The Dreadful Duty - A Divine Summons

Zephen12

Member
Several of us had a side-conversation going on during class, so I figure I'd bring it to the fore here.

My basic point: The dread Frodo feels is a self-preservation reaction to the self-sacrificial summons of Iluvatar/the Valar.

Looking at the moments before Frodo volunteers to take the Ring, we see him torn between the options to take up the Ring or stay in comfort. We also see what seem to be two wills competing for Frodo's attention: (1) The first is a great dread which carries the weight of a pronouncement of doom. It is heavy, dangerous, and would require Frodo to act self-sacrificially. (2) The second is an overwhelming longing for rest and peace which fills Frodo's heart and would encourage Frodo to act in self-preservation.

In short, the first will FEELS bad and the second FEELS good, but there is something deeper at work.

We clearly know the first is actually the good will (with undertones of Valar/Iluvatar influence), and that the second is the bad will (having potential undertones of ring temptation). It is ironic because the fair seems foul, and the foul seems fair - but that is sometimes what the Divine feels like. This feeling of "dread duty" is one of my favorite depictions in literature - the dutiful and righteous man who, despite his own desires, sees the Good to the end.

I think C. S. Lewis sums it up best in The Screwtape Letters. For those unfamiliar, the Letters are written by a senior demon to a junior demon, advising him in the proper ways to tempt a human. The "Enemy," therefore, refers to God. The passage is: "Our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

My personal favorite depiction of this is in Les Miserables. Jean Valjean, a criminal, journeys to Arras to turn himself in to save the man who has been mistaken for himself. All along the journey, Valjean is given excuses as to why he shouldn't need to see the act through, but he is always given a way forward. His becomes joyful when an excuse arises, and his heart falls when he is shown the way forward. He does not WANT to turn himself in, but he does will to do his moral duty. This journey extends over several chapters, but I include my favorite instance down below.

I think this moral duty would also apply to Sam when he takes up the Ring. And there are other great examples (I'm thinking of the priest in The Power and the Glory). But there is definitely something very compelling about the person who does what is right EVEN if they do not want to do it and EVEN if it likely means their own demise. And, writing from a Christian perspective, I think God is well pleased by such men and women who follow the path of His Son so closely.

- - -

The excerpt from Les Miserables:

Valjean felt immense joy.

It was clear that Providence was involved. It was Providence that had broken the wheel of the tilbury and stopped him on the way. He had not given in to the first obstacle; he had just exerted all possible efforts to continue his journey; he had faithfully and scrupulously exhausted every means; he had shrunk from neither the weather nor fatigue nor expenses; there was no reason to reproach himself. If he went no step farther, it no longer concerned him. Now it was not his fault; it was not the act of his conscience but the act of Providence.

He took a breath. He breathed freely and deeply for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the iron hand that had gripped his heart for twenty hours had just relaxed.

It seemed that now God was for him, God was clearly on his side.

. . . [a woman offers him a cabriolet] . . .

This simple speech, uttered by an old woman, brought there by a boy, made the sweat stream down his back. He imagined he saw the hand from which he was just freed reappear in the shadow behind him, ready to seize him again.

. . . He shuddered. The fatal hand had closed on him again.

. . . He acknowledged an instant earlier he had felt a certain joy at not being able to go where he was heading. He examined that joy with a kind of anger, and thought it absurd. Why should he feel joy at going back? After all, he was making a journey of his own accord. Nobody was forcing him into it. And certainly, nothing could happen that he did not choose to have happen.
 
I do like your perspective. I was also reminded of Frodo's response back in Chapter Two, when he surprised even Gandalf by offering to take responsibility for the Ring.

‘I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don’t feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again. Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me. And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire. But I feel very small, and very uprooted, and well – desperate. The Enemy is so strong and terrible.’

Here again is the desire for peace, but a willingness to sacrifice that desire for the sake of others. We'll see it again on Amon Hen, when under a clear blue sky he again resolves to go on alone.
 
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