Reading "The Children of Húrin: Chapters 4-6"
Although Túrin is sent to foster with Thingol and Melian, he chafes under their tutelage, yearning to fight and driven, like so many other tragic heroes, by his overweening pride.
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We return to The Children of Húrin in time to follow Túrin as he is sent by his mother to foster with King Thingol and his wife, Melian, who have so far managed to keep their kingdom from falling under Morgoth’s sway. However, the young mortal chafes under the strict rules of the king and, after a fateful encounter with one of Thingol’s retainers results in the latter’s death, he ends up going into exile, after which he becomes the leader of a band of outlaws. He ultimately reunites with his loyal Elf friend Beleg, but declines Thingol’s offer of clemency in favor of continuing to pursue his own vengeance against Morgoth and his Orcs.
Even though Túrin is obviously the main character, I find his mother Morwen to be a fascinating character in her own right. We all know that there’s a pretty notable dearth of female characters in Tolkien’s later works, so it’s particularly refreshing to see one practically leap off the page, showing a remarkable strength and indomitable will in the face of repeated tragedies and misfortunes. She might not be the warmest of characters–in fact, she is often downright cold, particularly to her son–but one can hardly blame her. This is a human woman, after all, who has had to bear witness as her people are relentlessly attacked and ground down by the Dark Lord. Small wonder that she sends her son away, even though doing so, as the narrator says, ultimately began to weavù her son’s tragic fate. Her pride, as much as that of Túrin’s , will have far-reaching consequences.
There’s something particularly revealing about Tolkien’s use of the image of weaving to articulate the destiny that is already being laid out for Túrin. Fate is a powerful force in Tolkien’s world–and in much tragic literature in general–and the metaphor of weaving is remarkably potent here. It brings to mind the idea of a noose slowly tightening around our hero, restricting his choices and ultimately ensuring that his feet are turned down a very grim road.
For Túrin’s part, the mystery of his father’s fate and his general sense of unease at how much Thingol remains distanced from the affairs of the wider world drive most of his actions. As with Morwen, one can hardly blame him for not wanting to just stay walled in behind the walls of Doriath, content to be the foster-son of one of the most powerful Elves still remaining in Middle-earth. Like many other tragic heroes, however, it’s his overweening pride that drives so many of his actions. It’s what motivates his quarrel with Saeros–which ends up with the latter’s death, since he is as motivated by pride and scorn as Túrin is–and it’s also what keeps him from accepting Thingol’s offer of clemency and a return back to Doriath.
As frustrating and at times insufferable as this character can be, however, the brilliance of the book as a whole is its ability to set his less appealing traits and actions against both his better qualities and against the world in which he has emerged. Túrin might end up taking up with a band of outlaws, but he refuses to abandon them even when it would be to his advantage to do so. Unlike Beleg, who sees the outlaws as nothing more than the dregs of humanity–the way that they are viewed by pretty much everyone else–Túrin clings to the belief that there is something good in even the worst of them, and that it’s his duty to bring out it out, indeed that doing so might be of some advantage in the fight against Morgoth.
Túrin’s actions and behavior make even more sense when considered against the world in which he lives. Doriath is in many ways an island of peace, guarded as it may be, isolated from the malevolent influence of Morgoth and his growing power in Middle-earth. A man like Túrin was never going to be happy in a place like that and, deprived of mother and father and perpetually conscious of the fact that the world outside labors under the ever-present shadow of the Dark Lord, it would be surprising if he hadn’t turned out to be the man that he is.
On the Elven side of things, it’s easy to see why neither Thingol nor Melian would want to become any more involved in the affairs of Men than they absolutely have to. After all, they watched their daughter Luthien fall in love with a mortal and give up her immortality to be with him, and so it’s actually rather surprising to discover the extent to which both of them are still willing to allow Túrin such a remarkable amount of leeway in their domains. Melian at least tries to guide this headstrong young man in the right direction, though he is too full of his own pride and his moral certainty to take her words very seriously. He will discover, as so many have before him, that sometimes it really is better to follow the advice of one’s betters, even (especially) when one doesn’t want to do so.
As with the first three chapters, what stands out starkly to me as a reader is just how grim this book continues to be. There is very little light or joy, very little of the optimism that manages to shine through even the darkest passages of The Lord of the Rings. In that sense it has much more in common with The Silmarillion, which is also a book filled with tragedy and doom, as the Elves pursue their vengeance against Morgoth to their own detriment. The toxic influence of the Dark Lord upon the Eldar rests not just in his actions against them–heinous as those often are–but in the fact that he so often ensures that their own activities remain centered on him, often to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. When you spend so much of your time focused on your enemy, it’s inevitable that at a certain point you will start to become like him.
For all that it makes for rather dour reading at times, I can’t deny that there is also something remarkably powerful and even poignant about The Children of Húrin. The world that it presents to us is one in which hope and light are in very short supply, and in which it seems that no one will ever be free of Morgoth’s ill-will and his power. At the same time, it gives us a number of characters who are still determined to continue fighting back against him, who are not going to just sit by and let the Dark Lord have his way with the Men and Elves of Middle-earth. As time goes on, however, it will become ever clearer that nothing is ever fated to be easy for the son of Húrin.