J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in a letter that “I am not Gandalf, … As far as any character is ‘like me’ it is Faramir — except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage.”[1] Recently, someone asked me how Tolkien had the gall to consider himself like Faramir, who is wise, brave, compassionate, dutiful, and one of the few for whom the Ring had no appeal. I explained why I thought Tolkien wrote that, and have since looked up the evidence for my argument in Tolkien’s letters and in The Lord of the Rings (LOTR).
The main reason I think Tolkien felt most like Faramir is the fact that they were both scholars and soldiers, with an emphasis on scholarship. Faramir’s father distrusts his son because he is a “wizard’s pupil,” someone who has studied lore. And though Faramir is a successful warrior, he admits that he only fights out of necessity. In The Two Towers, he says, “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”[2]
In The Return of the King, one of the guards of Gondor explains why Faramir is underestimated: “‘… for in these days men are slow to believe that a captain can be wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song, as [Faramir] is, and yet a man of hardihood and swift judgement in the field.’”[3] In other words, good warriors are not likely to be good scholars, or vice versa. And yet Faramir excels at both.
The comment that a man can’t be both “wise” and “hardy” (both scholar and soldier) sounds to me like a belief Tolkien had encountered himself, possibly while an officer during World War I, As a scholar who also had to “take up the sword” to defend that which he loved, Tolkien must have had real compassion for the challenges facing Faramir.
There are other details Faramir’s character shares with Tolkien. Tolkien had a recurring dream of a great wave washing over the land and admitted that he “bequeathed it to Faramir” in Letter 163[4]. There’s no way to know if Faramir has the dream because Tolkien already felt the similarities between them, or if Tolkien felt “like” Faramir because he gave him the dream.
Similarly, Faramir is one of the few characters in LOTR to acknowledge the existence of the deity of Middle-earth[5]. Tolkien was a Catholic, and though it is deeply buried in LOTR, his fantasy world has a monotheistic foundation. Again, which came first? The connection with the character or the trait? There’s no way to know.
However, Faramir was a scholar and a warrior right from the start, and I believe that Tolkien felt a kinship with him as a result. The other details may have been integral to the character’s creation — although Tolkien insisted that he did not invent Faramir[6] — or added later. There’s no way to know. I do think Tolkien would have agreed that Faramir was an idealized version of the scholar/soldier, demonstrating what the best version of a man who combined both roles might be, but that he would never have claimed any of Faramir’s perfections for himself.
What do you think?
Footnotes
[1] Letter 180, p. 232, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter.
[2] The Two Towers, Book 4, Chapter V, “The Window on the West.”
[3] The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter I, “Minas Tirith.”
[4] Letter 163, p. 213, Letters (see above).
[5] In Book 4, Chapter V Faramir leads his men in a moment of silence before eating. He explains that they “look … to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.”
[6] Letter 65, p. 79, Letters (see above).
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