in coping with life, innocence cripples him victim. Consequently, the interpenetration when he is confronted by the larger issues of of the home environment, or in fantasy the disease, death, and evil. While such primary world, into the secondary world is innocence and success have been the essence limited. In fact, it has almost become de of his American dream, they are not the pith rlqueur within fantasy that the primary, of the human condition - pain, suffering, and often "real," world will not intrude in any evil combined with struggle, Joy, love, and significant sense into the secondary. The self-sacrifice. His adherence to innocence charm, coherence, and integrity of the quest creates a climate in which frustration. MYTHLORE 40: Autumn 1984 page23

disbelief, and despair easily grow. the grave. Bodies jerk like puppet corpses, When Covenant is diagnosed as a leper and and hell walks laughing - (1,10) taken to a leprosarium for treatment, he In a very real sense leprosy becomes a meets a hermit from the West Virginia disease of his flesh and mind, a physical and mountains who manifests the most tragic psychic illness: cursed wijth a festering, consequences of Covenant's leprosy: "His incurable disease without origin or cause, he hands were swollen stumps, fingerless lumps conceives of the world as a gaping wound, the of pink, sick meat marked by cracks and projection of his own "great raw wound of ulcerations from which a yellow exudation emptiness" (I, 18), governed by a sickly and oozed through the medication" (1,15). Since capricious power of fate. He can not accept neither this mountain man nor Thomas has a it as part of the natural order and so grow personal or familial history of leprosy and despite and because of it. In this respect no exposure to it, the source of and reason Covenant is heir to the same legacy of for the disease is an absolute mystery, as bitterness as other stunned tragic heroes Hawthorne might put it, the very mystery of such as Melville's Pierre or Ahab who have iniquity bearing with it guilt and social been disastrously disillusioned of their ostracization. As Donaldson expresses it, ". youthful idealism and belief in a benevolent virtually all societies condemn their universe. lepers to isolation and despair - denounced as criminals and degenerates, as traitors and Betrayed by his body and dead to his villains - cast out of the human race because family and community. Covenant feels denied science has failed to unlock the mystery of any significant freedom of choice except that this affliction" (1,17). Although Covenant of life or death, and he consequently seems blameless, his community takes the considers himself absolved of responsibility disease "... as proof of crime or filth or to others. He refuses to grow beyond his perversion, evidence of God's judgment, as wish to regain a primal innocence of outlook. the horrible sign of some psychological or Responsible only to himself, he often spiritual or moral corruption or guilt" despairs, but once he makes his existential (1,18). Like most other offenders against decision not to be an early victim of death, accepted social values such as Hester Prynne he narcissistically turns inward, protecting in The Scarlet Letter. Covenant finds himself himself by trying to submit to the the source of ridicule, the butt of jokes, regimented, therapeutic care that his doctor and the target of prejudicial treatment. prescribes for him: "'Whichever way you After learning of the disease, he is stripped go,"' advises his doctor, "'one fact will of everything he considers valuable and left remain constant: from now until you die, only with social retribution and punishment: leprosy is the biggest single fact of your his disease robs him of his sexual potency, existence. It will control how you live in self-confidence, and even his self-respect - every particular. From the moment you awaken when he sees his body rotting and when others until the moment you sleep, you will have to shout "Outcast" and "Unclean," then he feels give your undivided attention to all the hard guilt, shame, and betrayal; his wife leaves corners and sharp edges of life. You can't him, taking his son Roger with her because take vacations from it. You can't try to she fears his illness and wishes to protect rest yourself by daydreaming, lapsing. the boy against this contagious form of Anything that bruises, bumps, burns, breaks, leprosy; his neighbors shun and persecute scrapes, snags, pokes, or weakens you can him, trying to drive him away by putting a maim, or even kill you. And thinking about razor blade in his food because they all the kinds of life you can't have can irrationally fear the disease; the law turns drive you to despair and suicide. I've seen against him, and he is threatened with suits it happen'" (1,18). and legal moves to rezone his farm for industry so that he will have to move (even The doctor means for this advice to serve the police car that hits him suggests the as a warning and reservoir of strength for force