Not Two Selves but a Relational Field: A Relational Frame Theory Reading of Gollum

Authors

• Emilio R. López-Navarro, University of Balearic Islands, SPAINFollow

Abstract

This article examines Gollum’s divided selfhood in The Lord of the Rings as a phenomenon constructed and enacted through language rather than as a simple moral or psychological split. Building on recent linguistic work on Gollum’s idiolect, it draws on Relational Frame Theory (RFT) as a descriptive framework for analyzing how speech organizes perspective, value, and action. The argument is literary rather than clinical: RFT is used not to diagnose Gollum, but to specify the verbal structures through which Tolkien renders inner conflict audible. Four relational processes are central to the analysis: deictic instability in shifts among “Sméagol,” “Gollum,” “we,” and “I”; oppositional and hierarchical framing in the unstable relation between Frodo as “Master” and the Ring as “Precious”; transformation of functions, through which the Ring reorganizes the value of persons, objects, and possible actions; and rule-governed discourse, in which promises, prohibitions, and self-directed commands compete to govern conduct. On this reading, the alternation between “Sméagol” and “Gollum” does not mark two stable selves but the movement of a speaking subject across unstable verbal positions within a dynamic relational field. The Ring emerges not simply as a symbol of corruption, but as the central node that increasingly absorbs and reorganizes the entire field of meaning. The essay concludes that the Mount Doom sequence does not resolve Gollum’s dividedness into unity; rather, it reveals the reduction of relational multiplicity to one dominant orientation, in which selfhood collapses into a single consuming relation. In this sense, Tolkien dramatizes selfhood as relationally unstable.

Recommended Citation

López-Navarro, Emilio R. (2026) "Not Two Selves but a Relational Field: A Relational Frame Theory Reading of Gollum," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 24: Iss. 2, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol24/iss2/4