Rogers 1 Iarwain Ben-Adar on the Road to Faerie: Tom Bombadil’s Recovery of Premodern Fantasy Values A Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences In Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in English By Greta Rogers 1 May 2018 Rogers 2 Liberty University College of Arts and Sciences Master of Arts in English Student Name: Greta E. Rogers Thesis Chair Date First Reader Date Second Reader Date Rogers 3 Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction: Tom Bombadil’s Predecessors……………………………………...…4 Lanval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as Predecessors to Tom Bombadil’s Story……………………………………………………………………………...14 An Escape from Reality—or into Reality? Character and Setting in Lanval ……………20 Going Green: Bercilak as Integrated Nature-Supernature in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ……………………………………………………………………….……26 Chapter 2 – Postmodern Fantasy Characters’ Departure from Premodern Ideals…………….…35 True Names and Dark Shadows: Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea ………………………....35 Smoke, Mirrors, and Chocolate: Willy Wonka’s Material Fantasy……………………...47 “The Universe Is Not So Badly Designed”: Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation …...…59 Chapter 3 – “The Lives of the Forest”: Tom Bombadil’s Relationship to Nature………………72 Introduction to Tom Bombadil…………………………………………………………..72 Tom Bombadil’s Relationship to Nature………………………………………………...73 Chapter 4 – “His Songs Are Stronger Songs”: Tom Bombadil’s Attitudes Toward Personal Power…………………………………………………………………………………….92 Chapter 5 – Conclusion: A Return to the Old Forest…………………………………………...107 Suggestions for Further Reading………………………………………………...….….115 Rogers 4 Chapter 1: Introduction: Tom Bombadil’s Predecessors J. R. R. Tolkien, well-loved by both scholars and laymen, has undoubtedly been a strong literary influence in the twentieth century and beyond. Many aspects of his writing appear quite distinct from the concerns of today’s world, including his choice to write about an archaic mythical past in his famed setting of Middle-earth.1 This choice is one of the aspects that sets Tolkien apart as an author. Upon a closer examination of his work, particularly his most widely known Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of Tolkien’s characters also stands out among the rest: Tom Bombadil. For someone who has only seen the film adaptations, this name means little (Treschow and Duckworth 178), but reading the text of The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) or Tolkien’s poetry collection “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” (1962) reveals that Tom is important and puzzling—perhaps important because he is so puzzling. Elrond refers to him as “Iarwain Ben-adar . oldest and fatherless” and “a strange creature,” indicating that Tom is unique even in an already-fantastic setting (Tolkien, Fellowship 297). Critics have debated on who and what Tom Bombadil is, as his strange identity does not seem to fit neatly into the narrative or the imagined world. Some believe him to be some kind of “nature god,” an unfallen version of Adam, a Vala, a Maia, or even Iluvatar himself—the God figure in Tolkien’s mythos. One critic has posited that Tom Bombadil is in fact Aulë, the Vala concerned with stone and craftsmanship who created the dwarves, and that his wife Goldberry is Yavanna, the Vala concerned with trees and plants (P. Lewis 151). None of these assessments is completely satisfactory, though. While even maia are tempted and affected by the Ring, Tom remains unaffected (Tolkien, Fellowship 67, 150). However, Tom does not wield power over the Rings, 1 Worth noting is the fact that the term Middle-earth can be translated to the Norse “Midgard,” referring to this world (Siewers 142), indicating that perhaps Tolkien’s secondary world is closer to home than many people realize. Rogers 5 which he must were he a Vala or a god (298). He is not the right size for a human or for a hobbit, ruling out those particular categories (135). A more satisfying explanation is that Tom Bombadil embodies some of Tolkien’s values concerning harmony with God’s created order, which are important in the story and in society at large but which have recently begun to be lost in western fantasy media. The goal of this thesis proJect is to demonstrate that some well-known twentieth- century fantasy characters have lost the ideal of acceptance of God’s created cosmos; as an embodiment of this value that Tolkien espoused, Tom Bombadil helps to recover it from a previous age, seen in the two aspects of a healthy relationship to nature and a non-controlling attitude towards power. This recovery is invaluable for the