Shelob Character Analysis in The Two Towers

An ancient and insatiable creature in the shape of a giant spider, Shelob lives in the tunnels near Cirith Ungol, where Sauron allows her to remain as a guard for a secret path into Mordor. Gollum, who occasionally brings her food, leads Sam and Frodo into her lair, planning to let her kill the hobbits and then to take the Ring from Frodo’s body. Though Shelob has never before been mortally injured, Sam manages to stab her with an elf blade and drive her back into her lair with the help of Galadriel’s phial.

Shelob Quotes in The Two Towers

The The Two Towers quotes below are all either spoken by Shelob or refer to Shelob. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

Even as Sam himself crouched, looking at her, seeing his death in her eyes, a thought came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken, and he fumbled in his breast with his left hand, and found what he sought: cold and hard and solid it seemed to his touch in a phantom world of horror, the Phial of Galadriel.

[…]

As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand.

Related Characters: Samwise “Sam” Gamgee, Shelob, Galadriel

Related Symbols: The Phial

Page Number and Citation: 382-383

Explanation and Analysis: