I found the conversation in class about Tolkien's use of the seemingly insignificant was extremely interesting. Now that I look back on my working knowledge of Tolkien, I recognize this as a greater pattern. One of the largest and most glaring of these examples is the One Ring in the Hobbit. It plays an important role in the book, but it doesn't show the massive world-changing power and potential that is shown in LOTR.
Another example of the significance of a small token would be Lady Galadriel's gift to Gimli, of three strands of her hair. Although to all of the other parties involved, this gift seems strange and small, but to Gimli it was of profound importance. Not only does it show a rare display of kinship among dwarves and elves, but the fact that it comes from an elf of such high stature as Galadriel is of utmost importance. Although the gift of three strands of her hair doesn't hold the more magical powers of some of her gifts to other members of the fellowship, it doesn't mean that the gift was cherished any less.
Thinking back through what I have read of Tolkien's works, this theme of insignificant events or items becoming important seems to occur quite frequently.
Galadriel's gift of a few strands of her hair was a great example to bring up in this post. I think that when thinking about the significance of the seemingly insignificant, its easy to think of something needing to have some secret power or the ability to greatly change the course of events. But in reality, it can just be something that gives a boost in morale or strengthens kinship between characters. As we have seen, kinship is very important in Tolkien's works, so these little gestures still can be very significant on many levels.
ReplyDeleteOh goodness! That is such a wonderful example to use (the three strands of Galadriel’s hair) because it does look so insanely insignificant in the context of the LOTR books – even if it is very important to Gimli.
DeleteThe HUGE significance of this insignificant moment is in the context that comes from the Silmarillion (and other notes from Tolkien). Feanor is a Prince of the Noldor, and he is the person who created the Silmarils (which I’m sure we’ll talk in depth about later in class, but basically they are gems of great beauty and power that come up /quite a bit/ in different stories in the Silmaril-lion!) so he is a pretty important person. Well, three times he goes to Galadriel and begs her for just ONE strand of her hair (which supposedly inspired the creation of the Silmarils).
“For Fëanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight. He begged three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him even one hair.”
And THREE TIMES, Galadriel refuses to give him anything! Remember, Feanor is a pretty important person – and Gimli is a fairly unknown person in the grand scheme of the world up to this point, even though his actions are invaluable to the Fellowship.
Gimli, a dwarf, asks for one strand of her hair. She gives him three. The fact that she thought he deserved three times the present that she refused to give Feanor, Prince of the Noldor, creator of the Simarils… well, that seems pretty significant to me.
(also, if you're interested in this and haven't heard about it before, I remember reading about this on the internet somewhere and I know there are a lot more significances that I just don't remember or know yet!)
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