Christian reader of fantasy as they explore created reality and new ways of expressing it. A sketch of Tolkien’s own life reveals the high value he placed on God’s created order through the lens of both nature-supernature and his concept of power, making him an effective exemplar of that ideal. As a Roman Catholic believer, Tolkien opposed modernist tendencies that paint religion as an affair originating in the human mind, with no bearing on noumenal reality, and affirmed the reality of the historical Jesus and the reliability of the Christian faith (Bossert 53-56). In the face of modernism—as well as the postmodernism that was soon to arrive— Tolkien sought to preserve the previously held and Biblically-based values of the Church, in both directly religious and general matters. In his letters, Tolkien explains that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is firmly rooted in Christian beliefs, despite the absence of any explicit religious references: “ The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically any references to anything like 'religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed in the story and the symbolism” (Tolkien, Rogers 6 Letters 172). His beliefs and values had a way of permeating his well-loved trilogy. Among those important values are living well with nature as God’s creation, standing up to those who would seize improper power, and accepting the value of mystery in a Christian-Catholic sense as an unknown and subsequently revealed truth. One prominent aspect of Tolkien’s works, seen particularly strongly in Tom Bombadil, is their respect for and relationship towards the natural world. As technology becomes more and more readily available, man may attempt to push the limits of nature, sometimes in an unhealthy way. Church leaders, including Pope Francis, have recently expressed concern over this desire to manipulate God’s creation, which he refers to as the “technocratic paradigm.” One scholar describes it thusly: “In the pre-technocratic period, man approached nature as a receiver, gaining from her what she allowed. Now, however, man disregards all dimensions of an obJect that fall outside of the technocratic paradigm's criteria, all the while working to maximize that which can be extracted from that which he masters.” Tolkien referred to this paradigm as “the Machine,” which involves seeking to dominate one’s own creations while disregarding the laws of the Creator (Hren 97). Tolkien also recognized that the Machine is not always successful anyway. During the war, Tolkien’s company had access to modern communication methods but were unable to use them “because the Germans had tapped the lines, and signalers were reduced to using lights flags, runners, and even carrier-pigeons” (Croft 15). Thus, he observed that technology could be unhelpful even when it was not directly harmful. In contrast to the Machine, Tolkien advocates a harmonious relationship with nature. Nature should neither be worshipped nor abused; in Tolkien’s line of thinking, a proper view of nature is to treat it well as a created gift and to use it in an interdependent manner, recognizing that both we and it are creations made by a God who exists outside of time and natural laws. Instead of a material world that can be Rogers 7 controlled by man, Tolkien uses fantasy to describe a world that is outside man’s control: “Creative fantasy . may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you.” However, this does not mean that man is helpless in the face of nature as something malevolent. Rather, nature becomes a positive good to be explored and enJoyed (Tolkien, “Tree and Leaf” 78). This love for nature is exhibited in Tolkien’s fiction; for example, the elves of Lothlorien live in a beneficial relationship with nature and appreciate its life and beauty. As Sam describes the inhabitants, “they seem to belong here, more even than Hobbits do in the Shire. Whether they’ve made the land, or the land’s made them, it’s hard to say” ( Fellowship 405). The close relationship to the land that Tolkien’s characters display offers a healthy alternative to the modern disease of the Machine by affirming an inseparable nature-supernature. The Machine that Tolkien identified is also tied into man’s quest for power. As humans seek to build bigger and better ways of manufacturing and other production, an ironic reversal of power takes place as they become dependent on those means of power: “We have done exactly what Sauron did in forging the Ring. We have put our power into things in order to increase our power . we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we have become more powerful when all the time we have been becoming less” (Hren 102).