of the law victimizing him); religious Covenant, and in a way it does: he dwells on leaders will not tolerate him at their his disease, daily confronting his condition, gatherings; and his farm begins to decay, disciplining himself to remember his VSE since he can not care for it properly and the (Visual Surveillance of Extremities), neighbors put the torch to the barn and avoiding hazardous circumstances, and defecate and urinate in his writing studio. maintaining his mental alertness. But at the Even his creative literary ability wanes; so same time this absorption with the disease obsessed is he with disease and so bitter is allows him to flee from the human community, he toward the world that he can neither making him a victim of his own self- accept the blithely optimistic tale he has consciousness he resents having to do published nor sit down to write a new novel. anything which might take his mind off Until he accepts his weakness, all he can himself and his disease, whether in the write is a banal, grotesque poem with the primary or secondary worlds. darkness of some lament by one of Edgar Allen Retrospectively, in The Wounded Land. Poe's characters: Covenant explains this state to Linden Avery. These are the pale deaths He attributes this self-victimization to his which men miscall their lives: self-hate: "'The things buried in us are for all the scents of green things powerful and violent, and they are going to growing, come o ut. The darkness in us - the each breath is but an exhalation of destructive side, the side we keep locked up MYTHLORE 40: Autumn J984

all our lives - is alive here. Everybody has the Land were real, actual - ah, some self-hate inside. Here it's personified then the long anguish of his - externalized, the way things happen in leprosy was a dream, and he was mad dreams'" (IV,63). already, beyond hope. (1,118) Consequently, he will not surrender the view Because Covenant refuses to accept his that this world is a mere projection of his victimization and go beyond the resultant unconsciousness or rationalization of "'a narcissism, Hile Troy of The I Hearth War struggle inside me. By hell, I've been a despises him. Hile himself has been the leper so long, I'm starting to think that the victim of a birth defect, his eye sockets way people treat lepers is justified. So I'm "empty, orbless, lacking even lids and becoming my own enemy, my own Despiser . . lashes" (11,66), but that fact has not made Catharsis. Work out the dilemma him bitter, resentful, and self-absorbed. subconsciously, so that when I wake up I'll Indeed, he is productive on Earth as a member be able to cope'" (11,159). of a military think-tank, and he becomes elated and thankful when, in the secondary So preoccupied with his status as victim world, he is given sight and the opportunity is he that if he admits this secondary world to employ his wai— games skill in a meaningful to be real, then he believes he will become a cause: Hile fully accepts his personal prisoner of someone else's dream. Whereas impotence and believes that the severance of Hile Troy has accidentally been pulled into binding personal, social, and legal ties can the Land by means of the mistaken summoning actually encourage responsibility. "'The of Atfaran Trell-mate who wishes to wreak only person in life who's free at all,"' he vengeance on Thomas Covenant, Covenant claims, "'is a person who's impotent"' believes himself summoned by the cavewight (II,128).4 Only the man free of those Drool Rockworm who unwittingly acts for Lord restraints can in an Emersonian sense be true Foul in trying to control the magical, if to himself', and Hile demonstrates that unpredictable, white gold. When Covenant premise by first sacrificing his life for a confronts Drool and Foul on Kevin's Watch, he victory over Foul's forces at Garroting Deep, is met by horrible, blood red flames and fog and again by encouraging Sunder to kill him, and the nauseating odor of rotten flesh, creating the means by which the Law of Life deathly decay, and funereal attar, the signs is broken so that Covenant's shade can and emblems of Lord Foul, the Despiser, eventually subdue Foul. But Covenant, given Satansheart, Soulcrusher, Fangthane, the same opportunity for responsibility, Corruption, and Gray Slayer. To be called becomes even more distrustful, morose, and into the Land, to be doubly victimized by introverted, a victim of his own suspicion, strange foes and evil beings, is absolutely mortification of human feeling, and self- intolerable and calls for a renewed sense of loathing - the failure to reconcile his escape back to some ideal. innocent preconceptions with a more realistic assessment of the presence of evil. Equally intolerable is the thought that the ideal force to which he might escape, the Covenant's narcissism means that he can no positive powers of the Land, may also longer distinguish between his own image and victimize him. Foul himself first suggests the world or between dream and objective this unsavory alternative: he