I was only in the past few years that I noticed that the Dwarf Gimli is (I think) the only point-of view character in The Lord of the Rings who is not a Hobbit.
For all the rest of the book, when there is direct report of the consciousness of a character, it is always Frodo, Sam, Merry or Pippin.
But for just a couple of pages it is Gimli. No other character is given such a distinction.
The Gimili perspective passage is near the end of the chapter "The Passing of the Grey Company", and describes the Dwarf's inner reactions, especially his almost paralysing fear, as he walks the Paths of the Dead inside the Dwimorberg - the Haunted Mountain.
I think the Gimli POV passage is easily missed, because it is short and seamlessly bracketed by the normal third person narrative. It begins just after :
And there stood Gimli the Dwarf left all alone. His knees shook, and he was wroth with himself.
The report of Gimli's inner narrative starts with: "it seemed to him that he dragged his feet like lead over the threshold; and at once a blindness came upon him...".
And we continue revisiting Gimli's inner reactions until: "the Dwarf saw before his face the glitter in the Elf's bright eyes."
After which we hear no more of Gimli's stream of consciousness.
I find this a fascinating exception to Tolkien's self-imposed rule throughout LotR to "see" the events of Middle Earth and the story through the mediating consciousness of a Hobbit.
Indeed, it seems that Gimli is here taking the role of a "surrogate Hobbit" - presumably because there are no Hobbits present, and perhaps Gimli's mind is in some ways the most suitable for the job.
But why is Gimli most suitable?
Well the alternatives among characters of the Fellowship present at this time; are Legolas and Aragorn.
Legolas is perhaps regarded as too strange, too much a part of the "high" and enchanted phenomena of Middle Earth to be a suitable mediator. As an Elf, Legolas is not scared by the atmosphere of the Paths of the Dead, nor by the presence of the ghosts of Men.
And much the same applies to Aragorn, at this point and in this context. Aragorn a Numenorean, partly elish; and has chosen to take the Paths and is leader of the Company; and he does so by ancient right and prophecy.
Therefore the reader cannot readily identify with Aragorn's point of view - at least not at this particular point of the narrative.
Gimli is chosen, I believe; because, although of a different race than Men, we can in this situation easily identify with him.
He is terrified by the experience, as we also would be if we found ourselves in the same situation.
And probably also because Gimli is established by this point as a likeable and realistically-flawed character - a "rough diamond" whose emotions run close to the surface, and are less tightly disciplined than those of Aragorn and Legolas.
Anyway; it seems that the Gimli-focused passage works well enough to do the job of putting the reader emotionally into the situation in the absence of any Hobbit; and without drawing attention to itself as breaking Tolkien's own rules about a Hobbit-centric story.
8 comments:
nice catch 👍 i certainly never noticed that.
outside of Gandalf, curiously it is Gimli who is my favored member of the Fellowship. the elven Legolas and numenorean Aragorn are in some sense "higher" beings. nevertheless Gimli proves to be a warrior peer to either the Mirkwood princeling or the Dunedain chieftain, even narrowly "out-scoring" Legolas at Helm's Deep 🪓
The entire Paths of the Dead episode actually is described partially from the point of view of Legolas. But that is easy to miss.
Pippen goes to Minas Tirith with Gandalf, and Merry with Eowyn, and these are both important parts of the story, and Tolkien has run out of hobbits to accompany Aragon. So he has to come up with another way to tell the story of Aragon's path to Minas Tirith. Its told in two parts. The first part, the Paths of the Dead, is told via third person point of view using Gimli. The second part, the journey though the southern fiefs and the use of the Dead to scare off the Corsairs, is told mainly via Legolas describing the events to the hobbits later.
The device of having some non-hobbit character describing to the hobbits, events that they couldn't witness personally, is used elsewhere in the Lord of the Rings. Most of the Council of Elrond is this. The battle between Gandalf and the Balrog is also described this way.
Now its interesting that the second part of Aragon's journey, though the southern fiefs as described mainly by Legolas, is less compelling than the Paths of the Dead part told directly through Gimli's point of view.
However, I honestly think this is a part of the Lord of the Rings that probably would have been revised, if Tolkien didn't have to stop the revisions at some point and get the thing published. Consider this approach. Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas with the southern Gondorians arrive to relieve the siege of Minas Tirith, with no indication of how they assembled these forces. After the battle, either just before or just after the Houses of Healing chapter, Pippen asks Legolas and Gimli what happened and they both tell the story of the Paths of the Dead and the southern fiefs. That is more consistent with the construction of the rest of the books, and probably the second part of the journey would have been developed more.
I am reading Prince Caspian to my daughter, and the entire story is told from the point of view of the Pevensie children, except for a few chapters where Trumpkin the dwarf tell the story of Caspian's early life and the start of the war. These chapters are actually the only part of Prince Caspian not only told from Caspian's point of view, but where Caspian is the main character! But they work very well.
I'm not as familiar as others with the Lord of the Rings books but I remember in the Fellowship when the Hobbits are leaving the Shire a fox sees them and then Tolkien writes a couple of sentences from the fox's point of view, wondering about seeing Hobbits so far from home or something - does this count?
@Owen - It depends where you set the threshold! But, yes, that sentence is a fox's POV.
Book III, Chapter 1, "The Departure of Boromir" begins with Aragorn's point of view:
Aragorn sped on up the hill ... in the wet earth he saw what he was seeking. "I read the signs aright," he said to himself.
In Book Vi, Chapter 3, "Mount Doom", we get a whole paragraph from Sauron's point of view:
And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring ... the Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him ... and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash.
The fox, Aragorn and Sauron - while worth noticing! - all seem to me to fall below the threshold at which we could be said to have a POV of that character. It is more like a quick report (by the omniscient narrator) on a specific response to a specific situation.
(The fox episode is, I have always presumed, intended to be a hint that there are many not-human thinking/ aware/ sentient beings in Middle Earth - as well as those who we particularly follow. An animated world. We are told the same about many trees.)
With the couple of pages of Gimli's POV, however, we do see a bit of "life" from inside him.
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zaram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nala, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dum in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone" She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding.
I think you are on to something.
There are long hobbit-free passages in the early chapters of The Two Towers told from the point of view of an external narrator. In them, Legolas and Aragorn, but not Gimli, become more their archetypal selves. Gimli, like the hobbits, undergoes change and development, his main power, endurance, fortified by his encounter with Galadriel.
@Philip - Ah yes. That is one of my very favourite passages in LotR.
It seems the character of Gimli grew in the telling. He is not present at first in Rivendell - Frodo first talks with his Father Gloin, and Gloin speaks in the Council of Elrond.
But there is something very easy to identify-with in Gimli's enthusiasm (for things he likes!). Even his grumbling, moodiness and tendency to take offence, his heavy-handed teasing humour, are faults we recognize and sympathize with.
And more than balanced by his bursts of delight and cheerfulness (his poetic rhapsody in praise of the caves of Helm's Deep; or when he capers with joy on getting a message from Galadriel!), loyal friendship, courage etc.
All in all - a highly appropriate POV character.
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