Numbers in Lord of the Rings

So, this is just a random thought I wanted to get out while it was fresh in my head today as it came about from listening to Return of the King in the car. I have this project piece that hopefully I get around to sometime in the not too distant future, but it won't be any time right soon. It will be a long piece, maybe the only real definitive thing I ever write about Tolkien's work. It will be about the "biblical mode" in his work, but it will be specifically stated as an interpretation, which is one way of approaching meaning in a text but not the only way and not a way that pins down THE meaning in a text, but that will be a lot of explaining of what is meant by "mode" and in what the "biblical mode" consists and the idea that the particular outflow of that means that a Christian meaning cannot obliterate the flavor from the other backgrounds on which Tolkien drew, cannot eclipse them, without cutting back on it's very own content (no time to elaborate, but in brief, grace does not obliterate nature; if the Christian source eclipses the others, then you're into bad allegory of the Bible rather than artistic subcreation) ... but that will all be a long story (hopefully I write it sometime before I grow old and die, as it will kind of encapsulate everything I have studied and cared to study across my life ... it won't define Tolkien's work, but it may well define the life of my mind over 25 years, from Tolkien, to biblical studies and theology).

But for here I just want to record a detail. I have mentioned in other posts and will use it for the once-and-future "Tolkien and the Biblical Mode" that Tolkien uses the number 40 as a cipher-like key to allude to a material source. Moria is 40 miles from east gate to west door, as stated by Gandalf. I believe Tolkien is borrowing from the book of Numbers, chapter 20. The people were in the wilderness for 40 years (that's actually the Hebrew name for the books, "In the Wilderness"; the Greek name in the Septuagint, Arithmoi, from which we get the English "arithmetic," refers to the two censuses taken, the first generation at the beginning of the book before they get banished to the wilderness for 40 years and not allowed in to the land and the second generation at the end of the 40 years; but the Hebrew name be-midbar means "in the wilderness" and refers to the 40 years themselves). There are a number of markers. First, there is an inclusio (sometimes called an envelope) consisting of an opening scene in which Gandalf is told to speak to the stone (door) but instead (among other things) strikes it with his staff in anger and a second scene in which he again strikes the rock (bridge) with his staff and forfeit his entry into Lorean, the golden land. When Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it  as instructed in Numbers 20, he became symbolically connected with the first generation by suffering the same fate materially in that he was banned from entry into the land, just as the first generation was banned for failing to trust the two who said to trust the LORD for victory in Numbers 13 (hence the 40 years while the first generation reached retirement age and the second generation got old enough to be the main adults entering, led by Joshua). Another image hook is a first born son complaining "why did you bring is up here, to die in this desolate place?" Israel is called the first born son of the LORD and complains asking Moses why he brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, and Boromir, a firstborn son, asks, if Gandalf didn't know the password, why did he bring them up to this desolate place.

Now, the thing with material like that and a forecast of an essay to be called "The Biblical Mode" is to clarify that I don't think he is doing allegories of Bible stories. Material from the Bible is only one among a number of sources from which he borrows. For him personally, obviously, the Bible is very important (interesting factoid: he did a translation of the book of Job for the Old Jerusalem Bible), and ultimately it's central to the faith that was for him the only reason really to do anything, in the end, but as far as the story of the LotR itself goes, the Bible is still only one among a number of sources from which he borrows to create his own unique story. In this case, he is building the character of a leader who is not perfect but is beloved and does manage to get something done even though he has to pay a price for his shortcomings. And the story of Moses is one model he uses to do that, although there are changes. For one, while Moses's striking the rock does identify him with the first generation, it doesn't provide them entry into the land, whereas Gandalf's sacrifice on the bridge does enable his friends to enter Lorien.

(As an example of not overdoing it on the connections, while I said above that Boromir is a firstborn like Israel, I don't think it goes much further than fleshing out that image of Numbers 20 here; I don't think he's an allegory of Israel.)

