“The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien (post 7): Frodo has strange experience of his friend Strider’s switch to an alternate personality.

Previously, in Tolkien post 6, I noted the curious fact that there is one character who has ten different names in this novel. It is not the character who is usually thought to have multiple personality, Gollum, who has only two names. It is the character first introduced to the reader as Strider. And I wondered if there would be anything more than multiple names to suggest that Strider had multiple personality.

In the following passage, note especially the “strange voice” of “Strider, and yet not Strider” who was “no longer there”:

“ ‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skillful strokes…‘Fear not!’ he said. ‘Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses Isildur and Anárion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son, heir of Elendil, has naught to dread!’ Then the light of his eyes faded [as he switches back to his regular personality], and he spoke to himself: ‘Would that Gandalf were here!…whither now shall I go?’ ” (1, p. 393).

This is not simply a description of a man experiencing a moment of pride in his heritage. If it were, that is how Frodo would have experienced his friend’s behavior. But Frodo hears his friend’s voice as so different from what it usually sounds like that it sounds like the voice of a stranger. And although this stranger looked like his friend Strider, it was, somehow, not Strider.

Frodo is having the uncanny experience of hearing and seeing a friend who, temporarily, does not sound and seem like the friend he knows, because his friend has switched to an alternate personality.

Two Questions

The two questions I have about this character are, first, whether there will be any more evidence of multiple personality, and, second, whether this character’s multiple personality is integral to the plot, and is in the novel intentionally.

The latter distinction is important, because when multiple personality has been put in a novel intentionally, then it may be regarded as a gimmick. But if it does not appear intentional—if it is what I have termed “gratuitous multiple personality”—then it may be in the novel only because it reflects the author’s own psychology.

1. J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings [1954-55]. 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.