I had an essay launch this week. This is probably the largest distribution I’ve gotten on an essay up to this point. Go take a look and tell me what you think!
Things are starting to happen to the Hobbits. Dreadful, terrible things. In this week’s reading, Frodo was attacked by the Black Riders. They overtake the Hobbits quickly, and Frodo is pierced by their sword. Immediately before the attack, he slips the Ring on to his finger; I think this is judged to be a mistake, but the Ring does seem to intervene and lessen the extent of the attack. I am not quite sure, however- because using the ring in this way is usually frowned upon. (Do let me know if I’ve missed something in this regard).
The wound that Frodo has is quite serious. This is in part because the sword he was struck by has properties enhanced beyond that of an ordinary sword. Frodo’s three companions stumbled upon him when he laid as if dead after his injury. They are at his side when he awakes.
Strider, who is now traveling with the hobbits, brings his knowledge of healing plants to tend Frodo’s wound. But it is Sam, Merry, and Pippin who bear him up, tending him when he wakes, carrying his supplies, and inquiring constantly into his welfare.
The attack by the Riders came suddenly and without warning. What were shadows from afar suddenly overtook Frodo. He is caught up in a violent confrontation and has little ability, beyond the Ring, to defend himself. He is not at all prepared for this sort of combat.
In fact, none of the Hobbits are at all set up for the dangers they will face. (To be of little use seems to be at least part of what it means to be a Hobbit). The Hobbits lack complete knowledge of where they are going. They have no map. They do not know their history. They are scared of the dark. They are always hungry. They are prone to spook. None of them are even “boyfriend material”, to be honest. They’re not up to the task. So what do they do when they must do something that they can’t really do?
Now that I have this very private online journal, I finally have a place to tell my most embarrassing graduate school story, which I have never ever told. (This, I promise, is 100% true).
I read a lot of feminist theory as a graduate student. I reached adulthood with some significant questions about the role of women in the Christian church, and as is my ken I felt that perhaps better answers were had a bit farther afield. So in addition to my courses in Bible and Theology I took a lot of courses in Feminist philosophy and theology. I read the French feminists (so much anatomy!), I read the radical feminists (so much vulgarity!), I read the queer theorists (so much vulgarity about anatomy!), I read the feminist theologians (so little actual theology!)-- you name it, I’ve probably read it.
Feminist theory requires at least two questions are answered. First, we have to decide what we mean by “woman”- not as hard a question in 2009 as it is now, but still a medium-hard question. Second, we have to do decide what particular encumbrances or possibilities “being woman” affords an individual.
Some feminists argue that to be Woman is largely a situation of oppressed constraint. Women are the “Other” to which man is the “Subject”, in Simone de Beauvoir’s words. Women in this view have been delegated “a non-subject, a non-agent—in short, a mere thing.”[1] The goal is to move Woman from the role of “Other” to the protagonist role, ridding her of the baggage of care along the way.
Once you figure out what the social constraints are that have been placed that prevent women’s flourishing, you can then argue about how to remove them. But what you can’t figure out or put up for discussion is whether the things we call constraints are actually what we call them. You can’t consider whether it is in fact the relation between people and what binds us to them that makes us selves. You cannot suggest that being known as an Other is a good.[2]
So back to my most embarrassing story. I was 22, very precocious and also inept- imagine an overconfident miniature pony and you’ll get something of the idea. I had joined the Feminist Theology Affiliate Group, because honestly I don’t know why, maybe there were snacks. And as we were planning the year’s events, I suggested (and I swear this is 100% true) that we should have an event where we could bring our “other halves” to socialize together. Imagine now that I had turned into a cat and ridden a scooter in the student center, and you’ll get an idea of the esteemed faculty’s facial expression at that moment.
What I’d said was wrong at every conceivable level. The WHOLE POINT of feminist theology in the circles I swam in was that women had to liberate themselves from the expectations of care and nurture that society placed upon us in order to become fully actualized Selves. Liberation was the goal, the source of our common initiative, the reason there were snacks! And yet by positing this mutual dependence as a good I had thrown this whole project into question. I had said I was only part of a whole, and that I had only begun to know myself as I was bound to others who shared the responsibility of care for my well-being.
The languge of “other half” is clumsy and might suggest that individuals are not complete without a romantic partner. But it also suggests that mutual dependence is a good. The older I get the more I think that the entire project of identifying a self that is separable from its identity as an Other is a bad idea. Americans now feel lonely at a higher rate than ever before documented. Perhaps it is because they have been told that they alone and their desires and success and aspirations are the point of the story that they are living out.
But back to the Hobbits. These little men are hairy and stout and unprepared and they have no map and don’t know their history and they have no “plan” and they have no guide. But Sam and Merry and Pippin have bound themselves to Frodo, because they are his friends. What they do when they must do something that they can’t really do is simply go together. In Sam’s words, right before they set out:
“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours- closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid—but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.”
The only hope that Frodo has is that he’s not alone. It seems to me a good that Frodo’s “Identity” is not as a Self who is constituted without the bounds of mutuality and constraint, but as one of a team of wandering Hobbits who have a surer hope of staying alive by staying together- perhaps singing a tune and eating and sleeping at each other’s elbow. Perhaps this is all there is to any story- to be together, to belong to one another. It’s the only hope I have for these Hobbits.
[1] This is a tidy turn of phrase from the “Feminist philosophy” entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[2] Some feminists do read the situation this way; if you want to know more, reply and I can send you some things to read. You can also read Leah Libresco Sargeant’s substack, which you can find here.
I read your piece in CT the other day - just wonderful! (Also, regarding your footnote, I absolutely love Leah Libresco’s substack. I’ve found that Catholic women have some of the most unique, beautiful, and helpful thoughts on a wholistic feminism. Who knew?)
Frodo putting on the Ring on Weathertop is an unmitigated Bad Thing. It allows the Black Riders to see him (they cannot see in the ordinary world) and thus to attack him much more easily. The Ring doesn't in any way protect Frodo from the Black Riders, it reveals him to them. This is consistent with its "desire" to be returned to Sauron.