So, that was all build up to say that today I heard a second use of 40 in a key place and I think for a similar reason. When Frodo and Sam make it out of the tower past the watchers and begin their trek to Mount Doom, the text describes the mount as being 40 miles away. I have always thought that among other things, the via dolorosa was a model for the trek through Mordor, including the falls ... that line actually took my breath away on one reading; Tolkien ends a chapter masterfully for that when they finally get off the road and Sam finally gets them far enough away from it to be somewhat safe in a small crater and Frodo collapses in exhaustion, and the final line of the chapter is, "and there he lay, like a dead thing." I have to watch stepping on toes, but there is a definite birth canal imagery in emerging from the tunnel in Mordor, and especially if one recalls Tolkien's comments about Galadriel and the Blessed Mother, there is definite female and mother imagery going on, for which I take the main referent to be the image of being born into this mortal coil of Mordor, into the via dolorosa (to quote Randall Jarrell's "Death of a Ball Turret Gunner": "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State / And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze / six miles from earth. loosed from its dream of life / I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters / When I died they washed out the turret with a hose").  And if the Catholic Tradition sees the 40 days of Lent as mirroring Christs 40 day's in the desert, which itself is a callback to the 40 years in the wilderness for Israel, and as also the via dolorosa, the dolorous trek to the hill of the skull to die, it makes sense to use that number again as a motif for the trek through Mordor, the march with no expectation of return, across Gorgoroth to Golgotha, to the end of all things.

I also just wanted to note  another pairing that struck me (and part of this is the hope that writing about this will make it stick in my head better for when I go to the book club I love going to down at the Abbey in Lawrenceville section of PGH, in which we are now in Two Towers ... I always feel like I've been to the Green Dragon or the Prancing Pony after one of the meetings; I want to remember this pairing for when we get to this part). The trip through Mordor has a feel very similar to the trip through the forest to Crickhollow at the beginning of Fellowship, that line put well by (I think) Pippin (but maybe Merry): "short cuts make long delays." Tolkien is a master of that style of "interesting" detours you have to take in walking through the woods. In both cases there is a pronounced need to stay off the road, and there is even a mention made when entering Mordor of escaping a black rider in those earlier woods, because that is the song that Sam sings to get through the watchers and specifically because it reminded him of that escape from the rider in the woods.

And just to track another pairing, since I am on that subject (while I don't think Tolkien does chiastic ring composition, I am becoming more convinced that he uses inclusio structure on the level of the macro organization of the whole story ... maybe not planned from the beginning, especially if you read Shippey's wonderful telling of the birth of the LotR in Author of the Century, but still doing it fully aware by the end, and on this round, with some other recent learning under my belt even since returning from NYC and CLE, I am noticing it more on this reading ... I really am greatly inspired by this reading group, which is called "The Pittsburgh Inklings" ... and the Abbey is not a library reading room with meeting chairs or something along those lines; it's a bar/eatery that used to be a mortuary, and so it has all kinds of different seating, from the coffee shop and front bar back up around the loop to the back bar area, all dark wood interior, so it feels like being in a place like the Eagle and Child, and the big patio in warm weather, and not down at the ass-end of some super-mall parking area or manufactured "village" shopping area, but in a real city section, by all those tight streets and quaint ancient row houses of lower Lawrenceville with people walking by on the sidewalk outside ... I always try to exercise some in the day before going down, as their burger is delicious but I'm sure a lot of calories, and with the ever-changing import/craft selection on the taps, there's that too) ... anyway, the pairing is that I think the image of Gollum as almost an affectionate old Hobbit reaching out to touch sleeping Frodo gently near the end of Two Towers is meant to pair off against the flash of Bilbo as a greedy little monster in Fellowship.

Addendum: This was running through my head in bed after writing this: Randall Jarrell's "Death of a Ball Turret Gunner" actually has some strong imagery resonances, such as that of being born and waking, Frodo's waking from dreams in the tower (like the big guy in the original Blade Runner says: "Wake up, time to die") and the nightmare fighters, the nazgul, circling over-head and perching on the gate.