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Book 4, Chapter 8
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
Gollum leads the way towards a looming wall and the hobbits follow side by side. Sam remarks on a foul smell, growing stronger as they approach the entrance to the tunnel. Gollum assures them that the tunnel is the only way to go, but doesn’t tell them its name, Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair. Sam guesses that it’s some sort of orc lair, filled with their filth, but Frodo says they must go through anyway. Inside, it’s as dark as the mines of Moria, and the air is stale and still. Their senses and their minds grow dull, until they can no longer hear Gollum’s breathing ahead of them, and they stumble on through force of will alone.
The narrator reveals now that the way Gollum leads them is the lair of something frightening and dangerous but doesn’t yet explain what Shelob is. Bad smells, like ugliness and barrenness, often accompany evil. The hobbits can sense that something foul lives inside the tunnel, but they have no choice but to follow Gollum if they hope to reach Mordor and complete the quest.
Themes
Sam feels an opening and realizes that there’s more than one passage in the tunnel, though the main path continues straight. As the hobbits walk, something like tentacles or plants brushes against their hands and arms, and the smell grows stronger. Frodo reaches an opening in the wall he’s touching, and from it comes a smell and a malice so terrible that he stumbles, and Sam falls down. Frodo pulls him up to stagger onwards, hand in hand. They reach a fork in the tunnel and realize that they’ve lost Gollum. There’s no answer when Frodo calls for him, and Sam figures that he’s finally left them.
Shelob’s lair is sinister, leaving the hobbits lost and sightless. In the dark, the malice of the space becomes almost a physical thing, able to knock them down, similar to the magnetic pull of Sauron’s eye. The environment has been so corrupted by Shelob’s evil that the very air is full of it.
Themes
Fumbling in the dark, they discover that the left opening is blocked, and they must take the right. Sam has a feeling that something worse than Gollum is looking at them. As they head down the righthand tunnel, a gurgling noise and a long hiss come from behind them. Sam realizes that they’ve been led into a trap and reaches for his sword. As he stands in the dark, he sees a light in his mind, and an image of Galadriel standing in Lothlórien with a gift for Frodo. Suddenly animated, Sam reminds Frodo of the phial, which Galadriel gave him to be a light in dark places, “when all other lights go out.”
Sam, aided by his ability to feel joy and conjure memories of home even while surrounded by evil and despair, is the one to remember the phial. Whether his visions are only his imagination or some external power reminding him of the elves, Sam is especially receptive to hope and memory, and that capacity helps him fulfill his duty to Frodo. Galadriel intended the phial to be useful to Frodo in times of darkness; now, following Gollum’s disappearance and the loss of their guide, is the perfect time for it to shed light.
Themes
Frodo takes out the phial, which struggles for a moment in the dark, then brightens to a dazzling light. Frodo shouts a warning in a language he doesn’t know, as though another voice is speaking through him, but the thing in the darkness with them has heard the elvish phrase before and isn’t afraid of it. Between the hobbits and the opening of the tunnel are two clusters of many-faceted eyes reflecting the light. When Frodo and Sam back away, the eyes keep pace with them. They try to flee, but quickly realize they can’t outrun the eyes, and Frodo shouts for them to stand, gathering his courage and invoking Galadriel’s name with the phial.
The phial provides clarity first, illuminating the space, and then protection and strength as Frodo decides to stand and fight. Frodo’s sudden speech in an elvish language implies that the phial channels some external and collective power of the elves through its wielder. As Sam almost conjured Galadriel with his vision, Frodo invokes her name while holding the phial. Despite the power of the voice speaking through Frodo, Shelob is ancient and unafraid.
Themes
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As Frodo advances, drawing Sting and holding the phial up, the eyes waver and then disappear. Sam, close by with his sword drawn, marvels that the elves would make a song of their brave stand, then begs Frodo to escape from the tunnel. As they run, the floor rises steeply, and when they reach the end of the tunnel, they find their way blocked by a yielding but impervious surface.
The combination of Frodo’s elvish phial and elvish blade is enough to intimidate Shelob into fleeing. Frodo suddenly seems very much like a hero from a story to Sam—someone who does great feats of daring and magic with ease—rather than the sad and tired friend he’s been following towards Mordor.
Themes
Frodo raises the phial and realizes the surface is a densely-woven web, like it was made by a giant spider. Sam hacks furiously at the web with his sword, but it only cuts one cord, which snaps back and lashes his hand. Sam wishes Faramir’s curse (death if he doesn’t serve Frodo well) on Gollum. Frodo hands the phial to Sam and tries cutting the web himself. Sting has more of an effect, cutting the cords easily until the web is destroyed.
