Episode 256 Summary

[Tony Meade]

SESSION 256

A silent shrouded world:

• There is a sense of peacefulness in the description, while retaining a threatening quality.
• Since snow muffles sound, it would be expected that the morning would be extremely quiet.
• The use of the word “shroud” is used metaphorically, though it literally means a covering for a dead body, and in that sense, the ground under the snow is compared to a wrapped corpse.
• So, while the quiet is caused literally by the snow, it is also quiet in the way a funeral is silent.
• It is notable that no one’s point of view is mentioned in the initial description, like the hobbits.
• The use of “deeps” emphasizes the irregularity of the landscape, as snow usually smooths out those variations, and in this case, they seem to have received over three feet of snow here.
• By calling their location a “refuge”, in emphasizes that it is like an island in the sea of snow.
• It’s important that their focus is on the way that they have taken up, in order to escape.
• Gimli picks up on the feeling of the death shroud and declares the malicious intent of the snow.
• For him, there is no more question about the identity of their attacker as Caradhras, even though Gandalf had left open the possibility that there was an alliance with Sauron in play.
• Gimli leans on the stories his people have told about the Mountains of Moria as the explanation.
• Whether there is any connection between Caradhras and either Sauron or Saruman is left open.
• Since Elladan and Elrohir had passed over Caradhras in both directions only a few weeks before, so it doesn’t seem like this is done at all times, and therefore a special effort is being made now.

Caradhras has not forgiven:

• There is also a possibility that the presence of the Ring may play a part in these circumstances.
• Note: A similar phenomenon will be noted later with the Watcher in the Water outside Moria.
• There seems to be a pattern of evil creatures being drawn to Frodo because of the Ring making them unusually active, such as Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wights, and he notices this.
• Frodo had already understood that he would be drawing evil toward him as he left the Shire.
• It’s possible that Caradhras has sensed the presence of another power entering his domain.
• Gimli’s use of “forgiveness” implies that the Company has offended him in some way and that his wrath has not been expended, though there is an ominous note in what he has in store.
• What they have encountered until now seems to have been only a warning of what may come.
• There is some bravado in Gimli’s use of “fling”, while still acknowledging Caradhras’ power.
• Note: Gimli’s use of the three names of each of the Mountains of Moria is one of the places where Tolkien allows the reader to start to make connections between English, Elvish, and Dwarvish languages, and to begin to translate Sindarin and Khuzdul to the Westron.

Might well prove impossible:

• The narration has become more detached from the experience, but there is a shift from the past tense to the present tense at the beginning of the third paragraph, shifting the point of view.
• This brings it down to a hobbit perspective with the snow so heavy it is outside their experience.
• By not using present perfect tense, this leaves the outcome in question at this point in the story.
• While not creating true suspense, since at least one of them would have had to survive the journey in order to write this passage down, as we know all along the narrator is not omniscient.
• Tolkien prompts us to think about the narrator at several places and is very interested in the transmission of the story from firsthand accounts into the text that we have to read now.
• There have been many mechanisms used to transmit to us the characters’ thoughts and feelings, though this may be the most direct by removing it from any particular character.
• Snow at this relative depth is an intimidating experience and is so for the hobbits here, and this is the only allusion to their subjective experience in this situation and the problems it creates.
• Note: The one narrator figure that is usually unacknowledged is the modern translator, who acts as a mediator of the text to the modern audience and is most obvious in interventions such as the mention of freight trains as a comparison earlier. It’s possible that the unusual use of tense and lack of subjective experience here is due to an addition or change by the modern narrator.
• It’s possible that a translator is staying too close to the original Westron for English grammar.
• The move into passive voice places the snow itself as the inanimate subject of the sentence and deemphasizes the wind as the active force in order to focus on what has happened to the snow.
• This also helps creates an air of mystery as to the source of the action that is being observed.
• In this case, it allows us to imagine Caradhras looming in the background as the origin of all this.
• There is also a question as to what might wait at the bottom of the mountain if they go back.

END OF SESSION