Notes on RoTK: The Land of Shadow
The Nazgul leaves Sam with 'just wits enough to thrust the phial back into his breast' - which is a lot under the circumstances - and then to take charge of their escape: 'Run, Mr. Frodo!...No, not that way! There's a sheer drop over the wall. Follow me!'
This line, spoken urgently in mortal danger, is one of the many evidences that for Sam 'MisterFrodo' is a name rather than a form of address in principle detatchable from a name. Cara writes that Mr. Frodo reflects both aspects of their love for each other: its rootedness in the social relationships in the Shire and its transcendant, individual quality: 'the equality Frodo and Sam achieve with each other is not only based on social distinction and a master/servant-relationship, it also *requires* it. ' Frayach speculates that 'people often referred to Frodo in Sam's presence as"your Mr. Frodo." Because Sam had "earned" the right to call him that - or rather the right to call him that (and the relationship it implies) *belongs*to him.' This all makes sense in terms of other uses of 'Mr.' by hobbits in LoTR:
Digression on the term 'Mister':
In A Long-Expected Party, the Gaffer refers frequently to 'Mr. Frodo' (and 'Mr. Bilbo' and 'Mr. Drogo') before Sam ever shows up in person. This form of reference is here limited to Bagginses; however as he refers to 'Miss Primula Brandybuck' and 'Master Gorbaduc' he might also use 'Mr.' to refer to less exalted Brandybucks. I think that 'Mr. Firstname' may be the Gaffer's standard way to refer to gentlefolk, at least gentlefolk with whom one can assert a personal connection (however tenuous), which Sam adopted and adapted.
In the same conversation, Old Noakes refers to 'this Frodo' and the Gaffer himself mentions 'old Gorbaduc'.
Thus I think that 'Mr.' must indicate a certain degree of respect for individuals or families, and not only class status. (Old Noakes' reference is disparaging, or at least doubtful. I think that the Gaffer's casual reference is meant to enhance his own status. Tolkien in an unkind mood once called the Gaffer 'conceited'; perhaps this is what he meant.) 'Mr. Firstname' indicates a certain intimacy. The Gaffer is old enough to get away with assuming a certain second-hand intimacy with the relatives, by blood or marriage, or all his 'Mr. Firstname's.
Sam, being younger and thus more respectful, refers to Frodo for the first time in LoTR as 'Mr. Baggins now, that I work for' but adds 'old Mr. Bilbo knew more', probably as permissible differentiation.
Ted Sandyman, who has no respect for either, calls them 'Bilbo' and 'Frodo'.
I think that 'Mr. Firstname' must have been the Gaffer's, and possibly everyone's, way of showing respectful intimacy with a higher-class hobbit. Thus it would have been readily available for Sam's respectful intimacy with Frodo, however greatly that differed from anything recognized in the Shire.
Upon capturing Gollum, and finding him trying to escape, Sam says sarcastically, "And where were you off to in the cold hard lands, Mr. Gollum?" using 'Mr.' to show anything but respect or intimacy.
In The Scouring of the Shire, Frodo says to the Shirriffs, "Chief? Chief? Do you mean Mr. Lotho?" This is hardly his own way of referring to Lotho; it must be what he expects of the Shirriffs. He later repeats the term to the ruffians. (He also says he is glad that Lotho has dropped the Baggins name, and I think he isn't about to restore it.)
The Shirriffs address Frodo as 'Mr. Baggins' and Merry as 'Mr. Merrry', perhaps because he is younger, perhaps because he is not yet Master of Buckland. I doubt that it is meant to convey intimacy. Farmer Cotton called Pippin 'Mr. Peregrin', which is undoubtedly proper since he is not yet of age, but addresses Merry as 'Mr. Merry' which surprises me. Why does he consider the nickname proper? Is that the only way he has heard Merry addressed? Sam addresses Farmer Cotton as 'Mr. Cotton.' Farmer Cotton, perhaps because he has picked it up off Sam, addresses Frodo as 'Mr. Frodo.'