tells Covenant reality. Accordingly, he will not admit to that he has been called by Foul's own the validity of any actions other than his opponent, the Creator, that Covenant is the own or any worlds other than the one he is victim of the positive expectations of the accustomed to inhabit, for to admit to those Land (1,35). Consequently, if the Land is is to suggest that he is mad, insane, or real, then Covenant is an expendable pawn, dreaming - that he has completely abandoned the victim and prize of forces that rage and all the recommendations of the doctor and war against each other and which are taken a vacation from reality. Although extraneous and harmful to the personal awestruck when he wakes up the morning after interests of Covenant himself. He is the his initial foray to the Land and discovers unwitting bull in some hideous, metaphysical that his leprosy has disappeared and his bullfight where the picaro is an wounds healed, he must disbelieve it; to unidentifiable and unconquerable foe believe otherwise is not only to "deny the thrusting "dark violence" in his ribs (1,22). reality of his disease," something which in He dreams that as the victim of a horrible the real world will be fatal, but also to and unjust God "he danced and wept and made encourage responsibility, something he has love at the commands of a satirical given up. So he continues to hold the view puppeteer" (1,363), and he envisions himself of himself as the victim of both leprosy and as the divine victim, a kind of purposeless his own dream. Christ on the cross. To Covenant's way of thinking, the only means by which he can With an effort that made him protect himself from victimization and grind his teeth, he averred, I'm a brutalization is to disavow the heroic role leper. I'm dreaming. That's a thrust on him by others. He must protect his fact. vertigo, his symbolical fear of heights, his fear of heroic responsibility. He could not bear the alternative. If he were dreaming, Then, too, if he is so shocked out of he might still be able to save his innocence by corruption that he can not sanity, survive, endure. But if believe in himself, his society, or in a MYTHLORE 40: Autumn 1984 Page 25

system of human, poetic, or divine justice, isolation, loneliness, and introversion, he he will not accept the inherent value of the grows ever more violent and incapable of war for the L and. What might be an ethical maintaining control of himself. When he is dilemma for others who must decide between offered compassion by Lena, he has grown so serving the Land or Foul is not the same for used to feelings of victimization and Covenant because he sees his choice as violence that he beats and rapes her, an between involvement or non-involvement, utterly despicable action whether in the commitment or escape. He simply says to primary or secondary world: here is a hero Foul, "'Forget it'" (1,35), and that is his who breaks the bans of culture and violates initial attitude to the Land as well. In the dictates of human decency, one who is not this respect, his attitude within the two only victim but also victimizer as soon as he worlds is the same. In the "real" world he enters the Land, so that he has no initial wants to escape his disease and return to a chance to experience the merit of the Oath of prelapsarian state of innocence; in the P eace: secondary world where he has a chance to Do not hurt where holding is effect the workings of justice, to be an enough: active, if not precisely gallant, hero who do not wound where hurting can risk his own life to help others, he enough; still wishes to flee. As he notes after do not maim where wounding denying aid to the Wraiths at Andelain: ". . enough; he had been deaf, blind, numb. He had been and kill not where maiming is so busy moving ahead, putting madness behind enough; him, that he had ignored the madness toward the greatest warrior is one who which the path of his dream tended. This does not need to kill (1,280). dream wanted him to be a hero, a savior; Yet, he learns that such acts of hostility therefore it seduced him, swept him along - carry a heavy price: although he thinks he urging him forward so that he would run can defend himself against the darkness with heedless of himself to risk his life for the "his own capacity for darkness, his violence, sake of Wraiths, the Land, illusion" (1,169). his ability to kill" (1,423), those are the ways of coping that cripple him and bring on What he must finally learn is that his the destruction of the Land. As he discovers wish to retreat to innocence will only cause of the rape, it has innumerable injurious grief and hardship to others. By refusing repercussions. The great hurt and resentment involvement within the secondary world he may in Lena's fiance, Triock, and her parents, save his own palsied skin, but he jeopardizes Atiaran and Trell, result in Triock's losing the lives of others. When he sees the ui— his youthful enthusiasm, contentment, and joy viles eating the Wraiths at the Celebration so that he