Abstract
Abstract
This essay reads Frodo's trajectory of vocation, sacrifice, and salvation in The Lord of the Rings through Aquinas's account of the cooperation of grace and free will (Summa Theologica I-II, qq. 109–114), and reads Gollum and Gríma as two unwitting mediators of grace. It does not argue that Tolkien consciously adopted this doctrine, but that his characters enact it. Frodo freely accepts two vocations, the destruction of the Ring and the protection of the Shire, yet cannot complete either by his own strength. Their completion comes through the two fallen figures: Gollum at the Crack of Doom, and Gríma in the death of Saruman. In both cases the completion passes through Frodo's own prior mercy. While grounding both figures in a privative account of evil, the essay also attends to their differences: in the origin of their fall, the manner of their deaths, and their relation to Frodo. Grace thus appears as fitted to each person and task rather than applied as a single formula. Finally, the essay reads Frodo's passage into the West, and the wounds he carries there, as a purgatorial healing through which his self-spending is ordered to its final end.
Recommended Citation
Shimai, Yoshie
(2026)
"Vocation, Grace, and Redemption in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium,"
Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 24:
Iss.
3, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol24/iss3/8