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anna_wing has an interesting post about Eowyn and feminism (particularly female roles in fantasy). I was going to reply to her there, but I found my thoughts were a bit too involved for just a comment, so I thought I would make them into a main post. By all means, go read Anna's post and comment on it there as well if this topic interests you.I have some pretty strong feelings on the topic of Eowyn. I remember when I first heard the LOTR story I was intrigued by her because here was a strong woman! Even before she rode off to Gondor, she was set up as the military leader of her people, and that charge was one she shouldn't lightly cast aside. And in the days before the Ring War, she was the one that guarded the King against Wormtongue while Eomer and Theodred were out fighting orcs.
Granted, my grudge with Fourth-Age!Eowyn mostly comes from fanfic where she goes far too... domestic for my tastes. Even in canon, though, Eowyn doesn't fare so well. So we're all on the same page, let me quote what I consider the definitive passage on Eowyn's eventual "fate."
‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.
Then Faramir laughed merrily. ‘That is well,’ he said; ‘for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.’
‘Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to choose?”’
‘I would,’ said Faramir. And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the Houses of Healing.
And to the Warden of the Houses Faramir said: ‘Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.’
And the Warden said: ‘Then I release her from my charge and bid her farewell, and may she suffer never hurt nor sickness again. I commend her to the care of the Steward of the City, until her brother returns.’
The reference to making a garden may seem innocuous enough to a lot of people, sort of like Faramir's comment to Frodo that he hopes they will "retell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief." On one level it works as a desire for peace, and I am sure that Tolkien genuinely meant it as such. But gardens also have other connotations. Reading this, I was really reminded of the end of Candide, by Voltaire. In that novel the title character goes on a series of grand adventures (some might say grand disasters) when he is separated from his True Luv. At the very end, Candide's teacher Pangloss recounts all of Candide's adventures and Candide replies: "Excellently observed; but let us cultivate our garden." Meaning he is turning from what he has done out in the world and retiring to a private life.
It always seemed to me that Faramir wants something very similarly with Eowyn: pastoral bliss. Implied in this, he wants her to be happy with the quiet life of Ithilien. And in canon, we don't hear much more out of Eowyn once she's married. True, we don't hear much out of Faramir, either, but his continuing story is implicit. He is not only the Prince of Ithilien but also steward of Gondor, and seems to be one of Aragorn's chief advisors. Certainly in Aragorn-centric fanfic, Faramir is almost always his right-hand man. And while Eowyn is usually a close friend of Arwen, Arwen isn't necessarily any more political than Eowyn is, so I'm not sure that that helps argue against sexism.
Why does political matter? The day after the U.S. election, maybe it's tempting to think of political as involved in that whole story. The running for office, the gathering of power. And in our current climate, where both Democrats and Republicans are hated by most people, maybe it's tempting to think apolitical ain't such a bad thing. But that's not what I mean. I have an Aristotelian idea of political in mind. Put more simply: I mean that Faramir is involved in the running of the polis - of the city and neighboring lands and by extension all Gondor, whereas Eowyn gets her garden. Faramir may want to tend this garden with her, and I think he does, but I also think he doesn't just tend the garden. At least in Faramir's mind, Ithilien's flourishing depends on Eowyn's being there: "All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes." Faramir seems more independent.
I agree with Anna on one point. Over in her post she writes:
LOTR, through Faramir, makes it clear that sword-swinging is an inferior career choice for anyone, regardless of sex; it is a necessary evil in the times that they are in, but not more than that.
Being a pacifist, this is one of the themes that really resonates with. That the "battle" isn't won through military strength but through fate and strength of character. So it is perhaps natural that Eowyn puts aside her shieldmaiden mentality when she enters the Fourth Age. Aragorn must go from Strider to Elessar as well. But Eowyn is giving up something else, too. Something that she gave up when she rode with the Eorlingas, IMO too quickly. Remember when Theoden and Eomer rode off to Helm's Deep?
