4. Gollum. A Forgiven Fallen or the most useful Madman in Literature ever?

4. Gollum. A Forgiven Fallen or the most useful Madman in Literature ever?

Gollum is a complex character, for he is halfway between religion and psychology. A two-sided twist-minded character, whose true nature is a greedy, envious one. He is not originally evil but corrupted; his weakness makes him fall into temptation. The literary puzzle with Gollum and the power of the Ring is how quickly and easily Sméagol is attracted to it so to kill Déagol.

A psichiatric profile of Gollum would be ceratinly interesting from the viewpoint of Medicine. And so would be a theological study from the viewpoint Religion. We need none of them in literature. The real interesting thing here is how do 'mind' and 'soul' affect a character and how is it reflected in the text. If Gollum's double personality and consciously evil nature are noticeable and justify his attitude, consequently influencing the narrative as a character's attitude and deeds are a function which determines the outcome of the plot.

So as a conclusion, Gollum is not to be "deciphered" nor "decoded", but reasonably placed in the story, as it is one of the characters with the most important role in the plot, for we must not forget that he granted Tolkien, together with the Ring, continuity from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings.

In Peter Jackson's film, Déagol and Sméagol are cousins, and when they find the One Ring, Sméagol kills his cousin to keep it, because he desires it. Brother kills brother. As it is told in the Bible Cain kills Abel because he's jealous of him; he envies him because he thinks their father loves Abel best. Setting aside the backgrounds and means to the end, let's keep the cause and the crime: jealousy and a murder.

4.1 The Original Gollum

As The Hobbit first appeared, and until 1951, the story was that Gollum, encountering Bilbo at the edge of the subterranean lake, proposed the riddle game on these conditions: 'If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, we gives it a present, Gollum!' When Bilbo won the contest, Gollum held to his promise, and went back in his boat to his island in the lake to find his treasure, the ring which was to be his present to Bilbo. He could not find it, for Bilbo had it in his pocket, and coming back to Bilbo he begged his pardon many times: 'He kept on saying: "We are ssorry: we didn't mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only present, if it won the competition".' '"Never mind!" he [Bilbo] said. "The ring would have been mine now, if you had found it; so you would have lost it anyway. And I will let you off on one condition." "Yes, what iss it? What does it wish us to do, my precious." "Help me to get out of these places", said Bilbo.' And Gollum did so; and Bilbo 'said good-bye to the nasty miserable creature.' On the way up through the tunnels Bilbo slipped on the ring, and Gollum at once missed him, so that Bilbo perceived that the ring was as Gollum had told him - it made you invisible.
This is why, in the present text, Gandalf says 'I think it certain that Gollum knew in the end that Bilbo had got the ring', and why my father had Gandalf develop a theory that Gollum was actually ready to give the ring away: 'he wanted... to hand it on to someone else... I suppose he might have put it in [the goblins'] path in the end... but for the unexpected arrival of Bilbo... as soon as the riddles started a plan formed in his mind.' This is all carefully conceived in relation to the text of The Hobbit as it then was, to meet the formidable difficulty: if the Ring were of such a nature as my father now conceived it, how could Gollum have really intended to give it away to a stranger who won a riddle contest? - and the original text of The Hobbit left no doubt that that was indeed his serious intention. But it is interesting to observe that Gandalf's remarks about the affinity of mind between Gollum and Bilbo, which survived into FR (pp. 63 - 4), originally arose in this context, of explaining how it was that Gollum was willing to let his treasure go.

Tolkien, The Return of the Shadow, 61-62

The original Gollum was willing to get rid of the Ring ('my father had Gandalf develop a theory that Gollum was actually ready to give the ring away'). But he had already fallen into sin, and though he had willingly passed the Ring to Bilbo, he wouldn't have reached redemption. Anyway, 'this' Gollum seems to be much more reasonable and fair than its final counterpart, for at the end the riddle-game he begs for pardon and even fulfills Bilbo's request for a way out instead of cursing him. The creature doesn't seem too angry or worried after having lost his 'precious' and at the same time Bilbo acts as if he didn't mind 'losing' the Ring (though Gollum would have lost anyway, Bilbo equals both of them as losers), distracting Gollum's attention by asking for something in return for the 'lost' present.

If Gollum had to be pardoned (and acquire proper literary protagonism), he had to sacrifice in a way proportional to his sins. So his redemption was divided into three stages: suffering for the keeping and loss of the Ring (he's tortured in Mordor for once he was its bearer and he continuously fights his other self to get 'his treasure' back), humilliation when being tamed by the hobbits (he has to fake his behaviour as Sméagol and be a servant), and a final strike of lust, greed and wrath ending in death (attacking Frodo by the edge of the cracks).