The Gaffer however, calls Frodo 'Mr. Baggins', perhaps as a distancing tactic because of bone he says that he has to pick. Frodo responds with 'I am very sorry, Mr. Gamgee' - the first instance of an upper-class hobbit using 'Mr.' to address a lower class one that I can find. I think that this reflects his changed relationship with Sam but is also an ironic response in kind to the Gaffer's way of speaking to him.
After Frodo apologizes for all the Gaffer's complaints, he is upgraded to 'Mr. Frodo Baggins.' The use or non-use of 'Mr.' with first names, last names, or both in the Shire varies and carries many meanings. This is the cultural basis for Sam's multi-valued use of it in relation to Frodo.
End of Digression.
From this point on, Frodo uses Sam's name in almost every sentence; it will be the last word he says in Mount Doom. In TTT, Gollum called Frodo 'Master of the Precious' but Sam called him 'Master' first - a counter-force to the Ring. Here, with the Ring becoming 'more fell, untameable save by some mighty will', Frodo constantly reasserts his connection with Sam. As being with Frodo became Sam's one wish, being with Sam has become Frodo's one reliable, unassailable form of resistance.
Frodo recovers quickly enough to make the next decision: 'This won't do, Sam...We must get off this road somehow... Quick, Sam. Over we go!'
'[I]t was too dark for them to guess the depth of the fall'; therefore they might be risking death. 'Goodbye!' Sam says - just in case? 'He let go. Frodo followed.' There is a fast and constant alteration of initiative.
They are saved by 'the last thing that they had expected: a tangle of thorny bushes'. When Sam dares say anything at all, it is 'I didn't know as anything grew in Mordor!'
In a literary sense, the slow dying out of any vegetation at all may parllel the slow loss of Frodo's ability to remember how the Shire feels, sounds, smells, tastes. And perhaps also in a literal sense: The touch of grass under their feet is always cheering and strengthening to hobbits. The absence even of briars must be correspondingly weakening.
Frodo determines their direction out of the valley: 'Now down we go, Sam...Down into the valley quick, and then turn northward, as soon as ever we can.'
'Day was coming again in the world outside...but here all was still as dark as night. The mountain smouldered and its fires went out... The easterly wind that had been blowing ever since they left Ithilien now seemed dead.' Was the the wind related to the fire, acting as or resulting from an unseen bellows?
'To his amazement he found that Sam was alseep.' Is Frodo amazed that Sam can fall asleep so quickly in such discomfort? Or has he started thinking of Sam as tireless?
'We shan't win through by fighting' only by persistence.
'Look here, Sam dear lad', Frodo says, trying to soften the blow of discarding the orc mail, protection that Sam worked to hard to find.
'I am tired, weary, I haven't a hope left.' Hope, in the sense of expecting to reach his goal, may be one of the many things that Frodo had to jettison as simply staying separate from the Ring took up more and more of his resources; or it may be an emotion he can no longer find in himself.
'But I have to go on trying to get to the Mountain, as long as I can move. The Ring is enough. This extra weight' - of evil - 'is killing me.' A strong statement if taken literally - which is probably should be.
When Sam gives Frodo the elven-cloak 'made by the Lady', he feels 'much lighter. I can go on now.' The kind of protection they need to continue now is more and more the gifts of the Elves.
'But this blind dark seems to be getting into my heart. As I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill in Hobbiton. But I can't see them now.' Frodo knows what they are; he has an intellectual memory, but no visual memory to go with it. Is this the result of being in Mordor, of being stung by Shelob, of the long struggle against the Ring?
The wording is ambiguous: In prison he tried to remember, but doesn't say whether he was able to. In Mordor he is unable to, but Cara says that the Tower of Cirith Ungol is not in Mordor, although the road is; the Tower was built to overlook Modor from outside. Apparently the border is not defined by political control, as our borders are. I wonder what else might define them? Was the border always in the same place, even before Sauron moved there from Mirkwood? (When Sam said in the last chapter, 'Gorbag's gear, was a better fit and better made...but it wouldn't do, I guess, to go carrying his tokens into Mordor' is he implicitly defining the tower as outside Mordor? That would probably be making too much of the turn of a phrase.)
