SwallowedUpInVictory
Member
As Corey said it is not understandable from a narrative perspective why Tolkien put so much effort and focus on this minor story line. It would have been easier to keep Miriel and Indis the same person and have the brothers conflict built up differently. Tolkien must have found it very important to resolve the remariage conflict. He was so interested into the resolution of remariage that it was for him maybe even worth it to leave the publication of the Silmarillion for his son.
I think the reason must lie in the author's personal life rather than in his fiction.
I believe that his friend Lewis marrying a divorced woman had an important part in it. The civil wedding was 1956 and they got married by the church of England one year later. Tolkien being a devout catholic disapproved of this marriage and it cooled down their friendship immensely according to Carpenter and I think in of Tolkiens letters. Those years are also the time when Tolkien started to write about Finwe and Miriel. I don't think that this is a coincidence.
I can read Of Finwe and Miriel as a response on this. Probably Tolkien wanted to talk Lewis out of this but knew that Lewis was unbeatable in spontaneous theological arguments, so Tolkien sat down and started to write an argumentation but what came out was not as useful as he wished and in the end he put it into his world of fairy which also can convey thruths.
Maybe Tolkien wanted to resolve an inner conflict by writing down this argumentation. Are the doctrines of his church right or do the feelings of his friend suffice to make remarriage rightful.
Another important change of his personal life in those years was the announcement of the Second Vatican Council. According to one of his letters Tolkien was afraid of the progressive changes in his church due to this important Synode in the Catholic Church. The astonishing announcement was 1959. Tolkien's friends from the oratory must have been talking about this days in and days out. The agenda was basically to make the everlasting doctrins more applicable in a modern globalized world. Discussions were for example on marriage, sexuality and contraception, religious liberty. How is ecclesiastic pastoral applicable in a fallen world?
That is basically the same discussion that the Valar have in Morgoth's Ring and when I read that passage the other day it reminded me so much of Bishops and Cardinals giving there different points of view and and charismas on a subject in order to find a consensus and publish a document of the second Vaticanum.
So the story of Finwe and Miriel was maybe a personal treat on catholic doctrins vs catholic reality.
Both incidents (remarriage of Lewis and 2nd Vatican Council) were personally very important to Tolkien and therefore might have been the reason why he couldn't just jump over remarriage.
P. S. His son Christopher got divorced as well but that was in the 60s so unless CT did not misinterpret the time of writing of Finwe and Miriel, this did not influence Tolkien by the time
I think the reason must lie in the author's personal life rather than in his fiction.
I believe that his friend Lewis marrying a divorced woman had an important part in it. The civil wedding was 1956 and they got married by the church of England one year later. Tolkien being a devout catholic disapproved of this marriage and it cooled down their friendship immensely according to Carpenter and I think in of Tolkiens letters. Those years are also the time when Tolkien started to write about Finwe and Miriel. I don't think that this is a coincidence.
I can read Of Finwe and Miriel as a response on this. Probably Tolkien wanted to talk Lewis out of this but knew that Lewis was unbeatable in spontaneous theological arguments, so Tolkien sat down and started to write an argumentation but what came out was not as useful as he wished and in the end he put it into his world of fairy which also can convey thruths.
Maybe Tolkien wanted to resolve an inner conflict by writing down this argumentation. Are the doctrines of his church right or do the feelings of his friend suffice to make remarriage rightful.
Another important change of his personal life in those years was the announcement of the Second Vatican Council. According to one of his letters Tolkien was afraid of the progressive changes in his church due to this important Synode in the Catholic Church. The astonishing announcement was 1959. Tolkien's friends from the oratory must have been talking about this days in and days out. The agenda was basically to make the everlasting doctrins more applicable in a modern globalized world. Discussions were for example on marriage, sexuality and contraception, religious liberty. How is ecclesiastic pastoral applicable in a fallen world?
That is basically the same discussion that the Valar have in Morgoth's Ring and when I read that passage the other day it reminded me so much of Bishops and Cardinals giving there different points of view and and charismas on a subject in order to find a consensus and publish a document of the second Vaticanum.
So the story of Finwe and Miriel was maybe a personal treat on catholic doctrins vs catholic reality.
Both incidents (remarriage of Lewis and 2nd Vatican Council) were personally very important to Tolkien and therefore might have been the reason why he couldn't just jump over remarriage.
P. S. His son Christopher got divorced as well but that was in the 60s so unless CT did not misinterpret the time of writing of Finwe and Miriel, this did not influence Tolkien by the time