Mapping Gender in Middle-Earth
2016; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)Environmental, Ecological, and Cultural Studies
ResumoWHILE ONE MUST ALWAYS BE WARY OF IDENTIFYING AUTHORS too closely with their protagonists, J.R.R. Tolkien does seem to have shared certain affinities with Bilbo Baggins, the title character of The Hobbit: loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also liked and letters and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery (III.63). The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have always been published with accompanying maps, some drawn by Tolkien himself in a hand that might indeed (like that of the drawings that have appeared in some editions) be described as thin and spidery, though neat (others in a firmer though derivative style were drawn by his son Christopher). In the early hardbound editions of The Lord of the Rings, these maps came in black and red and folded out from inside the back covers of the books. Bilbo first sees the map of the Lonely Mountain, where the dwarves' treasure is guarded by the dragon Smaug, during the Unexpected Party held in his living room in the first chapter of The Hobbit. It affects him powerfully. He has been struggling with two conflicting influences: his hobbitish timidity, insularity, and common sense on the one hand, and his Tookish curiosity, pride, and latent yearning for adventure on the other. the wizard Gandalf spreads out the map, Bilbo's Tookish side is piqued: was getting excited and interested again, so that he forgot to keep his mouth shut. He loved maps and in his hall there hung a large one of the with all his favorite walks marked on it in red ink (I.29). Bilbo's map of the Country Round suggests one of the cultural functions of maps: the assertion of mastery over a terrain through representation. But Gandalf's map wields a different sort of power over Bilbo. This map allures him with what he does not know. Its effect is similar to the effect Marlow describes on looking at a map of the Congo in Conrad's Heart of Darkness: Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there. (70-71) It is easy--and correct, of course--to see in Marlow's infatuation the imperial impulse to master those blank spaces, to fill them in and thus control them (and their resources: Marlow expresses no illusions about the nature of imperialism). But both Marlow and Bilbo respond as well to a desire to escape the familiar and the known, not merely to expand its borders. The blank spaces offer the possibility that the world holds things as yet unexperienced, even unimagined. Many of the adventures of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will in fact take place in or under such mysterious on the maps: woods, secret caverns, hidden valleys. Even as they locate these places, the maps conceal rather than reveal their nature, their inhabitants, and the sorts of experiences to be had in them. These maps also entice Tolkien's readers. While they certainly help orient readers as they read, the maps also help create in the reader a desire to explore Tolkien's heterocosm. There must have been few readers of those early editions of the books who did not first unfold that map before beginning to read the book. Bilbo's attraction to maps is associated with the allure of runes and letters and cunning handwriting. Like maps, certain kinds of writing seem to invite exploration, to excite desire: specifically, writing that contains blank spaces, that promises secret meanings, and thus requires interpretation. The maps in the books are thus a part of the mechanism of desire that is the mainspring of the experience of the literature of fantasy and magic. …
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