In the Tower he was definitely affected by Shelob's poison, and by the orc drink, each disorienting in its own way. My current guess is that in Mordor, telling Sam about it, Frodo remembered trying to remember but not whether he actually could, and that made him realize that now he definitely could not. Perhaps now he feels unable to even try?
'If only the Lady could see us or hear us, I'd say to her: "Your Ladyship, all we want is light and water: just clean water and plain daylight, better than any jewels"' - which is interesting because she didn't offer them any jewels. Is this a glancing reference to Beren's quest and the Silmarils?
'There's a Black Rider over us...I can feel it. We had better keep still for awhile.' Instead of becoming blind or immobile, Frodo notes it matter of factly. He has indeed become stronger.
'They stood up, and then they both stared in wonder...Light was growing behind them' - and, as the Tale of Years tells us, in Minas Tirith '[t]he horns of the Rohirrim are heard at cockcrow' as Gandalf confronts the Witch King and Theoden lies dying.
'Look at it, Mr. Frodo!...The wind's changed' - bringing Aragorn's fleet up Anduin.
The Nazgul must have been sent from Barad-dur to bring news of the battle, assuming that the one heading east with 'a cry of woe and dismay' a few minutes later is the same one. '[T]his cry no longer held any terror for them' although they could not know what news inspired it. But 'Something's happening...Haven't you got some hope now?'
'Well, no, not much, Sam...I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.' The Wheel of Fire will grow stronger, but I don't know whether that means that Frodo's sensory memory grows weaker, or whether it has been affected once and for all. Frodo's constant use of Sam's name from this chapter on may indicate a deliberate holding on either as memory fades, or in place of memory already diminished to imageless intellectual recall. In either case, both times he refers to lack of sensory memory, he also refers to the Wheel of Fire.
'The light grew stronger, for Orodruin was still belching forth a great fume that, beaten upwards by the opposing airs...spread in an immeasurable roof'.
'Unbelievable, but unmistakable. Water trickling...Sam sprang towards it. "If I ever see the Lady again, I will tell her!" he cried. "Light and now water!" Then he stopped. "Let me drink first, Mr. Frodo...if it's poisonous, or something that will show its badness quick, well, better me than you, master, if you understand me." "I do. But I think we'll trust our luck together. Sam; or our blessing."'
Sam's immediate reaction is that this is his other wish - clean water, but he isn't about to risk Frodo's life on it. Either Frodo is more sure than Sam that this is a gift and therefore clean; or is as willing to die with Sam as Sam was to die with him; or knows that he can't go on without Sam, regardless; or trusts his/their fate; or all of the above.
The climax of Sam's deepening understanding of light, and the only reference to Sam's individual fate:
'Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.'
Sam does not for the most part think in terms of fate or doom, and even here the reference to fate is in a summarizing line, which leaves it unclear whether it was his thought or not. He experiences fate - which is inseparable from character - but his spiritual vocabulary is concerned more with wishes (prayers), with light and with Frodo's (and by extension his own) place in the Great Tale.
'They woke together, hand in hand.'
Frodo's 'sleep had been uneasy, full of dreams of fire' rather like that of Mount Doom: 'it stood in smouldering slumber' - connected through the Ring/Wheel of Fire?
'[T]he Eye turned inward, pondering tidings of doubt and danger' - the failure of the assault on Gondor - 'a bright sword, and a stern and kingly face it saw'. Despite the Mouth of Sauron's correct conclusion that the different races of Middle-earth are united against Barad-dur, Sauron thinks that the only thing that might have turned back his army is the power of his own Ring, which he suspects Aragorn of having.
'I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can. At present that is to avoid being captured as long as possible.' As Frodo strongly implied in the last chapter, success means keeping it away from the enemy.
Info from the orcs: Gollum 'pinched' Frodo's cast-off orc mail shirt; one of the Nazgul is in charge of the Tower now; 'They've done in Number One'. The first two seem reliable, since the orcs saw Gollum and Frodo and Sam was the Nazgul arrive; the third is hearsay only.
