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Descartes’s view of animals as inanimate objects comes from his theory on the
separation between the mind and the body. According to his theory, the body belongs to the material world, while the mind belongs to the immaterial. Descartes argues that
animals do not feel and think as humans do. Since he thinks animals and plants cannot speak or think “rationally”, they do not have souls and are not only different from
humans but also similar to machines or inanimate objects. The subjugation of animals
and nature is somehow justified once they are objectified and viewed as distinctively separated from us in the Cartesian dualism. Descartes’s insistence on the dualistic
view of the world also leaves a strong impact on the Enlightenment and modern age.
The Cartesian view of the animals is coined as “anthropodenial” by primatologist Frans de Waal. According to him, the denial of animals’ feeling is “a blindness to the
human-like characteristics of other animals, or the animal-like characteristics of ourselves” (de Waal, “Are We in Anthropodenial?”). By denying the similarities
between human and nonhuman, the exploitation of the nonhuman is somehow justified.
3.4 Nature and Women as the Other
In LotR, the exploitation of nature under the ideology of human and nonhuman dichotomy is vividly portrayed in the suffering of the Old Forest and the Fangorn
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Forest. The mistreatment that the Old Forest has been through is voiced through Tom Bombadil when he relates the tales of the Old Forest to the hobbits. According to
Bombadil, the hearts and thoughts of the trees in the Old Forest are full of hatred.
Men and hobbits are called as “destroyers” and “usurpers” by the trees. The trees’
hatred of them is not without reason. In the First Age, the Old Forest was part of an immense forest that was connected with the Fangorn Forest. However, the forest suffered burning and deforestation and became smaller and smaller. Eventually, very few of the forest survived, and Fangorn and the Old Forest are the only remains of the
original forest. Moreover, the Bucklanders also burned and cut down the trees of the Old Forest since they feel the trees are “attacking” them. The Bucklanders divide the
boundary between the forest and themselves strictly. They feel “attacked” because
they see the forest as the Other, something that is separate from them.
As the Bucklanders’ treatment of the Old Forest shows, the oppressive power in
LotR is not only exerted by Sauron and Saruman but also by the Free Peoples.
However, Saruman’s relationship with the Fangorn Forest is far more exploitive and
violent than the Free Peoples. According to Treebeard, Saruman and the Orcs deforest and oppress the Fangorn Forest “without even the bad excuse of feeding the fire”
(Tolkien, The Two Towers 485). The hobbits burned and felled the trees of the Old Forest because they felt threatened. On the other hand, Saruman and the Orcs destroy
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the trees of the Fangorn Forest without restraint and in an arbitrary way. In this respect, Saruman and the hobbits’ views of the trees are distinctly different. The
hobbits are aware of the subjectivity of the Old Forest and feel that the trees are somehow “awake” and hostile to them, while Saruman sees the Fangorn forest as a
silent object and resource for him to utilize.
The way Saruman treats the Fangorn Forest shows how nature is often
perceived as an object in the human world. This anthropocentric view of the world is not very different from Descartes’s dualism of nonhuman and human. Not only is
nature being objectified as soulless material, but animals are also seen as mindless machines. Under Cartesian dualism and anthropocentrism, everything that is not human is marginalized and seen as the Other. The ruthless deforestation of the Fangorn Forest is thus one of the reflections of the human marginalization and exploitation of nature.
The relationship between human and nature somehow echoes the relationship within human society. For instance, women are also marginalized and objectified by the similar dualistic ideology. Weronika Łaszkiewicz argues that “the world of
Middle-earth is one of male dominance and patriarchal societies, in which women are scarcely present” (“J.R.R. Tolkien’s Portrayal of Femininity”). Indeed, there are very
few female characters in LotR, and most of them are associated with the domestic
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space. The first important female character that appears in the story is Goldberry, the
“daughter of River” and wife of Tom Bombadil. Both Bombadil and Goldberry are
natural spirits in the Old Forest, yet Goldberry is only seen in the house of Bombadil.
Though possessing the great power to control water, Goldberry’s image overlapped
with most ordinary house-wives. Her role in the story is waiting for Bombadil at
home and preparing the meals for the hobbits.Another female character that plays a similar role to Goldberry is Elrond’s daughter, Arwen. Like Goldberry, Arwen mostly
appears in the domestic space. She lived with her grandparents in Lothlórien in her younger days and later moved to Rivendell to live with her father. After she is married to Aragon, she lived in Gondor with her husband. In the passages that portray Arwen, we are told of her physical beauty but never get a glimpse of her thoughts in the story.
As one of the few female characters in LotR, her own story and voice seems distant
and can only be heard through Aragon. Moreover, her main role in the story is to serve as Aragon’s motivation. She represents the traditional feminine role that is
connected with sacrificing and caring as she sacrifices her immortality to stay with Aragon in the Middle-earth. In some way, Goldberry and Arwen are similar to the maiden in waiting in the chivalric romance. They exist silently in the story as their male counterpart’s motivation. They are objectified in a way that their existences are
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defined by their relationships with male characters rather than their individual subjectivities and free will.