‘Behold! I go forth, and it seems like to be my last riding,’ said Théoden. ‘I have no child. Théodred my son is slain. I name Éomer my sister-son to be my heir. If neither of us return, then choose a new lord as you will. But to some one I must now entrust my people that I leave behind, to rule them in my place. Which of you will stay?’
No man spoke.
‘Is there none whom you would name? In whom do my people trust?’
‘In the House of Eorl,’ answered Háma.
‘But Éomer I cannot spare, nor would he stay,’ said the king; ‘and he is the last of that House.’
‘I said not Éomer,’ answered Háma. ‘And he is not the last. There is Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, his sister. She is fearless and high-hearted. All love her. Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.’
‘It shall be so,’ said Théoden. ‘Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Éowyn will lead them!’
Eowyn has a crucial role to fill: as leader. And Faramir asks her to give this up, whereas he is not required to give that up when he marries her. He is still Steward. This is historically understandable but to my modern sensibility it is shocking. It is sadly the best place available to her in the modern world, but I don't think this makes it a good position.
One last note (because I have to run): note the Warden's last words. "‘Then I release her from my charge and bid her farewell, and may she suffer never hurt nor sickness again. I commend her to the care of the Steward of the City, until her brother returns.’" Rereading this, I wondered: what is the sickness spoken of? The injury is obviously battle-induced, and I would count the Black Breath in the same camp. My intuition is that he might be referring to a kind of mental illness: that by assuming a man's role Eowyn has harmed herself psychologically, and he hopes she can avoid that in the future.
At the very least, Eowyn is now something that must be protected. Again, believable given the historical context - but certainly a view that anyone saying Eowyn is well-treated in the Fourth Age would need to explain.
(Anonymous)
2010-11-04 12:57 am (UTC)
I always read the "sickness" as her despondency, as the despair that makes her think the only worthwhile thing she can do - the only worthy thing to do - is to fill a saddle and die. She may not have said "and die," but I think it was sort of implied by the color of her mood after awakening. Aragorn had said he could heal her body, but did not know whether she would wake to hope or despair, and that if the latter, she would die. I think he underestimated her by a smidgen, or else she wasn't in despair long enough, but she seemed to me to be haunting the borders of a very dangerous malaise that was seen as such, and considered a serious sickness quite independently of any evaluation of her gender role-swapping. Remember, when she wakes up, she thinks the only worthy thing she can do is to fill the saddle of a dead Rider; in my mind, the rest of her sentence is "and then die just like him." There is no other horizon for her at that point, and that, to me, is what Aragorn and others were concerned about.
That said, yes, the Warden seems to think of her as essentially a member of some man's family, who needs to be transferred to male custodianship after such an illness. She can't be released to her own recognizance.
I tend to agree with you on the idea that this is a question of historical reality, and Tolkien's use of certain cultural tropes that are still with us today. I don't know that one can simply ascribe the form of sexism the Warden exhibits to Tolkien himself. I think he was simply responding to his knowledge of the historical realities from which he was appropriating significant elements, and refusing to make his world a utopia with regard to gender relations, though he could have if, perhaps, he'd been willing to write a very different story.
The more difficult point for me beyond whatever Tolkien may have intended, though, is that I have to admit, I don't disagree with his decision to give gender relationships an imbalance. If he'd simply made men and women generally equal in power and status, I probably wouldn't have believed as much in the world he wrote. It would've felt too artificial and unreal. It would've felt like moralism to me. Granted, I'd agree with the lesson, but I wouldn't find it to be particularly well done for a story that wants that air of reality imbuing it, despite its fantastical character. And the reality is, sword-quest type stories use tropes and ideas and types from a time when gender inequity wasn't something one apologized for - it was normative and embraced on a large scale. And it's not as if we're past gender stereotyping and inequity today, either, so substituting modern prejudices so blatantly for an older style of prejudice that fits with its fantasy literary environment just seems arbitrary to me.
