Tolkien and Masculinity

"Toxic," effeminate or chivalrous?

What is a man? People today find it difficult to answer the question, What is a woman? But how many could even answer the related question, What is a man? For modern psychologists and those influenced by them (which is practically everyone), “masculinity” and “femininity” are not directly equivalent or applicable to “man” and “woman.” One can just as well be a feminine man or masculine woman, “identifying” contrary to one’s biological sex and then trying, through clothing, cosmetics, pronouns and even surgery, to conform one’s body and appearance to this subjective identity. While this attempt is itself disordered, it also unintentionally reveals something: masculinity is intrinsically associated with being a man and femininity with being a woman.

What does this question have to do with Tolkien? As a traditional Catholic, not merely a “product of his time” but a product of the Truth which is universal and perennial, Tolkien believed what most people clearly recognized before the proliferation of feminism, psychologism and transgenderism in modern times: the body is something received as a gift from God and forming one integral person in union with the soul.[1] Therefore, the sex of one’s body is determined by God and perfectly suited to one’s soul; it is not something to be bulldozed and rebuilt according to the mechanistic mentality of the Industrial Age.

In this light, Tolkien knew that men and women are inherently distinct both in body and mind, while still being equal in their shared human nature, and that these distinctions are expressed as masculinity and femininity. How each is represented in individual men and women varies, of course, and what determines their precise forms depends on culture and changing fashions – but the distinction will always exist and thus should be upheld as an immutable principle. As Tolkien wrote, in a footnote to his explanation of the preexistence of the Music of the Ainur in the mind of Ilúvatar:

It is the view of the Myth that in (say) Elves and Men ‘sex’ is only an expression in physical or biological terms of a difference of nature in the ‘spirit’, not the ultimate cause of the difference between femininity and masculinity.[2]

Tolkien shows this distinction in his stories while also corroborating them in his nonfiction writings. I will address the question of femininity (and marriage) in a future post – for now, I would like to focus on Tolkien’s portrayal of men and masculinity.

For Tolkien, as a reasonable man and a devout Catholic, a man is properly a father, just as a woman is properly a mother. Even for men who never (physically) beget children or covenant a marriage, they remain called to fatherhood in one form or another. For this reason, the men in Tolkien’s legendarium can be judged as men according to their fatherly virtues – including those, like Bilbo, Frodo and Gandalf, who are effectively celibate. From the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, the first man, Adam, was a father, the father of all mankind. As a father, he was charged by God his Father and “the Father of All”,[3] “Of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named”, (Eph 3:15) and his King with the priestly mission “to till and to guard” the Garden, blessing all of Creation with the peace of Eden and protecting it from any threat.[4]

Adam was then given a wife, taken from his side, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains, “to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither ‘use authority over man,’ and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man's contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet.”[5] However, Adam failed in his fatherly mission, allowing Eve to be seduced in his presence and then joining her in original sin, so that both were cast out of Eden.[6] Now, the sons of Adam must work “by the sweat of their brow” to fulfill their original duties of tilling and guarding while their sexual relationships and interior control over their passions are distorted by the “hard spirit of concupiscence” which “has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell.”[7]

The fatherly virtues of a man extend from the original duties of Adam, to cultivate the earth and to defend the world, those entrusted to his care and ultimately himself against the evils of Satan and sin. Throughout history and today, men are thus tasked with the twin responsibilities of providing and protecting, both of which also involve the leadership and authority which makes a man the head or king of his family, as well as the self-sacrifice, moral example and instruction of a priest and a prophet. Adam possessed these traits prototypically, but they were truly fulfilled in the three munera or offices of Jesus Christ, the new Adam and the perfect Son of Man, as priest, prophet and king.

Tolkien shows this dual nature of masculinity, of original and fallen fatherhood, in many of the male protagonists of his legendarium. I would like to focus, though, on two in particular: Boromir and Gríma Wormtongue.

It could be said without much argument that Boromir was the most famous man of his time. From his great leadership abilities to his heroic acts of self-sacrifice in defense of his homeland alongside his fellow soldiers of Gondor, Boromir was a true man of honor, doing whatever was required of him to guard those entrusted to his care and providing them an example of integrity, valor and courage. For this reason, Boromir’s father Denethor, the Steward of Gondor whose talents lay more in intellectual knowledge than in battle, believed his people to be doomed to destruction by Sauron upon learning of Boromir’s death,[8] while other men, such as Éomer, expressed a similar sorrow.[9]

The failures of a man can be judged by how he lacks in the fatherly virtues of being the priest, prophet and king of his loved ones. Boromir, like his father, thought little of wisdom, but while Denethor confused wisdom with mere accumulated knowledge, Boromir valued strength of arms above both. In this way, he lacked in the office of prophet – not due to simple ignorance, which has never hindered a man from being a good father, but from the foolishness which results from a lack of wisdom and leads to making imprudent and even malicious choices. Ultimately, Boromir attempted to steal the One Ring from its appointed bearer, Frodo, in order to use it as an evil means justified by the good end of protecting Gondor and defeating Sauron. By contrast, Éomer and Faramir, both of whom shared many traits with Boromir, chose to obey the higher wisdom of doing what is right, even against the wishes of their human ruler (Théoden and Denethor, respectively), following St. Peter’s principle that “[w]e ought to obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5:29) and thus retaining their full honor.

Nevertheless, despite this grave mistake, Boromir redeemed himself, proving his manly virtue and heroism by giving up his life, as a kind of priestly sacrifice, to protect Merry and Pippin. Though they were captured anyways, and so in worldly terms Boromir was a failure, in truth he corrected his betrayal of Frodo, whom he had been charged with protecting. Through his service to the Fellowship, he also gained the humility to recognize Aragorn – Tolkien’s primary typological representative of the kingship of Christ in Middle-earth, as my Missio Dei colleague Joseph Tuttle has argued in his excellent article – as his true king, being “satisfied of that claim” according to Frodo.[10] This submission of a man’s royal office to the true King is the highest fulfillment of masculine virtue: Christian men are thus called to be kings in knightly featly to the King of kings, priests in a diaconal role to the ministerial priesthood of the Church which acts in the Person of Christ the High Priest, and prophets of the wisdom who is the Word of God, conforming their lives to His truth as given through the Church.

C.S. Lewis, in his essay, “The Necessity of Chivalry,” which should be required reading for every man (and every parent of sons), identified one of the greatest contributions of medieval Christendom as the virtue of chivalry, which he described as the harmonious balance between gentleness towards loved ones and ferocity towards enemies. Through chivalry, the best medieval knights were able to go to battle against the foes of Christendom and perform legendary feats of valor and gallantry, only to return home and write poetry, uphold courtly manners, be modest and respectful towards women and fervently pious in religious devotion, all while giving merciful quarter in battle and maintaining strict discipline at home. As Lewis explained, this was not a kind of two-faced hypocrisy or even a “happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.” This chivalrous ideal is represented by few men, whether today, in history or even in Middle-earth, as most tend to exaggerate one or the other quality; attaining the ideal balance requires rigorous training. But it is a uniquely Christian achievement not found in even the greatest heroes of Antiquity, one which is evident in Boromir and which forms the highest ideal for any man:

The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.[11]

Every man from boyhood wants to be a hero, a chivalrous knight in service to a king and a cause greater than himself, to give himself to save others and to vanquish evil. It takes some time for boys to realize that this can also be done by wisdom and moral virtue even if one lacks in martial strength – or chooses to forgo it altogether, as do priests and religious – and it is the duty of parents to discern the aptitudes and weaknesses of their sons, encouraging their God-given gifts and helping them learn how to compensate for and correct what is lacking while also accepting their unique, individual vocation in life. Tolkien gave a supreme example of this ‘higher’ heroism in the character of Frodo, who “‘failed’ as a hero” according to his task of destroying the Ring but succeeded morally by exhibiting pity and mercy, for which God rewarded him.[12] Even so, all men, regardless of their vocation, should strive after Lewis’s chivalrous ideal, one which, as he observed, is today rejected both by the “‘liberal’ or ‘enlightened’ tradition which regards the combative side of man's nature as a pure, atavistic evil, and scouts the chivalrous sentiment as part of the ‘false glamour’ of war” and by the “neo-heroic tradition which scouts the chivalrous sentiment as a weak sentimentality, which would raise from its grave (its shallow and unquiet grave!) the pre-Christian ferocity of Achilles by a ‘modern invocation’.”[13]

Fabio Leone, “Grima son of Galmod”: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Category:Images_by_Fabio_Leone#/media/File:Fabio_Leone_-_Grima_son_of_Galmod.png

Unfortunately, in Middle-earth, Gríma Wormtongue lacked this formation in chivalry, for whatever reason. Despite growing up in Rohan, where kingly strength and priestly self-sacrifice were prized far above prophetic wisdom, Gríma preferred the latter and wholly eschewed the others. He thus fell into the effeminacy which is characteristic of modern man in “developed” nations where Lewis’s “liberal” rejection of chivalry is standard and used to beat masculinity out of men from their youth, to make them ashamed of being men (just as feminism makes women ashamed of being women), to be what Lewis elsewhere called “men without chests”. This could go some ways in explaining why many, though not all, of the men in Peter Jackson’s adaptations were less masculine than the originals in the book, or else were painted as barbaric in the “neo-heroic” form Lewis described (e.g. Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn and his “masculine wars”).