In LotR, even the Entwives are related to the domestic. The Entwives are the long-lost wives of the Ents. While the Ents love the great trees, wild woods, and high hills, the Entwives prefer smaller plants such as flowers and herbs. Moreover, the Entwives desired order and peace, so they made gardens to live in while the Ents went on wandering (Tolkien, The Two Towers 476). Even with nonhuman characters, gender dichotomy can still be applied to them. Therefore, the Ents are somehow associated with wild nature, and the Entwives are associated with domestic nature.
The difference between the Ents and Entwives also reflects the strict separation of the social spheres of men and women.
Galadriel was one of the most powerful figures in the Middle-earth. She was one of the leaders in the rebellion of Noldor when the elves fled from Valinor to the Middle-earth. In the Middle-earth, she rules Lothlórien with her husband, Celeborn.
Unlike most female characters in LotR, she has the power and freedom to take part in public affairs. Galadriel’s power allows her to challenge traditional gender dichotomy
and the separation of the social sphere. However, her power also makes her seem dangerous and untrustworthy in the eyes of men.
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Galadriel’s social status and power transgresses the traditional social
expectation of fixed gender roles. As a result, she is often called “the Sorceress of the Golden Wood” (Tolkien, The Two Towers 514) or the Elf witch. Even her physical
appearance becomes a reason that makes her seem untrustworthy. For example, when
Gimli describes the beauty of Galadriel, Faramir replies that the lady of the Lothlórien must be “perilously fair” (Tolkien, The Two Towers 680). Although Galadriel is a
strong and very helpful ally to the Ring Company, her image is often overlapped with the witch image, and her power – which is uncommon among female characters in LotR – is the exact reason that makes her seem dangerous.
The witch image, in this case, is a result of the fear of the unknown. Since the social sphere and gender roles of men and women were strictly separated, the ones
who transgress the social standard become something that is unknown and threatening to the current function of the society. In “A Feminist Perspective on the History of Women as Witches”, Maggie Rosen argues:
The witch image is used to reinforce gender inequality and marginalize women who push back against our patriarchal society […] Powerful women and/or
women who transgressed the boundaries of the gender binary were seen as an evil. (Rosen 21-24)
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The witch stereotype is therefore used to demonize women who tried to enter a predominantly male space. Galadriel’s power and social status somehow make her a
transgressive woman and an unknown Other in that she is a woman who moves from the margin to the center and escapes from the domestic to the public. The witch image also reflects two sides of Galadriel. She is the demonized witch because she
transgresses the social structure, but she is also a powerful witch in the sense that witch also symbolizes freedom, autonomy, and independent female power.
Another female character that challenges the gender dualism in LotR is É owyn.
Unlike Galadriel, she was not allowed to leave the domestic sphere and to defend her own country as she wishes. As a daughter of the Kings of Rohan, she was skilled in swords and had a desire to protect her country and win glory like her brother.
However, her place was with the domestic space and not the battlefield since she is a woman. Gandalf observes her misery and explains it to her brother, É omer:
My friend, you had horses, and deed of arms, and the free fields; but she, being
born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours.
[…] But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches
of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in? (Tolkien, The Return of the King 867)
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The strict separation of gender roles is the root of Éowyn’s misery. In her
conversation with Aragon, she also expresses her fear of the inability to control her own fate. When he refused to let her join the army, she replied that all she wants is to
spend her life as she will. She told him, “your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house” (Tolkien, The Return of the King 784). Her words
demonstrate how women are marginalized and objectified by gender dualism as the
strict separation of gender roles reduces people to their functional roles. Just as the trees in the Fangorn Forest are treated as passive resources, women like Éowyn’s are
also being objectified in a way that they are denied the freedom to act out their
subjectivity. The domestic sphere becomes a space of confinement that É owyn desires to escape from. She told Aragon, what she fears is “a cage” and the fate “to stay
behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire” (Tolkien, The Return of the King 784).
Thus, É owyn experiences alienation from her social role. Eventually, she decided to secretly join the army of Rohan by dressed up as a knight. However, her
action is a disruption to the social structure. When her real identity is revealed on the battlefield, even her brother exclaims: “Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this?” (Tolkien, The Return of the King 784). At that moment, she
becomes an Other, a transgressor of the social code. Like Galadriel, her Otherness
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comes from her disruption of the gender dichotomy and the action of entering the predominately male space.
Nevertheless, gender dualism also oppresses men. Faramir, for instance, is
emotionally abused by his father because his personality does not fit into the
traditional standard of “masculinity”. The alienation occurs when the Self is at odds
with the traditional definition of their social roles. In this sense, Faramir experiences similar alienation with É owyn. Unlike his brother, Boromir, Faramir does not take pleasure in fighting and seeking glory on the battlefield. Instead, he is modest and full
of compassion. However, his merciful nature makes him look less brave and manly in his father’s eyes. Faramir is somehow marginalized and silenced since his father puts
all his attention on his brother, Boromir.
3.5 The Desire of Domination as a Force of Marginalization