From: jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey)
Subject: Re: An Apology (was Re: Eowyn)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 01:41:07 GMT

In article <watson.724561036@space.sce.carleton.ca> watson@sce.carleton.ca (Stephen Watson) writes:

>Provoked by Jim's expression of annoyance with me, I have reviewed the
>unexpired (~3 days) portion of the Racism and Eowyn threads to try and
>get the drift of the arguments.  There appears to be a continuum of
>views (I'm somewhere in the middle), from those who don't see ANY
>problem, to Jim, who seems to see LOTR as fraught with racism and
>sexism to a fairly high level.

	As I said in a letter to Stephen, I strongly disagree with this 
characterization of my views.  First of all, I think that using the
terms "racism" and "sexism" when talking about the representation of race
gender in LOTR is _extremely_ problematic. Those words are modern words
with a distinct perjorative bent--  and they were not really in common
usage during the time LOTR was written.  (The word "sexism," in fact, didn't
even _exist_ until 1968 if we are to trust the OED.)  I have tried to avoid
using those words in my postings, and when I have used them, I have almost
always remembered to place them in quotation marks.
	Secondly, I do not think that there's any truth in the implication 
I have been talking about race and gender in LOTR as if I thought it were
a _problem_ that marred the work. If I think of Tolkien's use of race and 
gender as "problems," I think of them as "problems to be figured out"--  more 
like "puzzles to be solved."  I've been trying to delineate what I see to be 
the racial and gender structures of LOTR and to to suggest their signficances.
And no point have I ever said that I thought this to be a grave "problem"
that makes the book less enjoyable or more "dangerous", and I really have no
idea why so many people seem to think that I have.  Perhaps the presence of
"racism" and "sexism" in LOTR is more of a "problem" to them than it is to me.



>Jim: My main disagreement with you is that (IM-very-HO), you read too
>much into the text (and I am not alone in this view).  I attempted to
>give an example of this in the latter (and more rational) part of my
>post, which I note you have not (yet) attempted to dispute (and the
>text of which I am unable to retrieve for inclusion at this point
>without a great deal of trouble. Sorry ;-( )

	Here it is:


>>Here, I think Jim overstates the case.  Here is the dialog (abridged):
>>
>>[dialog between Eowyn and Faramir deleted]
>>
>>
>>The War is over: she did a great deed, and got the credit for it. And
>>now, she'd like to do something different.  Changing your plans
>>because circumstances change, and because your experience has changed
>>*you*, is NOT the same as saying your first actions were a mistake.  If
>>JRRT had really wanted to say "Women should be barefoot, pregnant, and
>>in the kitchen", then either he'd never have created the Eowyn
>>character (he'd have to find some other way of finishing off the Ring
>>Wraith), or she'd have come to a bad end.

	You're right, I did overstate the case when I said that the
message conveyed by Eowyn's change of action at the end of the War sends
the message that her challenge to the gender roles of LOTR was a "mistake."
However, I don't think that we can simply say that she was a fighter for a
while, but now "she'd like to do something different."  There's more to it
than that.  For Eowyn, the decision to ride off to battle, in spite of 
whatever other psychological motivations her character may have had was,
at the same time, a very palpable challenge to the gender roles of the story.
In previous posts I've pointed out Eowyn's comment to Aragorn:  "All your 
words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house.  But 
when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in
the house, for the men will need it no more."  Her character quite clearly 
sees that Middle-earth is a world where fighting battles is the men's role 
and taking care of the house the women's.  During the war, she expresses great
displeasure at being stuck with "women's role," and instead disguises her
sex and takes up the "man's role."  After the war, quits playing the 
man's role and states that she thinks she would be content playing a role
that is traditionally a woman's role.
	You point out the fact that Tolkien didn't _have_ to create a female
character who challenged the system of gender roles in LOTR.  That's true--
he didn't.  And he could have had meet her end in a variety of way by death
and battle--  but he doesn't. And I think that that's all the more revealing
about Tolkien's handling of gender.  He creates a character who occupies
a feminine role, which she refuses to conform to.  She then takes on a 
masculine role for a while, but in the end, she renounces that role in favor 
of a more traditionally feminine one. The story of Eowyn is the story of
a woman who makes a temporary challenge to the status quo of gender, only
to rescind that challenge and accept a traditionally female role at the 
end.  Her withdrawl of this challenge (i.e. her decision to cease fighting
and start acting like other female characters), furthermore, is generally 
presented as a "good" thing.  I think this is signficant.  Instead of not  
creating Eowyn or having her die in battle (i.e.like a man)--  he keeps her 
around to the end of the war so that she can start acting once again in the 
way a female characters are supposed to act.



	--  Jim C. <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>