The only effective weapons against Shelob and her webs appear to be elvish ones; Sting is an ancient sword and has cut through spiderwebs before. With Gollum’s betrayal, Sam’s intuition is proven right again. Though it won’t help them now, he still wishes for revenge.
Themes
Frodo runs out of the tunnel, joyful at their escape, and the fading daylight of Mordor looks to him like a hopeful morning. He sees the cleft, Cirith Ungol, ahead of them, and urges Sam on towards it. Sam runs as fast as he can, repeatedly looking back to the tunnel, afraid that the eyes will follow them again.
Though Frodo is energized by the phial, Sam remains wary of the monster in the tunnel. Sam’s instinctive fear of another attack is a good indication that their battle isn’t over yet.
Themes
But Shelob, “an evil thing in spider-form” has many exits from her lair. No one knows how Shelob came to live there, but she was there eating men and elves before Sauron came. Years ago, Gollum found her there and worshipped her, promising to bring her food. She doesn’t care about power, and only wants death for everyone but herself. Now she’s hungry as Sauron’s power grows, and no one passes near her den but orcs.
The narrator now explains the many-eyed creature in the lair. Shelob is an ancient being of pure malice and insatiable hunger, with no desires but food and destruction. Since she has no interest in power, she has no interest in the Ring—making her one of the only antagonists in series not seeking it either for herself or someone else.
Themes
On the road with Frodo, Gollum often considered bringing the hobbits to Shelob, letting her eat them, then picking through their clothes and bones for the Ring. Once he had the Ring, he would take revenge on her. Concealing his plan, he came to see her and bowed, offering her the hobbits as a meal. Sauron knows about Shelob, and it pleases him to know that she lurks there, hungry and enraged, guarding the secret path to Mordor. Sometimes he sends prisoners for her to eat, and he doesn’t mind when she eats some of his orcs. No victim has ever escaped Shelob’s webs.
Shelob is the “She” Gollum referred to in his earlier argument with himself. The narrator reveals that the conversation Sam overheard wasn’t the only time Gollum plotted to bring the hobbits to her—over and over, his worse side prevailed over its kinder counterpart. Gollum plans to use Shelob’s strength to take the Ring from Frodo, just as Sauron uses her as a guard for the path into Mordor. Both feed her and take advantage of her powerful hate.
Themes
Sam doesn’t know anything about Shelob except the fact that he’s so afraid that it’s hard to run. There’s dread all around him, there are enemies ahead, and Frodo is running “heedless” towards Mordor. Sam realizes two things: Frodo’s sword is glowing blue, a sign that orcs are near, and the tower in Mordor is glowing red. He hides Galadriel’s phial in his pocket and pulls his cloak closer around him. As soon as Sam hides the phial, a monstrous shape appears from a shadow under the cliff, like a huge spider with horns and claws and a swollen body. She quickly moves to attack Frodo, placing herself between him and Sam, who shouts a warning.
Frodo, usually sensitive to the eye of Sauron, is distracted by their victory and unattuned to the malice around him. It’s Sam who senses danger from all sides and feels its overwhelming weight. He covers the light of Galadriel’s phial to better hide them in the gloom, but the elven light is all that’s preventing Shelob from attacking.
Themes
As Sam yells to Frodo to look behind him, Gollum clamps a hand over Sam’s mouth and pulls him backwards off his feet, hissing “got him!” and gloating that Shelob will eat him. Desperation gives Sam the strength to fight back and eventually tear himself away from Gollum, hitting him with his staff until it breaks. Gollum realizes his spite led him to underestimate Sam and gloat before he had both hands around Sam’s neck. Now Gollum’s plan is ruined, and he faces “a furious enemy.”
Though Sam was unable to overpower Gollum the first time they fought, the knowledge that Frodo is in danger gives him newfound power. Gollum’s arrogance—the very weakness he noticed in Sauron—aids Sam’s fight as well. In his desire to be cruel and mock Sam before killing him, he allowed Sam the chance to escape. Arrogance, it seems, is a universal weakness of the power-hungry.
Themes
When Sam raises his sword again, Gollum flees back towards the tunnel. Sam tries to pursue, forgetting everything but his rage, but Gollum is gone. Suddenly, he remembers the monstrous spider Shelob and runs back, shouting for Frodo. He’s too late, and Gollum’s plan is succeeding.
Sam’s strong emotions, while they’re often a great strength, occasionally overcome his logic, to his detriment and Frodo’s. By the time he remembers his duty over his anger, the narrator reveals that something has already gone horribly wrong for Frodo.
Themes