In this vein, one of the terms commonly applied to men today is “toxic masculinity,” for which Boromir would be the most likely candidate in The Lord of the Rings. This term, however, derives from the standard “liberal” notion of masculinity and regards men as such to be a generally negative force in the world, amenable only if they can be feminized. The truth is that masculinity is good in itself, as is femininity, but both are, in this fallen world, liable to corruption; for masculinity, this takes one of the two forms described by Lewis, whereas chivalry is the true fulfillment and perfection – not ‘correction’ – of masculinity. Gríma is an example of the “liberal” corruption, and Boromir could be given as an example of the “neo-heroic” corruption, though perhaps other, less noble alternatives could be found, such as the barbaric warriors of Dunland, Rhûn and Harad who only valued strength of arms without any concern for mercy or restraint.

Neither of these, however, is “toxic masculinity” but masculinity corrupted by sin. Alongside Aragorn (and Sam), Faramir is arguably the best representative of purified and ennobled chivalrous masculinity in The Lord of the Rings (especially among Men), someone with the same willingness to lead and fight as his brother but coupled with a strident adherence to principle (being unwilling to take the Ring even “if it lay by the highway”),[14] a profound sense of mercy (as towards Gollum)[15] and a deep respect for lore and prophetic wisdom (for which he earned the pejorative title “wizard’s pupil” from his father).[16] Likewise, Sam (not Faramir, as in the film) showed a truly Christian appreciation for the dignity of every human person when he reflected on the death of a Haradrim warrior: “He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace”.[17]

Gríma desired wisdom, to be a prophet like his hero Saruman, but by failing as a priest and a king, he became a mere politician, using schemes, deceits and manipulations to appease Saruman, who thus usurped Gríma’s true sovereign, Théoden. By his machinations, Théoden became similarly effete, abandoning his home to invaders and even imprisoning and finally exiling his faithful nephew Éomer. Having become unworthy of the affections of a good woman like Éowyn by his effeminacy, Gríma expected to win her as a reward for his obeisance to Saruman, a mere object to use as a prize he did not deserve. In the end, Gríma would finally rebel against his slavery and slay Saruman, though this act, like the suicide of Judas, was no longer one of love or honor but only a final display of cowardice and failure as a man.

Even in our modern classless society, where the old form of chivalry is practically (but not utterly) dead, men are still called to recover and live up to it as the highest fulfillment of their vocation, no matter what their individual calling in life may be. Examples like Boromir, Aragorn, Faramir and Éomer can inspire us, while others like Gríma and Gollum can caution us, in this heroic quest. As Lewis concludes,

Now, it seems, the people must either be chivalrous on its own resources, or else choose between the two remaining alternatives of brutality and softness... The ideal embodied in Launcelot [the greatest knight] is ‘escapism’ in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; it offers the only possible escape from a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable.[18]

(Cover image source: Donato Giancola, “Boromir in Minas Tirith”: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Category:Images_of_Boromir#/media/File:Donato_Giancola_-_Boromir_in_Minas_Tirith.jpg)

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[1] J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (eds), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2012), footnote 38. Kindle.

[2] Tolkien, Letters, letter 212; footnote 76.

[3] Tolkien, Letters, letter 156.

[4] John Bergsma, Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood (Emmaus Road, 2021).

[5] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 92, a. 3, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.

[6] Bergsma, Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood.

[7] Tolkien, Letters, letter 43.

[8] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, 2004), 812-813. Kindle.

[9] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 435.

[10] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 664.

[11] C.S. Lewis, “The Necessity of Chivalry,” in Present Concerns (New York: HarperOne, 2017), 1-5.

[12] Tolkien, Letters, letter 246.

[13] Lewis, “The Necessity of Chivalry,” 5.

[14] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 671.

[15] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 690-691.

[16] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 813.

[17] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 660.

[18] Lewis, “The Necessity of Chivalry,” 6.