learns to hate, eventually trying of Spring, he refuses to intervene, to kill Covenant and coming under the sway of permitting their destruction, and this same Foul; in Atiaran's heart becoming a passivity is responsible for bringing down "wilderland" so that she loses her life destruction on Soaring Woodhelven. seeking to gain revenge on Covenant by trying Similarly, when his daughter, the High Lord to summon him back to the Land; and in Elena, fights Kevin's evil shadow, he refuses Trell's breaking his Oath of Peace, first in to help her, thereby becoming indirectly attempting to kill Covenant and later in responsible for her death. He must fully trying to set fire to Revelstone. This act learn that his litany of refusals is of rape also makes the people of the Land ultimately more destructive than any error he distrust and resent Covenant, though they might make in helping the Land. He must generally regard him as a necessary tool in learn what the Lords of the Land know, that their struggle with Foul. This resentment is passivity or escape must not be confused with especially characterized by Pietten who sees pacifism in the quest for peace. Passivity the Ranhyn dying because of the promise is a failure to take responsibility for Covenant extracts from them to come to Lena anything, whereas pacifism is a gentle way to once a year, and so he tries to kill approach a difficult problem. Covenant. Covenant's killing him lays still one more crime at his door. By suppressing Covenant is not, however, only the victim his feelings, damming his "emotional who maintains a detrimental passivity. He channels" so that they emerge in acts of himself becomes an active, irresponsible violence, and trying to retreat into his aggressor and victimizer: by basing all his innocence, Covenant causes more injury to actions on the bitterness of not being able those who protect and help him than he can to escape, he condemns others to bear similar ever repair or repay. He continues to commit burdens. Old Saltheart Foamfollower such crimes until he fully assimilates the understands that, despite the most deadly implications of his statement to Linden that troubles, without trying to help others, and "'Freedom doesn't mean you get to choose what without rising above the tragic through happens to you. But you get to choose how laughter and the creative desire to tell you react to it'"(V,87). tales, all creatures, especially Covenant, will doom themselves and others to savage The result of Covenant's infliction of unkindness. These softer emotions may be harm on others is a mighty sense of shame and dreams or illusions, but, like the giants of guilt, a crippling loss of freedom to act, old launching ships and "lost in the and a need for mercy. He cannot finally labyrinth of a foolish dream" (1,188), escape the understanding that, for whatever Covenant needs to launch himself into these reason of selfpreservation and unwillingness dreams. As his wish to escape reinforces his to get involved, he has destroyed the Page 26 MYTHLORE 40: Autumn 1984

comfort, hope, freedom, and lives of others. ennobling, but it is the stuff of our world, This understanding temporarily undermines his from which Covenant is never distant. sense of balance after the deaths of the Wraiths and the destruction of Soaring But guilt.in itself is still not enough to Woodhelven, so that he cannot save Elena in effect the ultimate heroic deeds. As The I He a r t h W a r . But it is this blood-guilt Covenant tells Triock, "'I've got to give up that begins to clear the way for him to guilt and duty, or whatever it is I'm calling assist responsibly in The Power That responsibility these days. I've got to give Preserves and the later volumes. It is this up trying to make myself innocent again'" sense of guilt which allows Covenant to (111,306). When Covenant begins to give his recognize that he can not escape, that he can own life meaning, to be responsible for all never return to innocence, and that he must his failures without thought to duty or work toward positive personal and social guilt, without even the motivation of hate goals, employing victimization against and anger, then he can put away his thoughts itself. Of course, he must also understand of victimization and become wholly useful. that guilt may likewise have negative When he realizes that everyone is a victim, consequences. He knows that "Lord Foul especially so under the influences of the wanted him to perceive the fetters of action Sunbane, then he can see the necessity for and consequence which bound him to his guilt, his help. When he can go beyond the moral wanted him to blame himself for the poison of victimization by employing disease destruction of the Staff, and for the and death against themselves, by recognizing Sunbane, and for every life the Clave that guilt, hate, and retribution by sacrificed" (IV,362). He also sees the themselves are only masks of Foul. and that destructive effects of guilt on others when he shares in the very essence of Foul, then in