Failure and Punishment

[doug*platypus]

I found the following, interesting perspective in Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings by Lin Carter (a fairly short treatise, full of unfortunate mistakes of fact, which deals mainly with listing the various epics and fantasies thorughout history which paved the way for LOTR):

Frodo learns, slowly and painfully, how to become a hero. Nor is he perfect and pure: in fact, he is guilty of three foolish mistakes and is punished for each by a wound from which he is never to completely recover. His first error is folly, and his punishment is the knife wound he suffers on Weathertop; his second, overconfidence, for which his punishment is to taste the sting of Shelob; his third is weakness itself when, at the brink of the Crack of Doom, he does not prove strong enough to hurl the Ring away. His punishment for that greatest of his three sins is the most gruesome of all - the loss of his ring finger when Gollum bites it off to get the Ring from him.

Although I have long known that Frodo was the punching bag of the quest, and that he suffered greatly in striving to achieve the ultimate goal, I had never before considered that some at least of his misfortunes were, in part at least, his own fault.

What do you think of Carter's assertion that Frodo's wounds were inflicted as a sort of punishment for his failures? An argument could be made that his knife wound was only minor because of his bravery in attacking the Witch King, but perhaps he would not have been pinpointed and wounded at all if he had not put the Ring on.

Are there any examples in Tolkien's work where others are hurt as a result of some failing of their own? Boromir perhaps is killed while atoning for his assault on Frodo, protecting the hobbit's kinsmen. Fëanor on his return to Middle Earth arrogantly pressed on towards Angband and was destroyed. His sons all come to grisly ends, some as a direct result of the Oath. Saruman and Wormtongue both find their commeupance in the Shire. Thingol is slain by the dwarves when he refuses to pay them their dues. Are there any others?

What do you think of this device, which seems ultimately to be the (sometimes capital) punishment of sinners by fate?

In contrast to the wounds of Frodo, which Carter seems to indicate are in part deserved, other members of the Fellowship are wounded as a result of bravery, and bear their scars as a token of honour. Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli and Gandalf are all wounded in combat. Also, many of the heroes of the Eldar and Edain in the First Age are killed fighting against Morgoth; their deaths are most often heroic and win them great renown.

Is this contrast the reason why Frodo is not held in higher esteem among the hobbits on his return to the Shire? Rather than being wounded in victorious combat, he is struck down as a result of "folly, overconfidence and weakness" (to use Carter's words).

Your thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated!