Dominic Tramelli
Does Frodo Baggins Have Faith?
What is faith? The way I see it, faith is all about trust. To have faith in someone, or something you must first of all have complete and total trust in that subject. Faith isn’t something that you just have, you have to aquire it. You have to figure out if you can trust something or someone and from there you turn that trust into a belief. When you trust something enough to believe in it, that is when faith begins to develop. Frodo Baggins, to me, may have started out a faithful person, but somewhere along the way he lost that faith.
From the beginning Frodo is skeptical of what Gandalf tells him he must do. He doesn’t trust the old wizard, and is frightened of the task at hand. I think Frodo’s main lack of faith is in himself. He is manipulated so easily by the ring’s power that he couldn’t possibly have faith in himself. People who have faith in themselves have a strong idea of who they are, aren’t manipulated by others. They don’t let money, power, or any materialistic object control them. They are already happy with who they are. There are also times when Frodo completely lets the power of the ring shadow his faith in his friends. The ring makes him so paranoid that he loses all trust in his friends and almost turns on them completely. Frodo has every reason to be faithful, yet he is not. People are constantly caring for him, constantly looking out for him, watching over him, and making sure that nothing goes wrong. There are too many people in the world that have so many people around them that love and care for them, yet they have no faith in those who love them.
I’m not saying that Frodo doesn’t have faith in anything, he just has it in something that will always let him down, the ring. When people put their faith in things like money or power, it only brings them down. Look at the character Golem, he became obsessed with the ring, put all of his faith into it, and it drove him to the point of insanity. So much so that he lost everything he had. This probably would of happened to Frodo if it wasn’t for all of the people caring for him. Like I said before, it is very important to have faith in one’s-self, but you can’t get by on just yourself, you need to have faith in other people or things, something you can fall back on when you need help.
Frodo may have had faith in the beginning of his mission, but as he put more trust into the ring he lost this faith. Other characters, such as Sam, Frodo’s best friend, had great faith. Sam made up for Frodo’s lack of faith, and was often the motivator to continue onward. Overall Frodo’s character really helps me see how important it is to put your faith into the right things. If you put your faith towards material objects, or power you will never improve as a person. On the other hand, If you have faith in God, your loved ones, and yourself, your life will be so much more enriched.