Tolkien's Female Characters in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Sexism: A Modern, Ugly Beast The ancient novel Beowulf depicts the famous life of a hero by the same name. Our hero faces many foes, all of them dragons, but one stands out more than the rest. Grendel is the first monster our hero must face, and does so with bravery and honor.

Women have had many different roles in the history of European literature but have generally been restricted to the roles assigned to them in a largely patriarchal society. As a result of this society, these roles have often been powerless ones. This calls into question the constitution of a powerful woman in literature: in Beowulf, being a powerful woman means becoming the bond between families and alliances; in Lanval, power comes from assertion and control-- a powerful woman is a woman in charge. The primary difference between the representation of women in Beowulf and Lanval is that the latter transcends overarching patriarchal boundaries, and the former does not; the reason for their respective representations lies in the literary time periods in which the stories were written. From this, one can see that the introduction of romance as a central theme gave way to new representations and roles of women in predominantly heteropatriarchal English literature and gives new meaning to the analysis of stories like these.

During the medieval times, women were not seen as they are today. Although in the world today there are still those who are full of misogyny, it was much more common and intense during this time period. Women during the middle ages had specific roles assigned to them in society. These roles depended on the type of women they were, whether it be a peasant, noble woman, or an evil temptress. These roles that women have served have shown up in numerous stories from the middle ages including: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife’s Lament.

The men throughout the Old English era played a very prevailing role in society. Men were the persons in society that were portrayed as the central leaders; being in charge of their homes and representing wisdom and strength. Because the men’s role in the Old English era was so dominant, there is a vast amount of literature about them, thus allowing women to be outshined. In fact, restrictions were placed on the majority of women during this period. However, as time evolved, the roles of women also evolved. In the Old English texts, The Wife’s Lament and Beowulf, the roles of women are seen as peace weavers, motivators, cupbearers and memory keepers, compared to the women in the Middle English text, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, who now play the roles of being protective, seductive and manipulative.

Galadriel and Eowyn are two of the strongest and most notable women in Middle-Earth; however, they are being misrepresented throughout the text. There are many other notable women in The Lord of the Rings, such as Goldberry, Arwen, and Shelob, but their presence is not very consistent throughout the novel. Galadriel and Ewoyn both exhibit typically masculine qualities; however, these positive attributes are only mentioned when accompanied by sexualized accounts of their beauty. Galadriel is both wise and powerful, yet her beauty is her most prominent characteristic. Eowyn is very brave, but she is reduced to being a damsel in distress. This phenomenon can also be observed in the coverage of women’s sports within modern media, as the

Throughout the years, different forms of literature  have generally shown women as weaker than men. They have played archetypes such as the mother archetype or the lover which have traits less desirable than the roles that men would take. These archetypes tend to limit their personalities and they become characters that are solely there for inconveniencing the hero. Stereotypes for women have affected these archetypes, but throughout history many people have made efforts to change these archetypes and make them more desirable. Even though archetypes for women have been shown as weak, it has changed throughout the years.

Her choice of a partner is criticized and by the society because they felt that she could do better than marry a black man. Despite the factor that nobody likes her; the society tries to control her decisions and oppresses her for marrying from the wrong race. Frodo is the product of their union and she becomes the victim of the Bellmount’s violence and degeneration because the society put too much pressure on her mother and forcing her to abandon her daughter.

     Until recently, the role of women in literature has seemed to reflect the way they were treated in society. Women were seen as secondary to men, and their sole purpose in life was to please a man’s every desire. This is not the case in three specific literary works. The Odyssey, The Wife of Bath, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight use the actions of its women characters to greatly enhance important thematic elements. The women in each of these works use feminine psyche to persuade men to do things that men of the time would not usually do. The use of women in these literary works is very contrary to the prevailing ideals of the female and her responsibilities at the

Whether Female antagonists within fairy tales are portrayed in a positive or negative light their roles within the stories are very important if not crucial to the development of the protagonists. Karen Rowe in “Feminist and fairy tales” explains the divide between different female antagonists. Female antagonist come in all forms, Faeries, ogresses, evil queens, and evil witches step mothers and or step sisters. For the most part these characters are often divided between good and evil, or light and dark, but what is often realized, is that there isn’t much of a combination between the two groups in which an antagonist falls in between both categories. In this essay I will lay out the thematic roles of these different types of female antagonist’s portrayed within fairy tales.