'"I told you Gollum wasn't dead yet, didn't I?" "Yes, I remember. And I wondered how you knew," said Frodo.' This is never really answered; Sam didn't kill Gollum himself, and could be pretty sure that Shelob wouldn't, but Sam's certainty, knowing Sam, is most likely intuitive; and perhaps he remembers Gandalf's 'some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end'.
'Sam spoke into Frodo's ear all that he could find words for...Frodo said nothing but took Sam's hand and pressed it.'
'It's dark, and we cannot use the Lady's glass. Keep it safe for me, Sam.' Frodo now gives Sam the glass, the antecedent for what Sam said in the last chapter: 'You lent me Sting, if you remember, and the Lady's glass.' Was Sam remembering backwards?
Here Frodo does not lend Sting, rather 'Sting I give to you...I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again.' Is this a sign that Frodo is weakening physically, or that keeping up his mental resistance to the Ring is all he can do, or that the kind of resistance that began when he drew his sword at Weathertop will no longer work so close to the Fire? The nearest we get to an explanation is 'I am afraid, Sam, that the burden will get very heavy, and I shall go still slower as we get nearer.'
'We have come to a dead end, Sam.' Frodo only describes their situation. He does not ask Sam to decide what to do, but neither does he make any decision or plan, so Sam decides for them both: 'Then we must take the road, Mr. Frodo...and chance our luck.'
'"Alright, Sam," said Frodo, "Lead me! As long as you've got any hope left. Mine is gone. But I can't dash, Sam. I'll just plod along after you."'
'When Frodo was asleep Sam bent over him and listened to his breathing and scanned his face. It was lined and thin, yet in sleep it looked content and unafraid.' His dreams here are unrecorded but they cannot be of the Wheel of Fire.
'refusing to despair' - Hope is now Sam's burden as the Ring is Frodo's.
Gollum - 'I wish he had been shot!' - NOT 'I wish I had killed him.' Sam is mentally leaving Gollum to fate.
The orcs 'were moving fast: too fast for Frodo to escape by flight along the road ahead.' Sam by implication could have escaped alone, but that was inconceivable.
'"We're trapped at last!" [Frodo] said. He sank to the ground beneath the wall of rock and bowed his head.' If success means keeping the Ring from the Enemy, being trapped with it means failure. Frodo 'set his teeth and tried to stop his mind from thinking...to what evil end he toiled and endured he did not dare to think.' Evil means both personally - he has been captured by orcs before - and for the world. 'Frodo's strength began to give out and his will wavered.'
Both physical strength and mental resistance are in danger; this is the first time since Amon Hen that Frodo's will has not been firm.
This may be the last thing narrated from Frodo's point of view until after the destruction of the Ring and their rescue. There will be many references to 'their' will in the next chapter, so united are they in some ways; yet in other ways Frodo's point of view is unrecoverable as he loses more and more of himself.
Frodo's point of view shifts subtly to Sam's via a sentence that fits with either: 'He lurched and stumbled. Desperately Sam tried to help him and hold him up, though he felt that he could himself hardly stay the pace much longer. At any moment the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and all their bitter efforts be in vain.'
Sam at least has the bitter comfort that 'I'll have that big slave-driving devil anyway.' He is sure of his fighting ability, however exhausted.
'Then, just as he was putting his hand to the hilt of his sword' - ready once more to go down fighting - fate saves them. As Frodo said in The Taming of Smeagol "It's my doom, I think, to go to that Shadow yonder, so that a way will be found." They are under the Shadow now, but a way is still found.
'Sam woke up, grasped quickly at his chance, and threw himself to the ground, dragging Frodo down with him...Sam felt that the ought at least to get futher away from the highways and out of the range of torchlight.' Frodo is past such decisiveness. At Sam's urging, '[w]ith a last despairing effort, Frodo raised himself on his hands, and struggled on for maybe twenty yards. Then he pitched down into a shallow pit that opened unexpctedly before them' - something suggestive of a grave - 'and there he lay like a dead thing.'