The Wounded Land he experiences the he can effect miracles for himself and negative heligiosity of Joan who tries to others. When he fully understands that atone for having divorced him, or the nothing can save him from death by disease or loveless duty of Linden Avery who works out murder either in the primary or secondary her own sense of guilt over the deaths of her world, and that, whether mere human or parents. Still, guilt is a crucial stage in immortal hero, he will make mistakes, his growth from narcissism into social regardless of how much attention he pays to responsibility. himself, then he discovers the capacity to be a hero: "He laughed at the immense prospect One of the first to see guilt as a of his futility. The folly of his attempts potentially constructive factor in Covenant's to survive alone amused him" (111,275). He development is Lord Mhoram who tells Hile needs to go beyond himself so that he can Troy that the burden of Covenant's "'crime perceive beauty and experience love in the hurts him. I believe he will seek atonement most hideous humans and devastated at the High Lord's [Elena's] side'" (II, landscapes. The recognition of the folly of 322). Covenant, of course, does not seek escape and the immanence of death free him to atonement at the side of Elena, but he does risk his life in order to save the girl near later accept Mhoram's position when Mhoram his farm from the rattlesnake poison; to himself is High Lord, especially as a result strive with the shadow of Elena for the Staff of Lena's continuing love, Triock's "own of Law; to defy Lord Foul at Foul's Creche harsh sense of mercy," and Saltheart's when he rejects the temptation of healing; friendship. Because of their enduring and finally to surrender the ring to Foul. affection, he comes to feel a need for When he overcomes his foolish clinging to atonement and pride in a growing sense of life, the destructive potential of hatred and usefulness. Consequently, Xhe I Hearth War retributive feelings, and the ultimate begins on a slightly positive note, softened futility of slaughter, then he can risk all by Covenant's satisfaction at helping stem in order to help others in a peaceful way. Foul's drive for power, and The Power That Indeed, at the end of The Power That Preserves opens on a substantial note of Preserves, he opts not to try to destroy Foul heroic commitment. He even volunteers to by force but intuitively begins to laugh at enter the Land after he has helped save the him. This laughter, joined by Saltheart and girl from snake poisoning. In The Wounded the dead Lords, resonates through Foul's Land Dr. Berenford speaks frankly to Linden Creche, crippling Foul, and allowing Covenant about Covenant's discussion of the positive to embrace the I H e a r t h Stone, reducing it effects of guilt in his novel: "'If you had and Foul to impotency. And in White Gold a chance to read Or I Will Sell My Soul for Wielder. by surrendering the ring to Foul and Built, you'd find him arguing that . accepting his own death, he instills in Foul Guilt is power. All effective people are a false sense of victory and unlimited power. guilty because the use of power is guilt, and It is ironically Foul, not Covenant, who is only guilty people can be effective. finally defeated by his urge to escape - to Effective for good. mind you. Only the escape the prescription of the Creator damned can be saved'" (IV,23). This function symbolized by and embodied in the Arph of of guilt is hardly the quintessence of the Time. The knowledge and acceptance of death, normal heroic fantasy, whether the guilt the recognition that escape is impossible and derives from a problem in the primary or undesirable, elevates Covenant above his secondary world. The hero is usually the one dilemma and gives him creative ways to cope who desires to assist the cause of the good with evil. and is not generally driven to it, Jonah- like, through his realization of great The real significance, then, of The inadequacy or failure. Guilt is not Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever MYTHLORE 40: Autumn 1984 Page 27

lies in the way in which Covenant is not the father's act of suicide. As long as allowed to flee the circumstances and Linden flees from her guilt, she is enmeshed problems of either world,' the way in which in a loveless life. When she acknowledges his human failings and guilt become his the guilt, she is further along on the road weakness and strength. The conditions within to self-awareness and human love; but not the primary world which deprive Covenant of until she goes beyond both escape and guilt his health, creativity, and social can she love Covenant fully and carry on the responsibility are exactly those that limit quest. him in the secondary world. And only when he can live with these weaknesses in both worlds, drawing disease and death to him like cherished lovers, will he function as a genuine human being - with social commitment and human involvement despite a knowledge of weakness, shame, and guilt.