Anyhow... $.02
Dwim
(Anonymous)
2010-11-04 12:58 am (UTC)
Dwim
2010-11-06 10:55 pm (UTC)
==> on Eowyn's "sickness"
I think you are on to something with your thoughts about despondency. I am sure that the Warden would see that as an illness, and it certainly could be what he's talking about. But I find myself wondering whether, for a character like the Warden, seeking mannish glory was part of that same desperation? Not only was she willing to throw aside her life, but she was willing to throw away her "proper" societal/gender role as well. My intuition is that these two issues are interrelated, though I can't quite explain what precisely makes me think that. Worthy of further thought.
==> On the need for imperfect characters
I agree with you, if Middle-earth had been perfectly gender-equal, it wouldn't have been engaging. I do love that feeling of history, and as literature those gender disparities make for a more interesting read. Since these characters really aren't people, there's not *really* any harm in Eowyn being forced back into a certain role.
(Anonymous)
2010-11-07 12:10 am (UTC)
But I find myself wondering whether, for a character like the Warden, seeking mannish glory was part of that same desperation?
I don't know. We don't see him ever mention that, so far as I recall. Gandalf is the one who implies that people have failed to see Éowyn for what she is because she is a woman: "But she, born into the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours" (or something close to that). He's in the company of Éomer and Aragorn, so I'm inclined to say Gandalf is not UNDERestimating her courage and spirit. He is, however, articulating the fact that there is an accepted perception - in Gondor or in Rohan, generally in M-e perhaps - that women are expected to have lesser courage and spirit than men do.
Then there's the Ioreth episode, about which, don't get me started. Again, though, the culprits here aren't the Warden, iirc - this time, we have both Gandalf and Aragorn being snippy and short-tempered with the prattling old lady. Granted, it's not the best of situations, but still.
So other than the Warden's comments about releasing Éowyn, I don't have any sense of his perspective on gender relations and equality. He certainly would have seen just as many men - actually, no, he would have seen MORE, by scores and scores and hundreds, men suffer from and succumb to the Black Breath during and after the siege than he would have seen women, just by virtue of the fact that most of Gondor's female population had been evacuated ahead of time.
I know there's debate about what exactly was implied by the decree "the the aged, the children and the women that must go with them," but I always got the traditional, "Save the women and the children" vibe from it, not "send only those women necessary to act as care-takers for the refugees". If you go with that interpretation, and eliminate most of the female population, save people like Ioreth, then you're left with the conclusion that Gondor would rather risk the lives of some underaged boys who didn't want to leave than those of any female, of whatever age, unless she had some extremely compelling reason to be there (she knew her herbs, she could set bones...).
There's the question of female inheritance - although it could've been politicking, Gondor was still credibly able to deflect the claim of Arvedui by saying that it was not legal tradition in Gondor for a husband to inherit a title through his wife. Númenor had to alter inheritance laws to allow a woman to accede to the throne, and most of the ruling queens get very short shrift. Isildur's line is said to be more pure because it was unbroken from father to son, not because "it was unbroken insofar as the descent from Elendil was never interrupted and passed from eldest child to eldest child."
My sense is that there is a latent expectation that while women may not be less dignified than men, their dignity does not mean that they are equally capable of expressing certain kinds of virtues (so women are courageous, but not able to take as much fear as men, perhaps), nor are they as politically or legally empowered in the major Dúnedain kingdoms. Rohan? Don't know - there is the shieldmaiden concept, though what that means is completely unclear. Is it an institution? Is it just Éowyn's way of trying to explain herself in terms her culture understands, even if it finds the conjunction incongruous? She certainly thinks Aragorn is denying her because he thinks her place is in the home just insofar as she is a woman and her place is to keep things prepared for the use of men. Whether she's reacting to him that way because he's a foreigner, and she thinks foreigners think that way, or because that's a testimony to how Rohirrim normally view matters, or because on some level, he actually does think that - I don't know.
