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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Silmarillion, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unity vs. Division
Fate, Doom, and Free Will
Pride and Arrogance
Greed, Jealousy, and Obsession
Inevitable Loss
Myth and Memory
Summary
Analysis
Aulë wants to teach his craftwork to others. Unwilling to wait for the arrival of the Children of Ilúvatar, he secretly creates the dwarves. When the first seven dwarves are finished, Ilúvatar asks Aulë why he’s attempted something beyond his authority. Aulë, who doesn’t have Ilúvatar’s power to create life and free will, can only make puppets. Aulë explains that he wants the dwarves to live and experience Arda, which has room for many creatures. He calls himself a child playing at what he’s seen his father do.
Aulë’s creation of the dwarves is an act of arrogance, but it is foolish arrogance—born of impatience rather than envy or malice. Aulë is very like Melkor in his desire to create life of his own, but unlike Melkor’s, Aulë’s is an unselfish desire. He wants to share the beauty of the world and the joy of craftwork with others, but he doesn’t have Ilúvatar’s power to create free will, so he can’t give the dwarves true life.
Themes
Aulë offers to destroy the dwarves, who shrink away from him. Ilúvatar stops him and explains that he has given the dwarves life and incorporated them into his plan for the world. Still, he won’t reward Aulë’s impatience, and puts the dwarves to sleep in the mountain until after the elves arrive. He predicts that the dwarves, as Aulë’s children, will have conflict with the Children of Ilúvatar. The dwarves, hardy and stubborn, believe that they return to Aulë after death and will assist him in remaking Arda after the end of the world.
Also unlike Melkor, Aulë has the humility to ask for forgiveness and immediately offers to rectify his transgression however he can. Rather than allowing them to be destroyed, Ilúvatar adopts the dwarves as his own children and gives them true life. Still, since they were made by Aulë, who only understands part of Ilúvatar’s mind, the dwarves will have conflict with men and elves, Ilúvatar’s true children.
Themes
Aulë reveals the creation of the dwarves to Yavanna, who tells him that the dwarves won’t love the plants of Middle-earth like she does and will abuse nature. Aulë argues that the elves and men will also use the natural world for food and shelter. With Melkor’s influence, the Children of Ilúvatar might lose all respect for plants and animals.
The dwarves, created by Aulë alone, will be very like Aulë and will probably lack the diversity of the other races. Still, Aulë is right to realize that all the races will need to use Yavanna’s nature to live, and that Melkor will take advantage of their worst qualities to harm the land.
Themes
Anxious, Yavanna goes to Manwë and wishes that the trees could speak on behalf of the natural world. Ilúvatar reveals to Manwë that the trees spoke in the Great Song and sends him to assure Yavanna that he hasn’t forgotten her. Spirits will come to dwell among nature to protect it in the form of the great eagles and the shepherds of trees. Yavanna tells Aulë that his children will have to beware the guardians of her nature, but Aulë only insists that the dwarves and the Children of Ilúvatar will still need wood.
Through this story, the elves reveal the origins of the dwarves, the shepherds of the trees (also known as ents), and Manwë’s messengers, the giant eagles. There will be inevitable conflict between Yavanna’s shepherds and Aulë’s dwarves, just as there will be some inevitable destruction of the natural world to sustain the Children of Ilúvatar, even without Melkor’s influence.
Themes
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