As a child, there were two scenes in LOTR that I always dreaded watching. The first was the troll scene in Moria, and the second was Shelob's lair. I don't know what it is about spiders. I'm not an arachnophobe by any means, but I certainly understand people who are. Spiders just seem so alien. In the animal kingdom, there aren't many organisms that rival the sheer creepiness of spiders. They have too many legs and too many eyes.
This is probably why Tolkien chose Shelob to be a spider. She wasn't the first spider in Middle-Earth either. Ungoliant was an even more deadly spider in The Silmarillion who reeked havoc on Valinor. Spiders just seem evil. It is easy to imagine a giant spider trying to ruin my day. It is an easy method for Tolkien to portray his antagonist to the reader. It is harder to picture a Balrog or Gollum without any other knowledge. But a spider? Everyone can get in. Everyone could picture the terror of walking through a cave, and running into copious amounts of spider webs. It just strikes a certain fear into your heart. I certainly would never want a run-in with Shelob. I think I'd rather take my chances with Smaug.
I think it is interesting that Tolkien chose a spider as the symbol of evil in his stories. Shelob, among the various orcs, trolls, wargs, and so on, is probably one of the most cruel, disgusting, and death-like creatures in Middle-Earth. I think that Tolkien also purposefully made her live deep down inside a cave where she lives in her own filth and amongst carcasses to add to the wickedness of her character. When describing her, Tolkien writes about the many many layers that have grown around her arachnid body that have hardened over time. Maybe she is made to paint a picture of how hatred and evil deeds harden someone over time.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up an interesting point that everyone can imagine a giant spider. I think we take it for granted sometimes that we can just hop on the computer and google what almost anything looks like. without the ability to print tons of pictures in his books, he probably wanted some characters to be easier to imagine for the purposes of the story.
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