The great dying: JRR Tolkien’s missing mothers by

| | |

Fanwork Notes

Some thoughts about women - or the lack of them- in Tolkien's works, but from a rarely told perspective.

Agree? Disagree? Think I am so, so very wrong about this? Please comment!

 

Fanwork Information

Summary:

In the 'real' Middle Ages women died in childbirth in droves. In Tolkien's world motherhood is even more deadly, but in a narrative sense rather than an obstetrical one.

 

Major Characters:

Major Relationships:

Genre: Nonfiction/Meta

Challenges: Analysing Arda

Rating: General

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1, 220
Posted on 15 July 2018 Updated on 15 July 2018

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.

I like your idea of looking at the women from the perspective of motherhood. You bring up some very valid points. 

I would say Melian and Morwen break the mold as they are not absent mothers and do carry some narrative weight. But they are only two among so many. 

I know Tolkien despised Disney but he does share the absent mother theme that Disney has going  on. But of course so many Disney films and stories are fairy tale based.

very interesting read and good points made.

I know the lack of women is brought up periodically, but it really is stunning to see all the dead/absent mothers listed out like this. Unlike the elves and Men, Hobbit mothers seem to largely escape the "carnage", though at the price of being reduced to mere names in the appendices. (Three out of four hobbits in the Fellowship had living mothers. And Rosie Cotton does seem to manage a normal lifespan, despite having 13 children. But again, that's all 'off camera'.)

I wonder what was going on in Tolkien's mind to produce this effect. (I can think of multiple potential reasons, but Tolkien himself having lost his mother at a relatively young age is the only one that doesn't involve some degree of sexism.)

Thank you for reading and commenting.

Hobbit mothers do seem to have te best life expectancy! The Shire was meant to be a safe haven from all the war and geopolitical upheaval going on elsewhere in Middle-earth, so Tolkien couldn't very well kill off mothers at the same rate as in Beleriand, Gondor or Rohan. That said, he just could not resist doing in Frodo's mom anyway.  

I didn't even mention Dwarves and Orcs: we have only 1 named female Dwarf and not a single female Orc, even though Tolkien explicitly says they reproduce like everyone else so 50% of Orcs is supposedly female.  

Tolkien was orphaned at 12, when his mother died. He lost his father much earlier when he was 3, so if there was any logic to this we should be looking at a list of dead and absent fathers. I'm afraid the explanation is going to involve sexism to some degree. 

If only Tolkien was still alive so we could ask himi

I think there's definitely something there!

I do feel you're overstating individual cases.

I would argue that Gilraen is more important in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen than you say, even though I agree the way and the moment she dies raises questions.

Nerdanel isn't quite as insignificant as that even in the published Silmarillion text; Feanor listens to her advice at first and that he stops doing so is one of the ways in which he goes off the rails. And, of course, if you take the late HoME version into account, in fact she is a very noteworthy artist and  quarrels with Feanor about his going off with her sons and she is also given a speaking part in this. In any case, she survives, presumably. It's the rest of her family who proceed to die horribly!

Thank you for reading and commenting, I'm so sorry for taking forever to reply!

There definitely is a pattern of women being removed from the narrative before events get underway, and Gilraen fits right into it despite getting a speaking part in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. LOTR has no wizened dowager-chieftainess of the Dunedain attending the Council of Elrond to speak on behalf of her people. Neither does Rohan have a strong-willed queen to temper Wormtongue's influence over Theoden, or Denethor of Gondor a wife with enough common sense to tell him to stop watching Palantir and come to bed right now. Sauron might have been defeated a lot faster if they had ;-)

You make an excellent point about Nerdanel's character being far more developed than it seems in the Silmarillion! She does not die (though losing her husband and all of her children does seem like an sure way to die of grief!), but neither does she play any further role in the story, to the point that we never even learn her eventual fate.