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Book 3, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Two Towers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Decline and Decay
Good and Evil
Duty
Joy and Optimism vs. Despair
Power
Heroism, Honor, and Glory
Summary
Analysis
Merry and Pippin hurry through the forest. The air is stuffy and they find it difficult to breathe. They agree that the forest feels very old, though it doesn’t look like Bilbo’s description of Mirkwood. They’re low on supplies, and stop briefly to drink from a stream, but press on to investigate a shaft of sunlight illuminating a natural staircase in the side of a hill. They climb eagerly towards the fresh air, not noticing that their injuries are healed and their strength has returned. From the top of the staircase, they can see that they’re three or four miles into the trees. Pippin remarks that, in the sunlight, he almost feels that he likes the forest.
Whether Merry and Pippin’s injuries are healed by the lembas they ate right before entering the forest or their drink from the stream, it implies that a return to the natural world is a curative thing. Even if the forest is stuffy and strange, it’s still far better than captivity with the orcs, and, in the sunlight—which offers warmth, sight, and clarity—it’s almost welcoming.
Themes
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice sarcastically answers that Pippin’s comment is “uncommonly kind” and that he almost feels that he dislikes them but won’t be hasty. A large hand turns them around and lifts them up. Merry and Pippin stare at a man- or troll-like figure with a bushy grey beard, wearing green and grey bark. He has deep, solemn eyes that Pippin feels are “filled up with ages of memory.” The figure thinks the hobbits are very odd and almost mistook them for little orcs.
This figure is an enemy of the orcs, and therefore likely to be an ally for Merry and Pippin. In his great age and his quick humor, he’s not unlike Gandalf, Tom Bombadil, and some of the other very old creatures of Middle-earth. In his physical appearance, this figure is almost treelike, as though a representative of the forest itself—and, by extension, the ancient and natural world of Middle-earth—has appeared to speak to the hobbits.
Themes
Pippin, unafraid, asks who this being is. The figure introduces himself as an ent, named Fangorn or Treebeard, and wonders what sort of people the hobbits are. Treebeard recites a list of living creatures, starting with the “free peoples”: elves, dwarves, ents, and humans. Merry tells Treebeard that they’re hobbits and Pippin offers a new verse to add to the list of creatures.
Hobbits are as unfamiliar to Treebeard as ents are to Merry and Pippin; in Fangorn forest, two different stories out of Rohan’s legends meet. Treebeard seems interested in cataloguing and listing the living beings of Middle-earth and finds that hobbits have no place in his ordering of the world. Indeed, hobbits naturally exist apart and unnoticed from much of Middle-earth, as a race of primarily quiet home-bodies. Merry and Pippin, however, adventurous for hobbits, are glad to add themselves to Treebeard’s list.
Themes
Treebeard warns them not to tell everyone they meet the name that they call themselves (hobbits) because it holds power. Merry tells him that they aren’t very careful, and he and Pippin introduce themselves with their full names. Treebeard says that his own name would take a long time to say, since it’s like a story, growing all the time. The language of the ents is slow because they don’t say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say.
Treebeard is right that names hold power: for example, when Aragorn declares himself with his full title, his power and nobility become suddenly unmistakable. Consequently, many people represent themselves with nicknames (such as Aragorn’s alias “Strider”) and translate their names to different languages. The hobbits, however, have no such guile. They introduce themselves with their full names and prefer to be called by their personal name for their species (hobbits) rather than anyone else’s name for them. The language of the ents further emphasizes the importance of names. Ent names constantly evolve and describe their subject—to speak them would take a long time and reveal everything about that subject, hence the rarity of doing so.
Themes
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Treebeard asks about Gandalf, and Pippin tells him that Gandalf’s story is over. Treebeard carries the hobbits towards his home, where they plan to tell him their story. On the way, Pippin asks why Celeborn warned them about Fangorn forest. Treebeard calls Lothlórien a strange place and then explains that people “come to grief” in Fangorn because some of the trees have bad hearts. The ents are herders of trees, though there are few left awake to tend to the forest.
In the world of Middle-earth, growing ever more complicated, even the natural land can contain both good and evil. As a nation is made of people, some good and some bad, a forest is made of trees, some good and some bad. If the trees are angry about the destruction of the environment, they may lash out. Treebeard can guide the trees, but he doesn’t control them.