Dwim
And one more bit...
(Anonymous)
2010-11-07 12:44 am (UTC)
I'm ambivalent about this. On the one hand, no, they're not real people, no harm can be done to them. On the other hand, stories appeal to real people, and in so doing, target us where we stand, whether that's a good place or a bad one, whether we know that or not.
I think of Plato, for whom, despite all his haranguing of the poets, the poets and the poetry all return - but their unwitting slanders aren't dangerous. Those teeth have been pulled by the pursuit of wisdom, which allows them to be seen for what they are and responded to appropriately even when one is exposed to them. I never get the sense that Socrates hated poetry - he liked it, and I don't think it was strictly for its morality (as if Homer is a consistent moralist!). I'm not sure how one would have to be, affectively, to be able to respond to something rather hideous in some way, but still enjoy it without failing on some level to acknowledge the place from which one enjoys - specifically, the level at which that place is problematic. On the other hand, the point may be that it's not about avoiding the problematic altogether, but about the consistent effort to shed light on one's enjoyment and desire, to always inquire on what level one responds to a given enjoyable, rather than remaining in some reified state of pure being. Philosophers, you know - always in motion!
And then, on another level, I think of this story, which my old theology prof, who taught "Women and the Bible" when I was an undergrad, related. Her grand-niece was doing a homework assignment: it was an analogy exercise. Think SAT verbal section: X is to Y as Z is to ... and then there are options. One of them was something like "man is to woman as " and among the many nonsensical options, was the one she probably was intended to select: "strong is to weak" or something very stereotypical. And the poor girl took this exercise to her college prof grand-aunt and said, "I don't get it. NONE of these fit!" Dr. M knew what was on the test-maker's mind, but she very wisely, I think, said, "I don't understand, either!"
In some sense, I feel that's what we want as a society - for certain things that you find in sword-and-sorcery stories (among other aspects of life, currently) not to make sense to us anymore, so that it is absolutely natural to make your characters whatever gender you want them to be without finding anything incongruous in the decision. But I hardly think we're there yet with respect to the world that normally supports sword and sorcery style stories or that we've figured out how reliably to acknowledge what is unfair in gender relations of the past and of the present and still manage to turn the tables in an aesthetically, narratively compelling fashion. And the farther back you reach to set your story, the stiffer the challenge, the more 'orientalism' in a Saidian sense becomes a threat.
So I think there is a real quandary involved in the production of a good story, one that we're alway on some level having to deal with and establish de facto levels of acceptance.
Meh. Okay, if I can write this, I surely, SURELY can manage some form of study, even if only for Greek on Monday. SURELY this is not beyond me!
$.127 (adjust please for inflation, however),
Dwim
2010-11-04 06:05 am (UTC)
Remember that Ithilien is a principality. Faramir is going to be the Steward of the whole of the realm of Gondor (and possibly Arnor too), a lot more than just a city and its townlands now. Who's going to rule Ithilien when he's out Stewarding but Eowyn? It's the "Garden of Gondor", but it's a lot more than an allotment patch. The noblewomen of the European Middle Ages were responsible for the care of the domains in their husbands' absence. They had duties and power too. Eowyn has no chance of ruling Rohan unless Eomer has a fatal accident before fathering children, so ruling Ithilien instead is I think a more than reasonable substitute.
If you look at HOME, the notion that "a man's role" is something beyond a woman's capacity to do safely is not something that I find in Tolkien's thinking. His Elves are stated explicitly not to have gender differentiation in occupations, and the cases of, for instance, Haleth and Luthien are not at all considered psychologically abnormal in the sense that you seem to be suggesting. Galadriel destroying Dol Guldur single-handed is also not suggested to have been a mentally abnormal thing for a female member of the House of Finwe to be doing, in the circumstances.
At the very least, Eowyn is now something that must be protected. Again, believable given the historical context - but certainly a view that anyone saying Eowyn is well-treated in the Fourth Age would need to explain.
