“The Burnt Hand Teaches Most About Fire”: Applying Trauma Exposure and Ecological Frameworks to Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement Across Elven Cultures in Tolkien’s Middle-earth by UnnamedElement

Fanwork Notes

Author's note: This first chapter is the primary body of the paper. References can be found in the section "chapter end notes". The second chapter is additional information not entirely relevant for integration with the larger body of the paper. (At the time of posting, it is missing in-text references as it was originally only provided as a hand-out. This shall be fixed shortly. Thank you for your patience!) Written for TS Tolkien & Diversity Seminar (2021) and edited for conference proceedings in 2022. (Hence the very late upload to SWG!) A video of the paper is linked in Ch1.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the numerous kind and brilliant members of the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild who not only supported and inspired me as I worked on this project but also tolerated my—not insignificant—anxiety. Special SWG thanks to Dawn Wells-Thumma, Gaia Lambruschi, and Bunn. Finally, thanks to Kirsty Malone (fan-friend and unexpected mentor) and to Hannah Mendro (fan-friend and graduate student in Cultural Studies at the University of Washington) for providing a second set of eyes on a draft of this paper.

Abstract: Refugee narratives and displacement are key themes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, with nearly every race and ethnicity in Middle-earth experiencing some type of forced displacement.  Inherent to refugee narratives is trauma exposure, and Tolkien himself furnishes descriptions of character behavior and cognition (e.g., Maedhros, Aragorn, Frodo) that map symptomatically onto modern constructs of traumatic stress. Because psychological research indicates traumatic stress disproportionately affects displaced individuals and because experiences of displacement in Tolkien’s legendarium are epidemic, the power and centrality of the refugee narrative in Tolkien’s work must be considered. However, while some scholars have studied Tolkien’s personal- and legendarium-based writing on war and its stressors, these themes are generally only examined in light of Tolkien’s own experiences and personal beliefs. While these are important points that were likely influential in Tolkien’s representations—as he wrote, after all, “the burnt hand teaches most about fire”—the ways in which displacement and traumatic stress function differently across cultures within the legendarium, and how those differences may impact reader experience, are unexplored. This paper, therefore, proposes to integrate knowledge from refugee and stress research with Tolkien’s texts to address the following: the social-ecological impact of displacement and trauma on cultural groups and associated individuals; and how differing cultural and historical responses to displacement modulate outcomes and interethnic interactions across groups. Primary topics of interest for this study are the impact of childhood and prolonged trauma on Elrond’s lifecourse in Middle-earth; and differences in occupation and colonization practices post-displacement in the Sindarin princes of the Silvan elves. Because Tolkien both implicitly and explicitly acknowledges the existence of traumatic stress in Middle-earth, an application of this different but related analytical lens may be illuminating.

Fanwork Information

Summary: This two-part paper discusses different elven responses to trauma exposure and forced displacement in Beleriand and Middle-earth (absolutely not exhaustive!). The first half of the paper focuses on Elrond's response to traumatic stress, while the second half compares the impact of Galadriel and Oropher's migration into formerly Silvan realms. First given at the Tolkien Society's Diversity & Tolkien seminar in 2021. Major Characters: Elrond, Elros, Galadriel, J.R.R. Tolkien, Nandor, Oropher, Sindar Major Relationships: Artwork Type: No artwork type listed Genre: General, Nonfiction/Meta Challenges: Rating: General Warnings:
Chapters: 2	Word Count: 5, 961
Posted on 3 September 2022	Updated on 3 September 2022
This fanwork is complete.