Let's Read Tolkien 62: The Choices of Master Samwise

Frodo was lying face upward on the ground and the monster was bending over him, so intent upon her victim that she took no heed of Sam and his cries, until he was close at hand.

Sam finds a monstrous giant spider wrapping Frodo in strands of spider-web, so obviously he grabs Sting and charges the spider monster, dual-wielding swords. Sam stabs her in the eye and Shelob tries to crush him, so Sam holds up Sting against her and Shelob impales herself on the sword. Eventually Sam drives off the wounded spider with the light of the Phial of Galadriel.

Frodo, however, lies motionless on the ground and will not stir. Sam eventually and very reluctantly decides that he must be dead, and realizes he has to carry on the quest himself. Frodo doesn't react when Sam takes the Ring off him, confirming Sam's belief that he must be dead. The Ring weighs Sam down terribly. Just as he leaves to follow the path down to Mordor, Sam hears a company of orcs marching uphill, and then another behind him. Trapped, he has no choice but to put on the Ring and hide.

The orcs pass Sam by, and find Frodo. They grab him, and Sam charges after them, but can't keep up with the running orcs. He follows them back into the tunnels, and manages to eavesdrop on the two orc leaders bringing up the rear of the columm. He learns that the orcs know all about Gollum and Shelob, that they have been ordered to be especially vigilant and send all prisoners unharmed to Lugbúrz - the orcish for the Dark Tower - and, stunningly for Sam, that Frodo is alive. Shelob, the orcs know, eats her prey alive, and her poison only paralyzes them.

The orcs rush back to their tower, with Sam in hot pursuit. He can't catch them before they make it back to the tower, and close and bar the door. Sam is stuck outside, alone in Mordor, with his master a prisoner.

**

When the hobbits discovered three petrified trolls on their journey to Rivendell, Aragorn chided them for forgetting their family history. He might well have said the same to Sam here; when the spiders of Mirkwood attacked the dwarves of Bilbo's company, they too captured the dwarves rather than killing them.

However, I doubt Strider or anyone else would pass any remarks on Sam's martial prowess. Ancient evil of ages past versus hobbit gardener, 0-1.

I talked about orcs earlier in the context of the Uruk-hai, and mentioned a letter in which Tolkien compares the British military to orcs. It's actually a continuation of an earlier conversation, where Tolkien's son Christopher, serving in the Royal Air Force during the war, has been "grousing" about the misery of barracks life. His father, a war veteran, sympathizes and offers some thoughts on the Second World War.

For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side..... Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai.
(Letters, 66)

Tolkien's politics can be fairly summed up as a somewhat confused, very privileged, upper-middle-class conservative anarchism, and in many ways, orcs are the antithesis of that: loud, boorish, regimented and rough-spoken. While I can hardly disagree with the fact that many characterizations of orcs are racialized, the way Tolkien talks about orcishness in his letters makes me inclined to think that it's fundamentally a class attribute, rather than a racial one. I don't think I'm going too far if I suggest that in this chapter, the uncouth, military orcs are a fair representation of the bad working class, whereas Sam is the good working class. The barracks toughs versus the officer's virtuous batman, as it were.

**

That was Book Four! This always used to be my least favorite book in the whole novel. Book Three does such a good job of building up from three vagrants by a river to war and treason, and then suddenly you're yanked away from the ents, sorcerers and cavalry charges to two hobbits talking about potatoes.

I'm coming around to thinking that this may have been Tolkien's intention: the war narrative is exciting, but it's the journey of Frodo and Sam, the spiritual narrative, that's ultimately significant. I may be reading too much into it, but then again this is also why I suspect there's some theological pattern or logic to Book Four that eludes me.

Next time: meanwhile, back at the ranch.