CHAPTER 8

THE THREE FACES OF EVERYMAN

True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted. We of Minas Tirith have been staunch through long years of trial. We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause. And behold! in our need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him. The fearless, the ruthless, these alone will achieve victory. What would not a warrior do in this hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he refuses, why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!

—Boromir1

But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.

—Faramir2

Where iss it, where iss it: my Precious, my Precious? It’s ours, it is, and we wants it. The thieves, the thieves, the filthy little thieves. Where are they with my Precious? Curse them! We hates them.

—Gollum3

One of the key elements of The Lord of the Rings is the struggle between objective morality, what might be termed the battle between good and evil, and the alluring charm of relativism. It is encapsulated most graphically in Gandalf’s account at the Council of Elrond of his encounter with Saruman.

Saruman is angered when Gandalf greets him as “Saruman the White,” declaring that, on the contrary, he is “Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colors.” As Saruman makes this boast, Gandalf notices that Saruman’s robes, “which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colors.” As Saruman moves, his robes “shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.”

“I liked white better,” Gandalf says.

“White!” Saruman sneers. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”

“In which case it is no longer white,” Gandalf replies. “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”4

Clearly this exchange is not merely about aesthetics. It’s not about individual preferences regarding the color of the clothes we like to wear. It’s about the much more fundamental question of good and evil and their ultimate meaning. For Gandalf, white is the unity of all light, signifying the unity of all goodness. By contrast, black is the absence of all light, signifying evil.

Gandalf’s view is that of Tolkien’s own Christian moral perspective, following the teaching of St. Augustine, that evil has no substantial existence in itself (because God does not create evil things) but is merely the absence of the light of goodness. It is for this reason that Sauron is the Dark Lord and for this reason that the Dark Lord’s domain, Mordor, means “Black Land” or “Land of Shadow” in Elvish.

In disdaining the white, Saruman is not being wise, as he thinks, but foolish, a fact Gandalf highlights when he insists that Saruman “has left the path of wisdom.” For Saruman, there is no longer a clear distinction between light and darkness, between white and black, between good and evil. He believes in his pride, with Nietzsche, that it is possible to go beyond good and evil. The white will henceforth be subject to his will. He will do with it what he wants, subjecting goodness to his own pride and refusing to be subject to it. In short, he has ceased to accept the creed of moral objectivity and has embraced relativism.

Considering Tolkien’s use of breaking the unity of white light into the “many colors” of the spectrum as a symbol for relativism, it is indeed ironic that today’s radical relativists, in the branding and brandishing of their self-adulating and self-justifying “Pride,” have adopted the rainbow as their symbol. As Oscar Wilde would no doubt remind us, art doesn’t always follow life; sometimes life follows art.

Although the exchange between the two wizards serves as the most graphic depiction of the struggle between objective morality and relativism in The Lord of the Rings, it is present throughout the epic in the struggle that various characters have with the power of the Ring, not the least of which is Boromir’s own epic struggle with its alluring influence.

In many respects, Boromir’s struggle is most applicable to our own struggle with pride and its relativism because he is the character in The Lord of the Rings who is seemingly most meant to represent us. He is, after all, the only man in the Fellowship of the Ring. There are four hobbits, one wizard, one king, one elf, one dwarf—and one man. Because he is clearly the representative of humanity within the story itself, he is also, by applicable extension, our representative. This is a somewhat sobering realization because Boromir is the traitor who succumbs to the power of the Ring, seeking to take it by force from Frodo. Humanity, it seems, is the problem. And yet Boromir’s motives are not devoid of noble intention. His homeland is about to be invaded by an “evil empire,” far worse than the Soviet empire to which Ronald Reagan applied that label. Its leader is not a communist politician, like Yuri Andropov, who was the Soviet leader at the time of Reagan’s “evil empire” speech in 1983, but is the Dark Lord himself, a demonic being described in The Silmarillion as the greatest of all Satan’s servants.5 The storm troopers of this demonically led army are not human beings (for the most part) but orcs. The invading army is so large that Boromir’s homeland of Gondor has no reasonable chance of repelling the invaders, and Gondor’s capital city, Minas Tirith, once besieged, is almost certain to fall. In the midst of this time of impending doom, the One Ring, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, is put within Boromir’s reach. He sees it as a gift to be seized. It would be “mad not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him.”

