The Stolen Gift: Tolkien and the Problem of Suicide
It would be too tidy to claim that Tolkien simply reiterated Catholic moral teaching about suicide with elves and dwarves thrown in. In the process of creating a new world, or at least a mythical precursor to our own, that could express the eternal verities of primary creation, Tolkien often redisco...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Mythlore 2023-04, Vol.41 (2(142)), p.89-110 |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | It would be too tidy to claim that Tolkien simply reiterated Catholic moral teaching about suicide with elves and dwarves thrown in. In the process of creating a new world, or at least a mythical precursor to our own, that could express the eternal verities of primary creation, Tolkien often rediscovered the substance of the truths underlying Christianity by a different path. In this process of rediscovery, he approached suicide as something new and gave us characters who both accept and reject its attractions. His writings capture the tragic pathos of self-destruction while developing and unfolding a larger, competing ethos of self-sacrifice and service to life. Here, Lockerd considers the paradoxical nature of death in Tolkien's mythology as the "gift" of a benevolent creator. He also analyzes prominent examples of suicide in The Silmarillion and the early legendarium more broadly. Furthermore, he considers the development of Tolkien's philosophy of suicide in The Lord of the Rings, which discovers anew a distinctly Christian view of the act as an evasion of duty as right action and a usurpation of divine sovereignty. |
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ISSN: | 0146-9339 |