Freewrite on Hope in the Houses of Healing

The scene that I chose is in Chapter 8 of Book 5 in The Return of the King when Aragorn comes into the Houses of Healing to heal the three warriors who fell during the Battle of Pelennor Fields: Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry. I particularly want to focus on the scene when Aragorn heals Faramir and calls him back to the world of the living and out of the darkness. This scene is filled with hope as it is the first instance in the sequence of scenes in the Houses of the Healing when Aragorn exemplifies not only his knowledge of healing remedies but also his deep care and love for others as the future King. I saw someone post recently about this scene and of how Aragorn not only healed their external maladies, in Faramir’s case his fever, but he also had the power to heal their internal suffering and grief. Faramir does not stir as his mind wanders in the dark world of “weariness, grief for his father’s mood, a wound, and over all the Black Breath” (864) and if not for the kingsfoil, the athleas, and Aragorn’s healing hands, he would’ve died, falling under the spell of despair and suffering induced by the evil of the Black Breath. However, as the helpers in the Houses of Healing display their hope in the athleas healing Faramir and Aragorn calls him back to the light, Faramir awakens, immediately showing love for his king, even though he doesn’t even know him. I think this chapter is one of my favorites in the whole series because it shows how hope can heal and to hope is to have the courage to keep on living. 

Later, when Aragorn heals Éowyn, she is more filled with despair, as she has lost her father-figure King Théoden and did not die beside him in battle, as she had wanted to. Her healing takes longer as she has to take more time to gain more hope for living. When characters fall into despair, they often lose the strength to go on. If Frodo and Sam had lost hope entirely, they never would have completed their journey because they would not have the strength to keep going. 

Tolkien seems to want the reader to know that in the face of such immense and all-powerful evil, having hope is extremely necessary to go on, to keep living. Going back to the Houses of Healing, this chapter/scene exemplifies the hope that is found through wanting others to live and healing those who have suffered.