Doesn’t Boromir’s reasoning seem reasonable enough? By any criteria, the defense of Minas Tirith against the evil forces of Mordor can be considered a just war. It’s almost as if hell itself is marching on Gondor. What can be wrong with using the Ring against Sauron and his servants? What can be wrong with using the enemy’s weapon against him? Might we not be as tempted as Boromir if we found ourselves in his position? Might we not justify the use of nuclear weapons or chemical weapons to defend our homeland from its evil enemies? Isn’t Boromir’s dilemma a little closer to home than we realized? Isn’t the temptation that he faced one that we could face also?

The problem is that nothing ever justifies abandoning objective morality in favor of relativism. It is never licit to use evil means for a good end. The moment that we do so, we are no longer fighting against evil but are becoming evil. If we defeat an evil empire using evil means, we will only be replacing one evil empire with a new one. If Minas Tirith had defeated the forces of Mordor using the power of the Ring, Minas Tirith would have become evil in the process. In such a situation, as any loyal subjects of Minas Tirith would know, the city would not have won, but would have lost. Evil would have triumphed. The wise, such as Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, and Frodo, know this. The foolish, such as Saruman and Boromir, do not. The difference between Saruman and Boromir, however, is that Boromir sees the folly of his ways and repents whereas Saruman does not. Indeed, Boromir’s repentance, as seen in his final meeting with Aragorn, as he lies dying, is one of the most moving and beautiful scenes in the whole of The Lord of the Rings.

It is intriguing, though perhaps not surprising, that Boromir’s actions after his grave sin in attempting to take the Ring by force from Frodo reflect precisely the actions required of the penitent according to the form of the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church. The Church teaches that there are three acts required by the penitent before the priest, acting in persona Christi, can absolve the penitent of his sins. These three acts are contrition (sorrow for the sin committed), confession of the sin to the priest, and satisfaction in terms of an act of penance being performed.

Boromir shows contrition for his sin a few moments after he has committed it. Having cursed Frodo and all hobbits “to death and darkness,” he catches his foot on a stone and falls headlong to the ground, “as if his own curse had struck him down,” and then, weeping, rises to his feet and begs Frodo to return, lamenting the “madness” that had overtaken him.6 Shortly afterward, in an act of love which, in the words of Christ, there is no greater, he lays down his life for his friends, becoming mortally wounded in his efforts to defend the hobbits. After Aragorn discovers Boromir, pierced with many arrows and surrounded by dead orcs, he takes on the symbolic role of priest, in persona Christi, who hears the fallen warrior’s confession. Boromir’s words contain all three prerequisites for a good and holy confession: “I tried to take the Ring from Frodo [confession]. I am sorry [contrition]. I have paid [satisfaction].” Aragorn’s reply to Boromir’s final words fulfills the role of Christ, acting through the ordained ministry of the priest, in absolving the penitent of his sin. After Boromir laments his failure, Aragorn takes his hand, kisses his brow and responds with words of comfort and absolution: “No! You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!”7

As Boromir hears Aragorn’s words, he smiles. It is his last act before he dies.

Clearly, the conquest and the victory Aragorn speaks of must be the spiritual victory over sin because, in a purely worldly sense, Boromir has indeed failed. Merry and Pippin have been taken prisoner by the orcs, Frodo and Sam have disappeared, and the Fellowship has been broken. This is not a victory in any worldly sense but rather a resounding defeat. In Christian terms, however, having made such a contrite confession of his sin and having paid by laying down his life for his friends, he has indeed conquered and won a great victory (though it requires the grace of God represented symbolically by the presence of Aragorn in persona Christi, serving as a figure of Christ, whose absolution “Be at peace!” confirms the conquest of evil and the victory Boromir has won).

