Recovering Consolation: Sam's Enchanted Path in the Lord of the Rings

Although Tolkien’s letters call Samwise Gamgee the “chief hero” of The Lord of the Rings, Sam is easily underestimated by both readers and critics. Recovering Consolation focuses attention on Sam’s point of view throughout the long journey that is the novel. This book responds to Frodo’s famous words at the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, imagining a child speaking to a parent: “I want to hear more about Sam, dad; why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”
Listening to Sam not only makes us laugh but also shows him to be, like Tolkien himself, a master of mythopoesis; as the novel’s narrator puts it, “Sam had more on his mind than gardening.” Yet the concrete act of gardening, another passion that Sam shares with Tolkien, should help us to understand how consolation is recovered, as is well explained in Tolkien’s great essay, “On Fairy Stories.” Both there and in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien offers a “theological aesthetic” that has much to teach us. Although we may not realize it while laughing along with Sam, this humble servant-hobbit is key to this aesthetic.

Greg Maillet is Professor of English at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is co-author, with David Lyle Jeffrey, of Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical Practice (2011). His recent books are Learning to See the Theological Vision of Shakespeare's King Lear (2016), Reading Othello as Catholic Tragedy (2018), and Word Awake: An Introduction to the Novels of Michael D. O'Brien (2019).