So this post started out as one complete post, but it got so long and I wrote so much more than I expected to that I've decided to split it up into two parts. Part 1 will deal with cannon characters and women in society and Part 2 will be all about Tauriel. Batten down the hatches, friends.
The issue of women in J.R.R. Tolkien's work, specifically the lack of them, is, I think, one of people's favourite things to complain about when it comes to Tolkien. It was, in my experience, anyway, something that I never found was really addressed by fans of Tolkien until recently, possibly because of the decision made by Peter Jackson and his writers to introduce a new female character, the elf Tauriel, in the second installment of
The Hobbit. But I'll talk about Tauriel more later.
It's very true that there aren't many female characters in Tolkien's work, I'm not going to deny that. But what I am going to deny is that the lack of female characters in his books is because Tolkien was a sexist who gave all the leading roles to men. What you have to do is look at the books from a different perspective. When these books were being written, women didn't have the same social status men had. It's sad, but it's undeniably true.
The Lord of the Rings was written primarily between 1937 and 1949, with
The Hobbit being written even earlier than that. Women in the UK had only been given the same voting rights as men in 1928, and I don't need to go into the struggle faced by the Women's Suffrage movement beforehand. Therefore, it was not that Tolkien was exclusively sexist, it was that he lived in a very different world to the world we live in today. Women just weren't (and still aren't, really) seen as equals. Things were changing, but in most places a woman's place was still considered to be in the home. The world at that time, rather than Tolkien himself, was a sexist one. So far, so obvious.
Then you have to look at the world of Middle Earth and the social systems that exist there. It's common knowledge that Tolkien derived almost all of his inspiration for Middle Earth and its history and culture from Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic history, literature and mythology, amongst others. Tolkien was trying to create a fantastical world and culture similar to these real ones, and in these cultures, women did not have the same status as men. This isn't something especially wild or crazy, considering that, for the most part, the idea of gender equality is something fairly recent. The role of women in these kinds of societies would have been those of a mother and a wife, not a warrior or a hero (I'm not a historian, so I'm talking generally here. If anyone knows of any exceptions I'd actually be really interested to know about them). Tolkien would most definitely have been aware of this as a professor of Anglo-Saxon and he would have stayed true to history in creating the world of Middle Earth. His books take place in a similar time period to those cultures he was influenced by, so it's only natural that the social structures of those societies would bleed through into his work.
Then comes the part that I think people like to overlook. You can't ignore the female characters that Tolkien
has put in his books, because they are all unquestionably
not in keeping with the stereotype of the woman as wife and mother, submissive to the dominant male.
Let's start with the obvious: Éowyn. If there is a more badass female character in literature that still remains likeable and doesn't border on the ridiculous, please bring her foreward, because I'd like to see how she would compare to one of the greatest and non stereotypical women ever to be written into the history of literature. Let's take a look at why Éowyn proves Tolkien wasn't sexist, shall we? She defies her brother and uncle, both of whom tell her that she must stay with the women and children in Meduseld whilst they go to war. But even though they tell her she must stay, Théoden, her uncle and the king, tells her she must rule in his stead whilst he is away. He is effectively making her his steward, or the king's hand, if you like, whilst he goes into battle. Even though they won't let her fight, Théoden is giving her an awful lot of power, asking her to
rule his people. But even then she defies him. She defies
her king because she believes in doing the right thing and in proving herself a true Shieldmaiden of Rohan. She rides into battle and takes Merry along with her, whom Théoden also forbade from going into battle because he is a hobbit. So she also stands up for those who are not viewed as the equals of men (race wise). She rides into battle, manages not to get herself killed and, on top of all that, kills the Witch King of Angmar, with Merry's help, the foe no man can kill. And I'll let her quote from
The Return of the King speak for itself:
"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Éowyn am I, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if
you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if
you touch him."
Now tell me there are no good female characters in
The Lord of the Rings.
But we're not done yet, oh no. As well as Éowyn, you have Galadriel, wisest and fairest of all the elves. I feel like Galadriel is forgotten a lot of the time because she's never really in on any of the action, not in the same way as Éowyn is (this is also true in Arwen's case, but I'll talk about her in a bit). I think one of the things people don't realise is how old Galadriel really is and everything she's suffered through as a result. If you've read
The Silmarillion, you'll know what I'm talking about, but if you haven't, suffice to say she was one of the Noldor who left Valinor for Middle Earth in the First Age. Not to mention that Fëanor, a not so nice but very important and powerful elf in
The Silmarillion, asked her for a strand of her hair because she was so beautiful and she told him to get lost (and then gave Gimli three). She is Arwen's grandmother (her daughter Celebrían being Elrond's wife) and the bearer of Nenya, one of the rings of power. During the time period of
The Lord of the Rings, she is one of the oldest and therefore wisest beings in Middle Earth. She holds extreme power in the form of Nenya and also in being co-ruler of Lothlórien with her husband Celeborn. So, all this being said, I think it's safe to say that Galadriel is a pretty important and generally fab character. She may not appear as a hugely central character in any one work of Tolkien's on her own (that I have read, anyway), and in the case of
The Hobbit, she doesn't appear at all, but if you put her actions and portrayal throughout
The Silmarillion and
The Lord of the Rings together, it's not hard to understand that she is an independent and (for lack of a better word) "strong" female character who rivals each and every male character in terms of her wisdom and the power that she holds.
So, now on to Arwen. I'll be the first to admit that I was surprised and a bit disappointed at how little we see of her in the books. She was much,
much more heavily featured in the film adaptations of
The Lord of the Rings than she is in the books. It's been a while since I read them, but the only bits I remember of her off the top of my head are when we first meet her in Rivendell before the Council of Elrond, a mention of her making a sail for one of the ships that sails up the Anduin during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and then her marrying Aragorn and becoming queen. So, not off to a great start. But (you knew I was going to throw a "but" in there somewhere, didn't you?), let's think about what she did on a broader level. She gave up her immortality to be with the man she loved. She gave up eternity with her family to be with Aragorn for just one lifetime. To me, that's a pretty brave thing to do. Now, I know people probably say that this is "weak" in terms of how it portrays women. She's giving up everything for a man. She's choosing to give up her family, or at least a lifetime with them, all for a man. But why shouldn't she? Surely giving up so much is proof that she really loves him more than anything in the world. Why shouldn't she be allowed (or, really, why shouldn't Tolkien be allowed) to sacrifice her immortality for someone she loves? Would as many people make the same arguments if it were a woman she was sacrificing everything for, or if it was Aragorn giving up everything for her? I'm not so sure. And to give her decision some context, she's know Aragorn all his life. She's had about 80 years (yep, that's really how old he is and I don't imagine he'd look a day over 30, but that's another conversation entirely) to come to this decision. 80 years may not be as long for an elf as it is for a human, but it's still a hell of a long time to come to a decision. She may not be as action packed as Éowyn, or as powerful as Galadriel, but she does something extremely brave. I'm not saying that it's OK for authors to write female characters who drop everything for a man in a heartbeat, but I do think it's important for it not to be a crime if a female character does do it, if it's done in the right kind of context, whatever that may be.
To be continued...