Tolkien found out that the Ring had to be present, so there had to be a way to 'drive' it through the story as another narrative element. One of the best ways to keep the 'reputation' of the Ring alive was showing/displaying/illustrating its corrosive/destructive/addictive powers by a living example. How deep can the Ring attract one? To the point of death itself. Is there a proof? Gollum and the Ringwraiths.

Given that The Hobbit had a pretty noticeable sequel in which the Ring was a must, if Gollum had given Bilbo the jewel, he would have become a mere anechdotic character in a fairy-tale, fulfilling a simple narrative function, he would have faded to incompleteness and of course the Ring would have missed most of its narrative protagonism as the author would have been into serious trouble to get it through the story ('if the Ring were of such a nature as my father now conceived it, how could Gollum have really intended to give it away to a stranger who won a riddle contest?').

Obviously, if we just forgot about the later importance of the Ring (Happy fools!) and considered The Hobbit in isolation, Tolkien's former option for Gollum would have turned the book into an even more independent traditional fairy-tale, for as Christopher says 'This is all carefully conceived in relation to the text of The Hobbit as it then was'.

The question is not who or what is Gollum, is not about his nature but about his functional feature/role in the story. Gollum is an example of the effect of abusing the Ring for egoistic purposes (together with Frodo at the end, he's the only one to claim it for himself just for the sake of it). An allegory to drug-addiction? Not at all. In a more general sense, an example of the level of misery a human being can reach when living by evil deeds and thoughts.

4.2 Insanity, Invisibility and Alter-Ego

Actually, Gollum is not evil, but selfish, and his selfishness has become a sickness. He is an addict, able to kill for what he wants. He doesn't actually know the whole powers of the One Ring. He takes advantage on invisibility to get food, but as he has abused using the Ring, he has been trapped by it. The duality in Gollum's personality is not something as complex as it may seem. Nor the way the Ring works. A perverting object or motiv as well as its victim(s) had already appeared in modern literature. For Tolkien, the Ring seems to act like the drug invented by Henry Jekyll, it reveals the true side of people (irrational/evil), which is usually the opposite to the way the normally act (rational/good). The debate about the nature of evil in Tolkien has already been discussed by Tom Shippey (RtME, 159-166), finally considering it to have a double origin/nature: Boethian evil, that is, evil as the absence of good, and Manichaean evil, or evil existing as the opposite force to good, both being thus real.

Gollum has two personalities, like Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, allowing him to adapt to situations but unfortunately causing one personality to consciously manipulate and use the other at will anytime. Sméagol may be interested in releasing Gollum to protect himself physically, or Gollum may turn to Sméagol to show weakness and cause pity.

All four characters end up manipulating their alter-egos. Hyde, at first, is a liberating option for Jekyll, but finally the monster imprisons and kills the man, like Gollum does to Sméagol. Both Hyde and Gollum are 'dehumanisations', the result of a process of temptation and seduction by the forbidden, the morally-unproper.

Here, at last, I had a chance of clearly seeing him. I had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility of constitution, and--last but not least--with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.

[...]
This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance, struck in me what I can only, describe as a disgustful curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him in every measurement--the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me--something seizing, surprising and revolting--this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my interest in the man's nature and character, there was added a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his fortune and status in the world.
[...]
Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human.

The power of the Ring lengthened Sméagol's life, yet it warped him beyond recognition. Thereafter, he was called Gollum because of the nasty, guttural sounds he made when trying to speak. He became a ghoulish being who shunned light and lived by foul murder and eating unclean meat. He found comfort in dark pools in deep caverns. His skin became hairless, black and clammy, and his body thin and gaunt. his head was like a skull and his eyes bulged like those of a fish. His teeth grew long like Orc fangs, and his hobbit feet grew flat and webbed.

David Day. Tolkien, The Illustrated Encyclopedia, 252

4.3 Saints and Sinners: A Selfish Monster

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Genesis 4:1-17, King James version

There is an interesting resemblance between Cain's fate and that of Gollum. 'A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth' for what Cain answers 'from thy face shall I be hid' Gollum becomes a paceless wanderer, hidden from the burning face of the sun, his burden bigger than he can bear. But the most remarkable point is the blessing God sends upon Cain not to be slayed, which makes Gollum similar to him insofar a 'divine creature', Gandalf, has suggested Frodo not to slain him.

Wrong-doing or evil-doing is immoral, but when consciously done, it becomes a sin. Gollum/Sméagol must feed to live, which is acceptable, but when he finds pleasure in silent, backstab killing just for the sake of it, he turns to immorality, and thus, from a Christian viewpoint, to evil.

