A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. In his lap lay Frodo's head, drowned in sleep upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. “And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. "He was given that name by kind Master Samwise, the hobbit that knows so much.” "Smeagol has to take what's given to him," answered Gollum. "It's unwise, whether they are true or false." "Don't take names to yourself, Smeagol," Frodo said. "No food, no rest, nothing for Smeagol," said Gollum. "Sneaking," said Gollum, and the green glint did not leave his eyes. Frodo, he's that tired, I asked him to have a wink and well, that's how it is. And I shouldn't have been sleeping, and that made me sharp. "I'm sorry, but you startled me out of my sleep. Sam felt a little remorseful, but not yet trustful. Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice." Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they saw sneak, sneak. The division between duty and desire is as destructive for ordinary folk as it is for mighty villains, and the consequences just as far-reaching.“Hobbits always so polite, yes! O nice hobbits! Smeagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find. His pathetic obsession with his “precious” nearly causes Middle Earth to fall into the hands of Sauron, revealing how even one divided soul manifests the sins of the whole world. But petty corruption is not a lesser sin. Most of us have little inclination to dominate the cosmos like Sauron rather, like Gollum, we merely corrupt our mundane realities. He is an ordinary sinner, like you and me, characterized by small virtues and petty vices. Through Gollum’s divided soul we identify the blessing of love and the curse of rejection in the space between duty and desire. To address this question, we turn to The Lord of the Rings, which contains an overt examination of the divided soul in Gollum, formerly Smeagol, whose internal division is so stark that the warring parts of his personality have different names. The pre-eminence of love raises the question: what has love to do with the divided soul (which is ostensibly the topic of this column)? Love is the dividing line of every enduring story. And it is this that undergirds everything.Įvery stream of knowledge throughout time and place acknowledges the fundamental necessity of love for human well-being. Like most children I was, despite the yet unknown frailties of my parents, beloved. More often, however, love was as unconscious as air. On the other hand, my father was undeniably superior in the essential matters of jokes, tickles, patience, and asking “who’s there” whenever I felt the urge to query “knock-knock.” I puzzled over the question until I gave up, climbed into my father’s lap, and snuggled into his chest while he wrapped his arms around me. On my mother’s side were the salient points that she was-like me-a girl, that she had soft hands, and that she was shortly to provide me with a baby brother. My first conscious memory of love is an interior debate I carried on with myself at the age of four on the subject of which parent I loved most. Gollum in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films, played by Andy Serkis
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