Themes
In his home, Treebeard offers the hobbits a drink that smells faintly like the forest and invigorates them. As they tell Treebeard about their adventures, he seems particularly interested in Gandalf and the activities of Saruman. Treebeard says he is on nobody’s “side” because no one is on his side—he doesn’t meddle in the troubles of elves and men. However, he is against all Orcs and against Saruman, a wizard and the head of the White Council. Saruman used to be polite to Treebeard, but then turned to evil ways in his search for power. Now he and his orcs cut down Treebeard’s trees. Treebeard declares that he will stop it and the hobbits agree to help.
Saruman’s decline from the courtesy of his former days both reflects and contributes to the broader decline of Middle-earth from its past beauty and nobility. When Saruman stopped showing Treebeard kindness, he stopped showing the world kindness, beginning to consider the environment only as something to exploit and abuse. Treebeard, like the men of Rohan, is discovering that it will soon be impossible to be on nobody’s “side” in the coming conflict. Inaction is dangerous in such times, and if he wishes to oppose Saruman, who cuts down his trees and disrespects the land, Treebeard must act.
Themes
There are only two other ents in Fangorn forest because there have been no ent children. Treebeard interrupts the hobbits’ story to ask if they’ve seen any entwives during their travels. Long ago, the ents and the entwives had a disagreement over how to tend to nature. The entwives wanted to build gardens and command plants rather than just aid them in their growing. The ents remained in their forest, and when they went to visit the gardens of the entwives, they found the land burned and the entwives gone. The elves have a song claiming that the ents will meet the entwives again after their lands are barren.
As the beauty of the world of Middle-earth has declined, so have the ents. Treebeard implies that, though he misses the entwives and longs for their return, their fall was due to their own search for power. Rather than being shepherds of nature, as they should be, the entwives interpreted their duties differently, seeking to control and order nature in gardens. And though the entwives may return, it will only be at a time of ecological disaster.
Themes
Merry and Pippin sleep as Treebeard goes to stand in the rain. In the morning, Treebeard takes them to a gathering of ents, who all look as different from each other as different types of trees. When the melodic language of the ents starts putting Pippin to sleep, Treebeard sends the hobbits outside. Merry and Pippin wonder where Isengard is and what it’s like. They agree that they feel safe with the ents but have the sense that the ents could be dangerous if provoked.
Representatives of the land and the growing things of Middle-earth are beginning to join the fight against the forces that seek to destroy the natural world. The ents are slow to speak, slow to move, and slow to act, but Merry and Pippin have the sense that there’s something more volatile beneath their plodding exteriors. So, too, can the natural world itself be made dangerous over time if mistreated or abused.
Themes
Treebeard explains to the hobbits that they still have to contact the ents who live far away and decide what to do about Saruman. He introduces them to a “hasty” ent named Quickbeam who picks them up and takes them to his ent-house to sleep. He tells the hobbits about his rowan trees, cut down by the orcs. They remain in Quickbeam’s company for the next two days. On the third afternoon, the ents come to a decision and march singing to attack Isengard.
This fight against Saruman isn’t the responsibility of Treebeard alone, but of the many ents across Middle-earth who wish to protect their trees from the evil forces who wish to burn and exploit them. Their duty as shepherds of the trees can no longer be to only watch over their forests—they must participate once more in the greater community of the world.
Themes
As Treebeard picks up the hobbits again, they ask if the ents will really break down the doors of Isengard. Treebeard assures the hobbits that they can—once roused to battle, they are stronger then trolls, which are made by Sauron as a mockery of ents. Treebeard does admit that it’s possible they are marching to their deaths, but they may be able to help others before Saruman overpowers them. Pippin, half asleep, thinks he can see groves of trees moving, as though Fangorn forest is awake and marching with them to war. Night falls as they reach Isengard and look down over the valley of Saruman.
Pippin’s vision of the moving forest portrays how the natural world itself is fighting back against its oppressors. Rather than staying in their forests to protect themselves and their own small lands, the ents have decided to risk their lives and join together to fight for the entirety of Middle-earth. The ents’ motivations are selfless—it’s likely that the battle with Saruman will end with the destruction of their fading species. Still, their duty to the natural world demands that they deter the forces causing Middle-earth’s decline. If nothing else, the ents will sacrifice themselves in the hopes of doing some good for others before they die.
Themes