Unlike Tolkien's fiction where the hero can move from his home environment into a new and wonderful world where his senses and spirit are reinvigorated, neither Thomas Covenant nor the reader is allowed that Continued from page 13 respite. What is paralyzing in the "real" world is doubly paralyzing in the secondary Passage in 1961. There is also one in the world, and from that paralysis arises the Penguin Classics series by A.T. Hatto. foolish desire to escape. Although there is 14. Much as the greater world of Middle-earth lures no exit, paradoxically there is recovery various hobbits out of the Shire through an awareness and acceptance of the 15. Such behaviour is'true of both Bilbo and of victimization at the heart of the human Frodo. Peregrin Took or Pippin found it vastly condition, the acceptance of the fact of more difficult to refrain from asking mortality. questions, and so, being extremely ^curious by nature, he looked into a pa la ntlr and was thus questioned by Sauron. Notes 16. 300 lines in Chretien become 2100 in the German poem. 1 Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane 17. M.O'C. Walshe, Mediaeval German Litera tu re (New York: Ballantine Books [Del Ray], 1978), (1962), p. 161. pp. 258-259. Henceforth, references to this 18. M.O'C Walshe's term for the Parzival (op. edition as well as the other Chronicles will c l t .). be cited with the text. Lord Foul's Bane 19. Compare Tolkien's continual stress on pity, as will be cited as volume I; The I Hearth War in the remarks about Faramlr (New York: Ballantine Books [Del Ray], 1978) He read the hearts of men ... but what he will be cited as volume II; The Power That read moved him sooner to pity than to Preserves (New York: Ballantine Books [Del scorn. (The Return o f the King. 337) Ray], 1978) will be cited as volume III; The 20. The Inklings were brought into consideration of Wounded Land (New York: Ballantine Books [Del the Grail through Charles Williams' work. His Ray], 1980) will be cited as volume IV; The novel. War In Heaven (1930 and, in a new One Tree (New York: Ballantine Books [Del edition, 1947) is on this theme, as are many of Ray], 1982) will be cited as volume V; and his Taliessin poems edited by C.S. Lewis in White Gold Wielder (New York: Ballantine their joint work, Arthurian Torso (1948). Books [Del Ray], 1983) will be cited as 21. In Chretien's text in the H manuscript there volume VI. Since most readers will have are references to Snowdonia in Wales which must access to the paperback editions, rather than remind us of Tolkien’s Caradhras, the peak the hardcover, I have chosen to use them. north of Moria. The only exception is White Gold Wielder 22. See C.S. Lewis, 'The Dethronement of Power’, which is available only in hardcover. Time and Tide, October 22. 1955, pp. 1373-74. 23. B.g. Seville. Friuli, Drave (a tributary of the 2 Tree and Leaf (London, Boston, Sydney: Danube), as places, or Chretien de Troyes, Unwin Paperbacks, 1975), p. 61. Gunther or Siegfried as people. 24. For Kyot, see particularly Sacker. (op. 3 For a summary of the important cit.), pp.112ff, and Mustard and Passage (op. characteristics of the hero see Lord Raglan, cit.), pp. xxii - xxv. The Hero: A Study in Tradition. Myth. and 25. See, for example, ’The Time Analysis of the Drama. Intro. Walter Kaufmann (New York, Poem', in Mustard and Passage (op. cit.;, pp. London and Scarborough, Ontario: New 1 - liii. American Library, 1979), p. xii. 26. Sacker, An introduction to wolfram's Parzival, p. 142. 4 Linden Avery, of course, is as much 27. This Thomist concept is usually termed victim and victimizer as Covenant. Her "gradualism.' Cp. St. Thomas Aquinas. father has committed suicide at an early age, Oportult ad hoc. quod in creaturls esset an act for which her mother blames her; when perfecta Del imitatio, quod diversi gradus her mother is hospitalized in the last stages in creaturls invenlrentur'. of cancer. Linden kills her, both to end her See J.F. Poag. “Hlnne' and "Gradual 1 smus' In suffering as well as to prevent her the works o f Wolfram von Bschenbach (Dlss. recrimination against Linden for not stopping Abst. in t . , 1961).