It can be presumed that Boromir, as a deathbed penitent who has sacrificed his life in an act of love for his friends, is en route to his heavenly reward, which is presumably the victory Aragorn speaks of and the fruit of the conquest of sin. Thus it seems the person in the Fellowship of the Ring who represents us is not a Judas figure after all but more like a figure of St. Mary Magdalene, the repentant sinner who is destined to live happily ever after. Perhaps the “Mirror of scorn and pity” that Tolkien is showing us is not so bad after all.

In fact, as the story unfolds, and as another figure of man emerges in the character of Faramir, Boromir’s saintly brother, it seems that the image of man that Tolkien reveals to us is almost aglow with the light of humanity’s heavenly halo!

As a preamble to any discussion of Faramir, we need to clarify that we are dealing with the character that Tolkien created, not the travesty that Peter Jackson presents in his film version. Whereas Tolkien’s character is both noble and holy, Jackson’s is conflicted and acts in ways that the real Faramir (i.e., Tolkien’s Faramir) would never have contemplated, let alone sanctioned. Enough of Jackson’s vandalism. Let’s return to Tolkien’s epic.

Faramir’s sanctity (and there is no other adequate word for it) is revealed when he tells Frodo that he would not take the Ring even if he found it lying at the side of the road: “Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.”8 Because Faramir’s words dovetail so well with the earlier words of Boromir, serving as their antidote, and since Tolkien has connected the two in our minds by making them brothers, it is clear that Faramir is being presented as Boromir’s alter ego. As such, he is also a representative of humanity—Everyman’s other self, so to speak. Whereas Boromir’s pride had blinded him to the folly of using evil to defeat evil, Faramir’s humility sees that there can never be a bona fide reason to employ evil means for an ostensibly good end. This is summed up in his earlier declaration that he “would not snare even an orc with a falsehood.”9 Faramir is so much a servant of the morally objective good that he would not tell even the smallest lie to the Devil himself.

If a good fairytale holds up “the Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man,” as Tolkien insists in his essay “On Fairy Stories,” one could justifiably argue, from Tolkien’s presentation of man in the characters of Boromir and Faramir, that he fails to practice what he preaches. Although human weakness is shown in Boromir’s prideful fall into relativism, he ends as a worthy and ultimately victorious penitent. As for Faramir, his apparently flawless virtue shows us nothing worthy of our scorn. There is, however, one other figurative representative of humanity in which we fail to recognize our own scornful and pitiful selves at our peril. That pathetic figure reflecting the readers back to themselves very uncomfortably is Gollum. Seldom or perhaps never in the field of human literature has the human soul in a state of addiction to sin been portrayed with such psychological realism and spiritual brilliance. Oscar Wilde tried something similar in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but the portrait of Dorian Gray’s soul is dumb and speaks only through the screaming silence of its cruel and sadistic ugliness. Gollum is, however, a fully embodied image of the sin addict’s soul. He brings to life with monstrous vigor the words of Christ that everyone who sins is a slave to sin10 and the teaching of St. Paul about the slavery of sin.11 As a mirror of scorn and pity toward man, he is so powerful that we only have to visualize Gollum as the shriveled wreck of our sin-enslaved soul to shiver in horror and disgust at the vision being presented to us. It’s as though the English language needs a new verb, to gollumize, so that we can express the grim and graphic reality of this vision of the reality of sin.

It is, therefore, in the characters of Faramir, Boromir, and Gollum that Tolkien presents to us the three faces of Everyman. In Faramir we see the face of the saint (paradisal man), in Boromir we see the face of the repentant sinner (purgatorial man), and in Gollum we see the face of the unrepentant sinner, enslaved to his vice (infernal man). Putting it another way, we are being shown the saint, the sinner who is trying to be a saint, and the sinner who is trying to be a sinner. These three faces of man—along with the face of the man on the journey of life (homo viator), which we see in Frodo’s carrying of his cross and Sam’s faithful discipleship—illustrate the hall of mirrors with which, in multifarious ways, this most realistic of fantasies shows us ourselves.