If not for lembas, Frodo would be dead and Sam at least dying. As it is, Frodo can try to keep going, but that is all he can do. Everything else is up to Sam.
This line, spoken urgently in mortal danger, is one of the many evidences that for Sam 'MisterFrodo' is a name rather than a form of address in principle detatchable from a name. Cara writes that Mr. Frodo reflects both aspects of their love for each other: its rootedness in the social relationships in the Shire and its transcendant, individual quality: 'the equality Frodo and Sam achieve with each other is not only based on social distinction and a master/servant-relationship, it also *requires* it. ' Frayach speculates that 'people often referred to Frodo in Sam's presence as"your Mr. Frodo." Because Sam had "earned" the right to call him that - or rather the right to call him that (and the relationship it implies) *belongs*to him.' This all makes sense in terms of other uses of 'Mr.' by hobbits in LoTR:
Digression on the term 'Mister':
In A Long-Expected Party, the Gaffer refers frequently to 'Mr. Frodo' (and 'Mr. Bilbo' and 'Mr. Drogo') before Sam ever shows up in person. This form of reference is here limited to Bagginses; however as he refers to 'Miss Primula Brandybuck' and 'Master Gorbaduc' he might also use 'Mr.' to refer to less exalted Brandybucks. I think that 'Mr. Firstname' may be the Gaffer's standard way to refer to gentlefolk, at least gentlefolk with whom one can assert a personal connection (however tenuous), which Sam adopted and adapted.
In the same conversation, Old Noakes refers to 'this Frodo' and the Gaffer himself mentions 'old Gorbaduc'.
Thus I think that 'Mr.' must indicate a certain degree of respect for individuals or families, and not only class status. (Old Noakes' reference is disparaging, or at least doubtful. I think that the Gaffer's casual reference is meant to enhance his own status. Tolkien in an unkind mood once called the Gaffer 'conceited'; perhaps this is what he meant.) 'Mr. Firstname' indicates a certain intimacy. The Gaffer is old enough to get away with assuming a certain second-hand intimacy with the relatives, by blood or marriage, or all his 'Mr. Firstname's.
Sam, being younger and thus more respectful, refers to Frodo for the first time in LoTR as 'Mr. Baggins now, that I work for' but adds 'old Mr. Bilbo knew more', probably as permissible differentiation.
Ted Sandyman, who has no respect for either, calls them 'Bilbo' and 'Frodo'.
I think that 'Mr. Firstname' must have been the Gaffer's, and possibly everyone's, way of showing respectful intimacy with a higher-class hobbit. Thus it would have been readily available for Sam's respectful intimacy with Frodo, however greatly that differed from anything recognized in the Shire.
Upon capturing Gollum, and finding him trying to escape, Sam says sarcastically, "And where were you off to in the cold hard lands, Mr. Gollum?" using 'Mr.' to show anything but respect or intimacy.
In The Scouring of the Shire, Frodo says to the Shirriffs, "Chief? Chief? Do you mean Mr. Lotho?" This is hardly his own way of referring to Lotho; it must be what he expects of the Shirriffs. He later repeats the term to the ruffians. (He also says he is glad that Lotho has dropped the Baggins name, and I think he isn't about to restore it.)
The Shirriffs address Frodo as 'Mr. Baggins' and Merry as 'Mr. Merrry', perhaps because he is younger, perhaps because he is not yet Master of Buckland. I doubt that it is meant to convey intimacy. Farmer Cotton called Pippin 'Mr. Peregrin', which is undoubtedly proper since he is not yet of age, but addresses Merry as 'Mr. Merry' which surprises me. Why does he consider the nickname proper? Is that the only way he has heard Merry addressed? Sam addresses Farmer Cotton as 'Mr. Cotton.' Farmer Cotton, perhaps because he has picked it up off Sam, addresses Frodo as 'Mr. Frodo.'
The Gaffer however, calls Frodo 'Mr. Baggins', perhaps as a distancing tactic because of bone he says that he has to pick. Frodo responds with 'I am very sorry, Mr. Gamgee' - the first instance of an upper-class hobbit using 'Mr.' to address a lower class one that I can find. I think that this reflects his changed relationship with Sam but is also an ironic response in kind to the Gaffer's way of speaking to him.