Again Stevenson had already given an opinion on how noble ends expected to be reached by uncontrolable powers may suffer a twist and turn into a curse because of ambition:

That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.
The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.

Temptation becomes addiction for Henry Jekyll as it does for Gollum, and finally turns into slavery:

It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my preparations with the most studious care.

On the other hand, though there were benefits in invisibility and alter-ego:

I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete. Think of it--I did not even exist!
[...]
The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone.
[...]
Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference.

Concerning the choice of personality, there are two very interesting passages in the film, adapted from the book (where they appear together in a same dialogue), in which Gollum 'switches' to Sméagol. In the book, it is Gollum who 'activates' Sméagol, making him swear by the Ring that he will show his best behaviour (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 604 & 610) In the film, it all starts when Gollum picks Frodo from the dark waters of the Dead Marshes (unlike the book, where Frodo simply stands stiff and tranced by the border until Sam finds him [Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 613]). That very night, frodo calls Gollum by his hobbit-name, Sméagol. This concern Frodo shows for him seems to be what makes him 'dismiss' Gollum. The night after crossing the Dead Marshes, after Frodo and Sam fall asleep, Gollum talks to Sméagol through camera jumps/turns as if they were two separate people, two individuals in the middle of a strong argument on who is the 'person' to remain from then on. Both in the book and in the film, Gollum's personalities have this argument. The difference between the length as well as the content of both conversations, mostly at their conclusion, is an interesting point to understand and trace Gollum's behaviour from that moment on.

PART I FROM FILM VERSION (Peter Jackson's Two Towers, Gollum and Sméagol)
(G stands for Gollum and S for Sméagol, according to who 'appears' in each cut)
G We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little Hobbitses. Wicked. Tricksy. False.
S No. Not master.
G Yes, precious. False. They will cheat you, hurt you, lie!
S Master's my friend.
G You don't have any friends. Nobody likes you.
S Not listening. I'm not listening.
G You're a liar, and a thief.
S No.
G Murderer.
S Go away.
G Go away?
S I hate you. I hate you.
G Where would you be without me? Gollum. Gollum. I saved us. It was me. We survived because of me.
S Not anymore.
G What did you say?
S Master looks after us now. We don't need you.
G What?
S Leave now... and never come back.
G No.
S Leave now and never come back.
G (Grunts)
S Leave now and never come back! (Starts cheering happily) We told him to go away. And away he goes, precious. Gone! Gone!
Gone! Sméagol is free!

This is an easy way to turn the creature into a good child. It's a real 'departure' of his evil side. But one way or another the audience suspects this not going to be Gollum's final stand, though he seems to immediately give up and fade away. The film makes it too fast, too easy, but on the other hand it makes Gollum's return a very serious betrayal, so the creature finally appears to us as irredeemably evil, deserving death by fate, and not by the hands of an executor.

PART II FROM FILM VERSION (Peter Jackson's Return of the King, Gollum's Villany)
S Too risky. Too risky. Thieves. They stole it from us. Kill the. Kill them. Kill them both.
G Quiet! Mustn't wake them. Mustn't ruin it now.
S But they knows. They knows. They suspect us.
G What's it saying, my precious, my love? Is Sméagol losing his nerve?
S No. Not. Never. Sméagol hates nasty Hobbitses. Sméagol wants to see them dead.
G And we will. Sméagol did it once. He can do it again.
(The scene in which Sméagol strangles Déagol appears suddenly)
G It's ours! Ours!
S We must get the precious. We must get it back.
G Patience! Patience, my love. First we must lead them to her.
S We lead them to the winding Stair.
G Yes, the stairs. And then?
S Up, up, up, up, up the stairs we go... Until we come to the tunnel.
G And when they go in... There's no coming out. She's always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. All she gets is filthy Orcses.
S And they doesn't taste very nice. Does they, precious?
G No. Not very nice at all, my love. She hungers for sweeter meats. Hobbit meat. And when she throws away the bones and the empty clothes... then we will find it.
S And take it for me!
G For us.
S Yes. We meant "for us."
(Both Gollum and its reflection on the water appear together and grunt)
G Gollum. Gollum. The precious will be ours... once the hobbitses are dead!
(He drops a stone into the water. Sam jumps and hits him in the head)

After this, Frodo stops Sam from killing Gollum, and the former finally confesses that they need the creature as a guide, for they can't find a safe way to Mordor themselves. Frodo tells Sam to trust him. Gollum is two-sided, but none of its sides is reliable, for they both betray themselves (check four last script-lines). Sam and Frodo feel like a single character, and even they may be two sides of the same coin, Sam is the strongest one. The hobbit bynomial can't fail, as at least one of its sides stands firmly and never gives up. Gollum's weakness is greed, and Sméagol's is cowardice. They both fail and fall. Frodo mistrusts Sam, but Sam never doubts on helping his master, so the balance is equaled. Evil is set into one single body with a split-personality. Humanity is represented into two different separate bodies who complement and equilibrate.

