Childhood days are supposed to be the happiest days of our lives, they are a chance to explore the world around us, to swim in an ocean of contentment safe from the pressures of the adult world. That childhood state of innocence does not last of course, we grow up into ‘big kids’ and learn that life isn’t always as simple as what we once thought. It represents for many of us, an exile from the Garden, a loss of innocence. The majority of the world with its Apollonian belief systems seems to rule with an iron hand. Leaving the rest of us hearkening back to our innocence, and yet knowing that we can never return. There is no going back and like Adam and Eve we are faced with the world out there, that presses in around us and tries to fit us to its own narrow conventions.

Perhaps that is why art has had such an appeal to humanity over the past few thousand years. With art we are given a picture of what we once were, an artist erects signposts along the way beckoning us to return to the Garden, even if it’s just for awhile.

My duty here is to examine the signposts erected by Tolkien and Éxupery that lead us back to our childhood days; perhaps there we will find what we once were and how far we have fallen.

The Hobbit is an adventure into the unknown, a kind of ‘let’s see what lies on the other side of the fence’ type story. Bilbo, (the child) is taken on a fantastic journey by the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain and the Desolation of Smaug, where he must face his nemesis the Dragon Smaug.

In ‘Unfinished Tales’ Gandalf further expands on Bilbo’s character regarding the fact that he was unattached and quite happy to be single; it was this that marked him as suitable hero material to embark on the Quest.

Tolkien would seem to refer to this in the opening paragraphs where he explains. ‘This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours respect, but he gained - well you will see whether he gained anything in the end.’ Bilbo is taken from his personal comfort zone in the Shire and led by the dwarves on a magical journey. He rebels along the way and thinks often of home especially when it comes to suppertime where he becomes homesick. He is recapturing the innocence and following his Tookish nature as exemplified by the account on page twenty three, where the dwarves sing their song of the Misty Mountains and faded gold and the dragon Smaug. He knows it is dangerous but the childlike almost Dionysian like nature wins out and he sets off on his adventure.

In the book Man and his Symbols Henderson talks of new birth through death and refers directly to the Winnebago myth along with the lament for the Norse god Balder and Walt Whitman’s lament for Lincoln. He equates this with the Greek hubris of Icarus and the unconscious spirit of mankind wherein we demand the sacrifice of a mythological hero.

The recent mourning over the death of Princess Diana would be another example I would mention...  the death of the royal virgin. The Christian tradition has Christ descending to the bowels of the Earth and preaching to the spirits of the condemned after his crucifixion. Bilbo descends into the heart of the mountain to obtain salvation for Middle Earth. The ring of power was not seen as such by anyone at that point in time, being merely an amusing childish way to become invisible. Certainly, Bilbo seems to treat this Symbol of Power as little more than a plaything. It is only later in life as he ages that he realises the power of the Ring.

His theft of the Arkenstone (the Heart of the Mountain) gives voice to the fact that he has conquered his childhood fears, which were represented by the darkness. When he hands it over to Bard, he is in effect giving up his childhood (the Arkenstone) and returning to the adult world of normality. He is changed however as is revealed in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he still has that childhood longing and the knowledge that he will one day leave the Shire.

This however must be tempered with the knowledge that Tolkien never intended his Lord of the Rings to be taken allegorically. Although he does go on to explain that the Second World War must have had some influence on the work. He further goes on to state that: "It has some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much farther back." Tolkien went on to elaborate when it came to allegory for which he exhibited a marked dislike.

It is only fair to assume that he would have had The Hobbit in mind as well when he penned his foreword to Lord of the Rings. However Donovan Hall in ‘The Semeiotic of Sub-Creation,’ makes mention to the semiotics of the text whereby an author presents his creation to the reader using the reader’s imagination. The writer is in fact presenting a world that is to all intents and purposes real; Bilbo was a child at heart, a picture of childish innocence. He seems to shake off his adventures and get on with his life in much the same way as a child shrugs off traumatic events with a shake of the head.

The Little Prince however is another child archetype that is far more traumatic. Here is a child who seeks companionship and truth and finds a series of worlds that confuse him. In the end, he will sacrifice himself in order to return to innocence and in that aspect, he is closer to the Christ child. There is a haunting melancholy inherent in the text, which has a cathartic effect upon the reader. It is told through the voice of a child because that is precisely the voice that is most familiar to us. In ‘Past and Future in the Unconscious,’ Jung speaks of the role of the subliminal senses; that is the stimuli that impinge upon our daily lives and cause us to react in ways that we do not always understand. The text is simply written in much the same language as the books we read as a child, even the drawings are unconscious triggers to our childhood. The drawing of an elephant inside a boa constrictor is drawn the way a child would draw it.

The symbolism of the rose here would seem to infer a state of perfection or innocence. However, the little prince is not satisfied with Eden and so departs on his Quest, in much the same way that the knights of Arthurian romance set out to seek the Grail and alchemists sought the Philosopher’s stone. In the Little Prince, he (Éxupery) was chronicling man’s search for meaning.