After Frodo apologizes for all the Gaffer's complaints, he is upgraded to 'Mr. Frodo Baggins.' The use or non-use of 'Mr.' with first names, last names, or both in the Shire varies and carries many meanings. This is the cultural basis for Sam's multi-valued use of it in relation to Frodo.
End of Digression.
From this point on, Frodo uses Sam's name in almost every sentence; it will be the last word he says in Mount Doom. In TTT, Gollum called Frodo 'Master of the Precious' but Sam called him 'Master' first - a counter-force to the Ring. Here, with the Ring becoming 'more fell, untameable save by some mighty will', Frodo constantly reasserts his connection with Sam. As being with Frodo became Sam's one wish, being with Sam has become Frodo's one reliable, unassailable form of resistance.
Frodo recovers quickly enough to make the next decision: 'This won't do, Sam...We must get off this road somehow... Quick, Sam. Over we go!'
'[I]t was too dark for them to guess the depth of the fall'; therefore they might be risking death. 'Goodbye!' Sam says - just in case? 'He let go. Frodo followed.' There is a fast and constant alteration of initiative.
They are saved by 'the last thing that they had expected: a tangle of thorny bushes'. When Sam dares say anything at all, it is 'I didn't know as anything grew in Mordor!'
In a literary sense, the slow dying out of any vegetation at all may parllel the slow loss of Frodo's ability to remember how the Shire feels, sounds, smells, tastes. And perhaps also in a literal sense: The touch of grass under their feet is always cheering and strengthening to hobbits. The absence even of briars must be correspondingly weakening.
Frodo determines their direction out of the valley: 'Now down we go, Sam...Down into the valley quick, and then turn northward, as soon as ever we can.'
'Day was coming again in the world outside...but here all was still as dark as night. The mountain smouldered and its fires went out... The easterly wind that had been blowing ever since they left Ithilien now seemed dead.' Was the the wind related to the fire, acting as or resulting from an unseen bellows?
'To his amazement he found that Sam was alseep.' Is Frodo amazed that Sam can fall asleep so quickly in such discomfort? Or has he started thinking of Sam as tireless?
'We shan't win through by fighting' only by persistence.
'Look here, Sam dear lad', Frodo says, trying to soften the blow of discarding the orc mail, protection that Sam worked to hard to find.
'I am tired, weary, I haven't a hope left.' Hope, in the sense of expecting to reach his goal, may be one of the many things that Frodo had to jettison as simply staying separate from the Ring took up more and more of his resources; or it may be an emotion he can no longer find in himself.
'But I have to go on trying to get to the Mountain, as long as I can move. The Ring is enough. This extra weight' - of evil - 'is killing me.' A strong statement if taken literally - which is probably should be.
When Sam gives Frodo the elven-cloak 'made by the Lady', he feels 'much lighter. I can go on now.' The kind of protection they need to continue now is more and more the gifts of the Elves.
'But this blind dark seems to be getting into my heart. As I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill in Hobbiton. But I can't see them now.' Frodo knows what they are; he has an intellectual memory, but no visual memory to go with it. Is this the result of being in Mordor, of being stung by Shelob, of the long struggle against the Ring?
The wording is ambiguous: In prison he tried to remember, but doesn't say whether he was able to. In Mordor he is unable to, but Cara says that the Tower of Cirith Ungol is not in Mordor, although the road is; the Tower was built to overlook Modor from outside. Apparently the border is not defined by political control, as our borders are. I wonder what else might define them? Was the border always in the same place, even before Sauron moved there from Mirkwood? (When Sam said in the last chapter, 'Gorbag's gear, was a better fit and better made...but it wouldn't do, I guess, to go carrying his tokens into Mordor' is he implicitly defining the tower as outside Mordor? That would probably be making too much of the turn of a phrase.)