ORIGINAL DIALOGUE (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Passing of the Marshes, 618-619)
(No need to denote who speaks, as Tolkien himself made the proper marks to tell one from the other)
'Sméagol promised,' said the first thought
'Yes, yes, my precious,' came the answer, 'we promised: to save our Precious, not to let Him have it - never. But it's going to Him, yes, nearer every step. What's the hobbit going to do with it, we wonders, yes we wonders.'
'I don't know. I can't help it. Master's got it. Sméagol promised to help the master.'
'Yes, yes, to help the master: the master of the Precious. But if we was master, then we could help ourselfs, yes, and still keep promises.'
'But Sméagol said he would be very very good. Nice hobbit! He took cruel rope off Sméagol's leg. He speaks nicely to me.'
'Very very good, eh, my precious? Let's be good, good as fish, sweet one, but to ourselfs. Not hurt the nice hobbit, of course, no, no.'
'But the Precious holds the promise,' the voice of Sméagol objected.
'Then take it,' said the other, 'and let's hold it ourselfs! Then we shall be master, gollum! Make the other hobbit, the nasty suspicious hobbit, make him crawl, yes, gollum!'
'But not the nice hobbit?'
'Oh no, not if it doesn't please us. Still he's a Baggins, my precious, yes, a Baggins. A Baggins stole it. He found it and he said nothing, nothing. We hates Bagginses.'
'No, not this Baggins.'
'Yes, every Baggins. All peoples that keep the Precious. We must have it!'
'But He'll see, He'll know. He'll take it from us!'
'He sees. He knows. He heard us make silly promises - against His orders, yes. Must take it. The Wraiths are searching. Must take it.'
'Not for Him!'
'No, sweet one. See, my precious: if we has it, then we can escape, even from Him, eh? Perhaps we grows very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Sméagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea. Most Precious gollum! Must have it. We wants it, we wants it, we wants it!'
'But there's two of them. They'll wake too quick and kill us,' whined Sméagol in a last effort. 'Not now. Not yet.'
'We wants it! But' - and here there was a long pause, as if a new thought had wakened. 'Not yet, eh? Perhaps not. She might help. She might, yes.'
'No, no! Not that way!' wailed Sméagol.
'Yes! We wants it, we wants it!'

This dialogue contains much more information on Gollum and what he knows about the Ring. The creature has a childish fixation for his Precious; no use for it, but just having it. Concerning the plans for the power of the One Ring, he cannot be compared to neither Saruman nor Sauron (nor Boromir) He knows that It can grant him a great power, great enough to contain the Wraiths and even Sauron, but he has lesser purposes for It.
Notice the presence of Sauron in the pronouns 'Him' and 'He' (capital 'h' for he is the representation of evil, a supernatural entity like God or the Devil) The film says nothing on him in this dialogue. Gollum doesn't want Sauron to get the One Ring back, and he is even willing to confront him, for such is his thirst for possessing it. There is a common concept between both dialogues anyway: freedom. In the film, Frodo's friendship sets Sméagol free from Gollum's tyranny. In the book, the Ring sets both personalities free. So as other characters expect the Ring to turn them into rulers/dominators, the only thing the creature expects is to live by himself, hiding in the dark. For Gollum, master means ruler of self-fate, free from both 'legal' and moral codes to act individually at will. He's a mixture between an anti-social and an anarchist (!) Master as ruler of wills and master as free individual. In the book, Sméagol refuses leading the hobbits to Shelob's Lair, but in the film Sméagol finally agrees with Gollum to lead them there and get the Ring back.

If the statement about choice of personality mentioned in 4.3 was taken as a proof, there would be no way to consider even Sméagol as a remnant of good for he would have taken advantage on evil to go on (a thought Jackson may have inclined for when depicting Gollum). That's why when granting Gollum the benefit of doubt, Gandalf allows time to be the one to judge and execute the creature; Gollum got rid of Sméagol, deciding to be evil and surprisingly achieving pardon because of greed. As in the case of Jekyll and Hyde, the only answer to the Fall (playing in both sides and finally choosing evil), as presented by Tolkien, is death.