John Shand in the introduction to his book ‘Philosophy and Philosophers’ defines philosophy as: ‘destined though it may be for annihilation; it is by such activity that for the time being human beings dignify themselves in the face of a universe that may seem at best indifferent to human concerns.’ I mention this particular book for a reason; Shand has encapsulated a history of Western Philosophy and drawn a timeline. The book in itself is aimed primarily at students of philosophy and yet there are parallels between it and The Little Prince. The latter text is essentially a ‘child’s philosophy’ book, there is as much of the child in the pilot as there is in the prince. He awakes the child within the pilot. He does this through asking the pilot to draw for him, ‘if you please... draw me a sheep,’ this is the prince’s invitation to the adult child to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Our adult child does so reluctantly like many of us do when under similar situations.

In so doing, he is confronted with a child’s view of the world, for the prince has been to other parallel worlds on his way to Earth. There are the asteroids ruled by the King, the Conceited man, the Tippler, the Businessman, the Lamplighter and the Geographer. The prince is trying to tell the pilot something when he relates his travels through space; which serves as a metaphor for the shadow. He has arrived on Earth having come through the dark night of his soul and encounters the pilot who is struggling to return home. The pilot cries out for the intimacy his new friend has awakened within him.

The child archetype here is in mourning for lost youth, for lost opportunities, for lost hope. The prince serves as the catalyst to awaken long forgotten memories and forbidden pleasures. I can remember a friend’s nephew asking a simple question ‘Why do people die?’ It was profound in its simplicity in much the same way as the prince insists on attending to the toiletries of his planet every day. In Éxupery’s time, there was no hint of a global warming, although the ‘light of a thousand suns’ was looming on the horizon in the shape of nuclear power. But there is a deeper longing in the text as the pilot rocks the little prince to sleep; he is embracing the child within and bringing his own psyche full circle to that which he had once known but had forsaken. It was a combination of the child-like drawings and the constant questioning that triggered off his own childhood memories.

That is the lesson to be learned in the two texts, whether the authors deliberately used childhood archetypes or not is superfluous to the question and could not be covered in so short an essay. What is apparent here is that a lesson is being handed out to us as writers, artists, musicians and ordinary human beings who inhabit a shrinking planet. And that is the ability to dream dreams, Tolkien dreamed of a fantastical world of elves and goblins and hobbits. Éxupery dreamed of a lost childhood and a child messiah figure that would lead the human race back to the Garden. I remember as a child lying in fields surrounded by fences, with the roar of the distant traffic in my ear. I found however that when I reduced myself to the size of an ant, that the fields suddenly turned into vast rolling plains and the imaginary trees really did march majestically up the mountainsides. Ditches turned into towering cliffs overlooking ancient gorges and I was lost in another world. Perhaps what these two authors were really trying to say was that we are to give into the dreams whispering in our hearts. Then and only then will we find the way back to the Garden of our youth. Hearken to the voice of your youth.

Written by Alastair Rosie
Subject: Myths and Symbols in Literature
Teacher: Bill Hopkins
Assignment: Major Essay
November 17, 1997 ©

Take me back to the contents please!
 
 

Jung, Carl, ed. Man and his Symbols.
London: Penguin, 1990

Harvey, David. One Ring to Rule Them All: A Study of the History, Symbolism and Meaning of the One Ring in J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.
http://www.chem.lsu.edu/cbury/ETEP/Art/Ring/Ring_TOC.html
Downloaded 17/11/97

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings.
London: Unwin, 1986

Hall, Donovan. The Semeiotics of Sub-Creation; Introduction to the Reality of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth http://www.chem.Isu.edu/cbury/ETEP/Art/sub-creation.html
Downloaded 16/11/97

Op Cit
Shand, John. Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy.
London: Penguin, 1994

De Sainte Éxupery, Antoine. The Little Prince.
London: Grafton, 1994

Henderson in Man and his Symbols, points to the Winnebago myth of the Hare cycle, where the culture hero is one who has not experienced a normal childhood and who is seeking for ways in which these lost experiences and personal qualities can be rehabilitated. The twins are two halves of the psyche, the extrovert and the introvert; representations of action and reflection respectively. They eventually overstepped the boundaries of power and brought about the near destruction of the world and their own deaths.

Henderson is explicit in his insistence that this is a subconscious part of our own inner reality. We must have a Saviour archetype who will atone for the sins of the people. He also refers to Faust and his lack of a proper childhood. Faust places himself willingly in the power of the shadow which ‘willing evil, finds the good.’
 
 

In the Foreword to Lord of the Rings Tolkien writes: "As for any inner meaning or ‘message,’ it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and the Hobbit."

Jung speaks of a professor who was out walking when he was interrupted by a barrage of childhood memories. Upon returning to the spot where the memories had first occurred he smelled geese and made the connection. His unconscious mind however had made the connection subliminally.

In St Peter's first letter we find the following; "... he was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah... "
1 Peter 3: 18 - 20

Tolkien, J.R.R Unfinished Tales