The Warden's reference to sickness I always understood as the Black Breath. Though her intention to ride to war specifically to die in it should also count. The sickness was not wanting to go to war and take "a man's role", it was with going to war with the clear intention of not coming back. I would actually agree with the Warden that Eowyn at that point needs to be protected. She's been clearly depressed for a very long time and she only survived an almost-successful attempt at a heroic death by the intervention of Aragorn's Numenorean superpowers. I'd think she bore watching too (especially if I were her physician, held responsible for her continued health by her brother the exceedingly war-like King of Rohan). I don't think it has anything to do with what she would be doing as Princess of Ithilien in good health and peacetime.
Also, bear in mind that she is the sister and heir of the King of Rohan, a foreign VVIP of the highest possible rank short of a Head of State, and entitled to the best security that Gondor can provide in the circumstances. Someone of that status is not allowed to wander round unguarded, especially in wartime, whether they were male or female. It isn't allowed now either.
2010-11-04 02:13 pm (UTC)
==> On principalities
Yes, on paper. But recall that Ithilien is a very newly established principality. I wouldn't expect to see regional lords, a princely court, and the politics that would go with that, within her lifetime. So I'm just not seeing a practical difference for Eowyn between being msitress of a principality and mistress of a single noble household.
==> On HoME.
What you're saying is a fair description of Elves. In Gondor the situation is very different. Gondor doesn't have a strong record on respecting women in power (they are either barely mentioned or else reviled for the most part), and the Stewards' rule was built on the claim that women could not rule while there was any male heir. Or that rule could be passed through a daughter to her husband, for that matter. So HoME's comments are good proof that Tolkien wasn't a sexist - but bad proof that Gondor wasn't a sexist environment.
==> On the Black Breath
I did think about whether that might be intended, but I truly think that would be viewed as an injury rather than illness. It occurred in battle, brought on by an enemy. I find Dwim's explanation believable, though - that it was a comment on her depression.
2010-11-05 01:00 am (UTC)
http://themidhavens.net/heretic_loremas
2010-11-06 10:44 pm (UTC)
Btw, I think you know Lord of the Rings at *least* as well as many people who write Third Age fic. So don't ever feel like you can't comment on my Ring War-era musings.
2010-11-07 02:59 am (UTC)
That's pretty much the same reason I honed in on the quotes about Elven culture rather than dealing with the Third Age discussion! :D I didn't even have time that day for the post I made, but it wouldn't leave me alone either, and I couldn't properly concentrate till I jotted down my thoughts. Annoying brain! ;)
I agree with your assessment of the quotes concerning Eowyn. I've also interpreted the passage in question as problematic because of what Eowyn is being expected to relinquish ... and what she willingly does relinquish, as though peace and happiness necessarily make a woman want to settle down and become domestic. In that sense, her role as a warrior/leader does seem connected to a world diseased by evil and itself symptomatic of a problem. When the evil is banished, she settles nicely into expectations. Where I'm less certain is my ability to analyze the political and social climates of the various Third Age realms, though I sure enjoyed reading them! :) I think where we probably disagree somewhat is that my inclination is that JRRT was sexist, and his works reflect that. I don't mean that in a pointy-finger accusatory kind of way; at the end of the day, he was a self-styled reactionary and very devout Catholic, neither of which favor gender equality. I think this reflects in his works, but he also leaves plenty of space for those of us with different views to take up the storylines we find inspiring, and that is admirable.
2010-11-07 03:32 am (UTC)
Actually, I wouldn't disagree with you. I had a very specific purpose in writing this post, and that was to reply to a point raised by
So I'd say: yes, Tolkien was sexist, but no, that doesn't matter for the question I was dealing with in this post.
All of which I probably could have made much clearer! I have been working hard at a long-overdue school essay, and so am rather intellectually burnt out...
2010-11-07 03:35 am (UTC)
Good luck finishing the essay!