In the Tower he was definitely affected by Shelob's poison, and by the orc drink, each disorienting in its own way. My current guess is that in Mordor, telling Sam about it, Frodo remembered trying to remember but not whether he actually could, and that made him realize that now he definitely could not. Perhaps now he feels unable to even try?
'If only the Lady could see us or hear us, I'd say to her: "Your Ladyship, all we want is light and water: just clean water and plain daylight, better than any jewels"' - which is interesting because she didn't offer them any jewels. Is this a glancing reference to Beren's quest and the Silmarils?
'There's a Black Rider over us...I can feel it. We had better keep still for awhile.' Instead of becoming blind or immobile, Frodo notes it matter of factly. He has indeed become stronger.
'They stood up, and then they both stared in wonder...Light was growing behind them' - and, as the Tale of Years tells us, in Minas Tirith '[t]he horns of the Rohirrim are heard at cockcrow' as Gandalf confronts the Witch King and Theoden lies dying.
'Look at it, Mr. Frodo!...The wind's changed' - bringing Aragorn's fleet up Anduin.
The Nazgul must have been sent from Barad-dur to bring news of the battle, assuming that the one heading east with 'a cry of woe and dismay' a few minutes later is the same one. '[T]his cry no longer held any terror for them' although they could not know what news inspired it. But 'Something's happening...Haven't you got some hope now?'
'Well, no, not much, Sam...I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.' The Wheel of Fire will grow stronger, but I don't know whether that means that Frodo's sensory memory grows weaker, or whether it has been affected once and for all. Frodo's constant use of Sam's name from this chapter on may indicate a deliberate holding on either as memory fades, or in place of memory already diminished to imageless intellectual recall. In either case, both times he refers to lack of sensory memory, he also refers to the Wheel of Fire.
'The light grew stronger, for Orodruin was still belching forth a great fume that, beaten upwards by the opposing airs...spread in an immeasurable roof'.
'Unbelievable, but unmistakable. Water trickling...Sam sprang towards it. "If I ever see the Lady again, I will tell her!" he cried. "Light and now water!" Then he stopped. "Let me drink first, Mr. Frodo...if it's poisonous, or something that will show its badness quick, well, better me than you, master, if you understand me." "I do. But I think we'll trust our luck together. Sam; or our blessing."'
Sam's immediate reaction is that this is his other wish - clean water, but he isn't about to risk Frodo's life on it. Either Frodo is more sure than Sam that this is a gift and therefore clean; or is as willing to die with Sam as Sam was to die with him; or knows that he can't go on without Sam, regardless; or trusts his/their fate; or all of the above.
The climax of Sam's deepening understanding of light, and the only reference to Sam's individual fate:
'Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.'
Sam does not for the most part think in terms of fate or doom, and even here the reference to fate is in a summarizing line, which leaves it unclear whether it was his thought or not. He experiences fate - which is inseparable from character - but his spiritual vocabulary is concerned more with wishes (prayers), with light and with Frodo's (and by extension his own) place in the Great Tale.
'They woke together, hand in hand.'
Frodo's 'sleep had been uneasy, full of dreams of fire' rather like that of Mount Doom: 'it stood in smouldering slumber' - connected through the Ring/Wheel of Fire?
'[T]he Eye turned inward, pondering tidings of doubt and danger' - the failure of the assault on Gondor - 'a bright sword, and a stern and kingly face it saw'. Despite the Mouth of Sauron's correct conclusion that the different races of Middle-earth are united against Barad-dur, Sauron thinks that the only thing that might have turned back his army is the power of his own Ring, which he suspects Aragorn of having.
'I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can. At present that is to avoid being captured as long as possible.' As Frodo strongly implied in the last chapter, success means keeping it away from the enemy.
Info from the orcs: Gollum 'pinched' Frodo's cast-off orc mail shirt; one of the Nazgul is in charge of the Tower now; 'They've done in Number One'. The first two seem reliable, since the orcs saw Gollum and Frodo and Sam was the Nazgul arrive; the third is hearsay only.
