This is not at all the post I thought I was going to write next. I thought I was going to write a triple movie review, covering the first and only three movies I'll see in theaters this winter. But I wasn't really motivated to do that, and a comment I posted on a friend's blog inspired me to write up some thoughts I had a long time ago, and never got the opportunity to explore.
To begin, a question for those who have read or seen The Lord of the Rings: Who is the Christ figure in the story? (I have here a tangential disclaimer for anyone who would point out that Tolkien hated allegory and didn't write deliberate symbolism into his books. But said disclaimer spills over into a whole rant of its own, and I'd rather stick to the subject, so I'll only pull it out if it's needed.)
Now that my parenthetical has given you some space to think, you should have your answer in mind. And I'd love it if you'd comment and say who you thought of, because I'm very interested to know. Apparently most people would say Gandalf. So I'm told, anyway. And the connection is obvious: the character who died and came to life again... also the leader and most powerful, the one who guides the others.
The funny thing is, it never occurred to me to see Gandalf as a Christ figure. When a friend of mine asked (obviously having his own answer in mind, and expecting mine to be different from his), I said immediately, "Frodo." Frodo, the one who must bear an unbearable burden for the salvation of the world. From the time I first read the book, Frodo was the one I associated with Jesus. Of course, the comparison breaks down (but they all do, unless deliberately crafted as Christ figures). Frodo is mortal, and fallible, and he does fail at the point of it. But what is that last trek through Mordor but one long Gethsemane?
My friend, who asked the question, had yet a third character in mind, one I'd never thought of either: Aragorn. His take on it was Christ as the Second Adam, as outlined in Romans. Where Isildur fell, to the great suffering of the world, Aragorn succeeded, to its salvation. He then went on to reign in glory. A nice little parallel, I was impressed by it.
The point of all this: we all see our Lord in different ways; different parts of his role and his character speak most strongly to each of us. My friend's father, who said Gandalf, saw the Son of God, glorious, powerful, conquering death; my friend who said Aragorn saw the Son of Man, the crown of mankind, the only unfallen son of Adam; I saw the sufferer, the burden-bearer, the one who willingly submitted to carry a curse he did not earn.
And the wonder of it is that all these pictures are true. And there are more besides; the healer and humanitarian, the wounded lover, the accused innocent... and the list could go on. This, our true myth, has more depth and resonance than any of the mirror-myths. They each reflect a small fragment of the truth we have only begun to know.
As a writer and lover of stories, I am thrilled to the core at being swept up in this, the wellspring of all stories. As a person, I am awed almost to disbelief that the author and hero of the story would speak to me...
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...And what there is to conquer / By strength and submission, has already been discovered / Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope to emulate-- but there is no competition-- / There is only the fight to recover what has been lost / And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions / That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. / For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. -T. S. Eliot
6 comments:
Ginny, part of the problem of trying to pin the Christ figure to one character is that Tolkien was not writing an allegory, as you noted. Hence, though Frodo bears the burden, he is literally not able to fulfill his task; Sam must carry him. Gandalf does die and rise again, but he bears no burden. Aragorn is the King and he comes as the fulfillment of a promise/prophecy, but he does neither of what Sam or Gandalf do. So, none of them turn out to be a Christ-figure.
My above analysis is not to say that they don't have Christian attributes. Since Tolkien was a believer who allowed Christianity to pervade all of his life (as we he should have), the Christian story came into his stories. None of the characters is the Christ one, but they are reflections, much as you and I are. While we will never do all that Christ did, nor are we in any way divine, our life may sometimes reflect aspects of our Lord, though often in much more everday, practical ways than the LoTR characters.
- Leah
Thanks Lele for your comments. I don't know if I made it clear that I wasn't trying to pin down which of the characters was the "real" Christ figure... and perhaps I shouldn't have used the phrase "Christ-figure," as it might have been misleading. Certainly none of them are able to present a complete picture of Christ. I guess "reflection" is more what I was going for.
The question I should have asked, perhaps, to better convey my meaning, was, "Which of the characters most quickly comes to your mind as displaying attributes or roles of Christ?" That sounds awfully Core-ish though.
I had another comment to make, and as it was totally unrelated to Leah's I thought it best to separate it entirely.
I have some question whether it was appropriate to refer to Christ as the son of Adam. I had in mind, when I wrote it, the genealogy in the beginning of Luke that traces Jesus' line up to Adam and, through Adam, God. After I posted, though, I went back and looked at the passage (driven by the Ed-voice in my head), and found that the genealogy begins with "[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph..." and then traces Joseph's line. And the genealogy in Matthew does basically the same thing. So I don't really know if it's appropriate to call Christ a son of Adam (the bit in Romans didn't help either.) No doubt someone versed in systematic theology could give me a well-supported opinion.
If I'd bothered to look it up before writing I'd have recast the phrase. But "the only unfallen son of Adam" rang so nicely in my ears that I decided to rely on my memory... proving once again that wishful ignorance is never a good strategy (you'd think I'd learn). The phrase stands now, still ringing nicely on its shaky underpinnings, testament to my journalistic inadequacies.
Without going back to your original post to see precisely waht you said, I will say this ... All humans are sons (or daughters) of Adam, and Christ is the second Adam.
Leah
Basing, recently, ALL of my perspectives on life on the tale that has become the focus of my obsession... I say that they never called the Lion "Son of Adam"... hehehe. Ginny, this is NOT to continue in the dispute of phraseology... the goal was only to make ya smile! I hope the goal found itself obtained. I LOVE listening to your thoughts. Thanks for sharing the perspective God has given you.
WIthout delving into anything more deep, Aragorn first came to mind as the most Christlike figure. But maybe that's because Frodo gets on my nerves and Ian McKellan is gay. No, I'm just kidding. In the bookverse, without all the Elijah Wood/Ian McKellan stuff, Aragorn's attributes seem most like the image I have of Christ.
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