In the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, there were four main groups of women: “ Queens, sorceresses, a freeman’s loyal daughter and an elfin woman and her daughters” (Anon, Introduction). As stated in the Introduction of the book, the “important events turn on decisions made by women.” Throughout the book, this quote came to represent the fact that almost all the wars/fights within the saga was caused by some action of a woman. Almost all these actions of the women in this saga was the root cause for all the wars/fights in this book. Because of this, the women are actually seen to be what is connecting all the saga’s different episodes/chapters, despite the fact the whole book revolves around King Hrolf (Anon, Introduction). So within the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, the primary role of women is steer and further progress the saga as the connecting characters.

This unit also ties in with Eowyn’s heroic opposal to societal norms for females on Middle Earth. Eowyn’s character and identity is relegated by the community and how the race of Men expect women to act. Although she understands that she is supposed to be demure and stay among other women, she is still given some power by the community. During both the encounter with the wargs, wolves of Isengard, and during the Battle of the Hornburg at Helm’s Deep, Eowyn was given power to lead the citizens, particularly women, of Rohan by two distinct men in power. She eventually goes into battle to help Gondor as her desires to fight to help society are more important than staying with the women and children to conform to society’s beliefs.

The book is a classic, the whole series is a classic. There’s common theme of heroes set in a land before technology, where swords were used to decide conflicts. There’s the air of impending doom, yet the heroic armies still ride out to defeat the antagonist. Yet, the misogynistic undertones are a tad alarming. Males are dominant throughout the whole book, but females are mentioned, only sparsely though. The main female character, Eowyn (still not a character) was poorly written in regards to female warrior-status and feminism in general. This is proven with, ¨´Eowyn, do you not love me?´ Then the heart of Eowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.¨ (Tolkien 243) This quote tells of the steward of Gondor professing his love for Eowyn. Barely two chapters ago, Eowyn was ´in love´ with Aragorn, and now she‘s head over heels for Faramir. Tolkien has internalized that woman have to fall in love, and the only practical point of Eowyn was for her to be in a small unrequited love triangle. Then this love change makes her lay down her sword, ¨I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.¨ (Tolkien 243) Eowyn helped slay the head dark Rider. Plus, all throughout the book Tolkien describes her as beautiful and stunning. This internalized misogyny causes the author to give her an

her as such and now her husband, Torvald. In the minds of her husband and father and society

Eowyn in the books is a very cold, very unhappy, character. She’s been relegated to nurse maid to a sick uncle while her brother gets to go out and fight and do all the things she wants to do. Like have a life of any kind. While her brother loves her he kind of doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on with her at all. It never even occurs to him that maybe she’s not super psyched about watching over her sickly uncle all the time. He just assumes she’s cool with it because that’s what ladies do. It’s Gandalf who points out to Eomer, later, that maybe he should have thought about what it was like for her to be cooped up in Meduseld, watching her family disintegrate and the world fall apart. That she had no less of a fierce spirit than he does, just because she’s female. In the book, Eomer has a major realization after that, that he might not really have ever known his sister. This is a bit of a running theme when it comes to Eowyn. She is also being stalked by a gross little man who is slowly poisoning her uncle’s mind and clearly expects to get her as a “reward” later. Eowyn isn’t stupid, she’s well aware of the danger she’s in and that she has basically no one to turn to if things go majorly south, especially once Eomer is banished. Her life is exactly what she most fears: a cage. She has a lot of very good reasons to feel trapped and bitter.

Fairy tales are full of tropes and stereotypes that exist from story to story, one of the main ones being the “happily ever after” ending. Most fairy tales, especially the traditional Perrault or Grimm versions, fall prey to this trope where the main goal is for the princess to find her prince, get married, and live happily ever after. Many critics, particularly feminist critics, find this trope to be problematic because of the extreme emphasis placed on marriage as women’s main, if not only, objective in life. Karen Rowe, for example, states in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, that “fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate” (342). In other words, Rowe relates the “romanticizations of marriage” portrayed in fairy tales with promotions of “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” expected of women in their everyday lives (342). However, it can be dangerous to assume that every fairy tale conforms to the singular promotion of marriage as women’s only option. While early fairy tales such as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” tend to glorify the romantic ideal of marriage, and in turn female subordination, contemporary tales and adaptations such as Brave and Frozen, are working to give women a more powerful position.