'"I told you Gollum wasn't dead yet, didn't I?" "Yes, I remember. And I wondered how you knew," said Frodo.' This is never really answered; Sam didn't kill Gollum himself, and could be pretty sure that Shelob wouldn't, but Sam's certainty, knowing Sam, is most likely intuitive; and perhaps he remembers Gandalf's 'some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end'.
'Sam spoke into Frodo's ear all that he could find words for...Frodo said nothing but took Sam's hand and pressed it.'
'It's dark, and we cannot use the Lady's glass. Keep it safe for me, Sam.' Frodo now gives Sam the glass, the antecedent for what Sam said in the last chapter: 'You lent me Sting, if you remember, and the Lady's glass.' Was Sam remembering backwards?
Here Frodo does not lend Sting, rather 'Sting I give to you...I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again.' Is this a sign that Frodo is weakening physically, or that keeping up his mental resistance to the Ring is all he can do, or that the kind of resistance that began when he drew his sword at Weathertop will no longer work so close to the Fire? The nearest we get to an explanation is 'I am afraid, Sam, that the burden will get very heavy, and I shall go still slower as we get nearer.'
'We have come to a dead end, Sam.' Frodo only describes their situation. He does not ask Sam to decide what to do, but neither does he make any decision or plan, so Sam decides for them both: 'Then we must take the road, Mr. Frodo...and chance our luck.'
'"Alright, Sam," said Frodo, "Lead me! As long as you've got any hope left. Mine is gone. But I can't dash, Sam. I'll just plod along after you."'
'When Frodo was asleep Sam bent over him and listened to his breathing and scanned his face. It was lined and thin, yet in sleep it looked content and unafraid.' His dreams here are unrecorded but they cannot be of the Wheel of Fire.
'refusing to despair' - Hope is now Sam's burden as the Ring is Frodo's.
Gollum - 'I wish he had been shot!' - NOT 'I wish I had killed him.' Sam is mentally leaving Gollum to fate.
The orcs 'were moving fast: too fast for Frodo to escape by flight along the road ahead.' Sam by implication could have escaped alone, but that was inconceivable.
'"We're trapped at last!" [Frodo] said. He sank to the ground beneath the wall of rock and bowed his head.' If success means keeping the Ring from the Enemy, being trapped with it means failure. Frodo 'set his teeth and tried to stop his mind from thinking...to what evil end he toiled and endured he did not dare to think.' Evil means both personally - he has been captured by orcs before - and for the world. 'Frodo's strength began to give out and his will wavered.'
Both physical strength and mental resistance are in danger; this is the first time since Amon Hen that Frodo's will has not been firm.
This may be the last thing narrated from Frodo's point of view until after the destruction of the Ring and their rescue. There will be many references to 'their' will in the next chapter, so united are they in some ways; yet in other ways Frodo's point of view is unrecoverable as he loses more and more of himself.
Frodo's point of view shifts subtly to Sam's via a sentence that fits with either: 'He lurched and stumbled. Desperately Sam tried to help him and hold him up, though he felt that he could himself hardly stay the pace much longer. At any moment the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and all their bitter efforts be in vain.'
Sam at least has the bitter comfort that 'I'll have that big slave-driving devil anyway.' He is sure of his fighting ability, however exhausted.
'Then, just as he was putting his hand to the hilt of his sword' - ready once more to go down fighting - fate saves them. As Frodo said in The Taming of Smeagol "It's my doom, I think, to go to that Shadow yonder, so that a way will be found." They are under the Shadow now, but a way is still found.
'Sam woke up, grasped quickly at his chance, and threw himself to the ground, dragging Frodo down with him...Sam felt that the ought at least to get futher away from the highways and out of the range of torchlight.' Frodo is past such decisiveness. At Sam's urging, '[w]ith a last despairing effort, Frodo raised himself on his hands, and struggled on for maybe twenty yards. Then he pitched down into a shallow pit that opened unexpctedly before them' - something suggestive of a grave - 'and there he lay like a dead thing.'
If not for lembas, Frodo would be dead and Sam at least dying. As it is, Frodo can try to keep going, but that is all he can do. Everything else is up to Sam.