Myth to Man to Myth:
The theories of Erikson and Fowler in relation to the life of fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien
This is a paper I wrote in 2017 for a class on the interaction between spirituality and psychology in human development.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is a man most well known as the creator of the genre of modern fantasy literature, but who also experienced great success in academia as a philologist and expert in Anglo-Saxon. Additionally and among other many achievements, Tolkien forged deeply formative and lasting friendships, fell in love and raised a wonderful family, and grew in devotion to God through his Catholic faith. What more, Tolkien was a prolific letter writer with a correspondence that might rival his anthology of written work, a collection of poetry, myth and reflection that apart from being immensely popular, expresses a rich and intricate worldview informed by trials and joys of life and faith in his formative years and beyond.
Much of Tolkien’s personality is shaped by a comparably hard life in his formative years in addition to a strong faith devotion developing at the same time. His life provides a strong case and example of the integration of Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development and James Fowler’s Stages of Faith Formation. The analysis to follow will include a brief sketch of important eras of Tolkien’s life and an articulation of his alignment to Erikson and Fowler, followed by a deeper exploration and justification of this alignment organized along Erikson’s stages.
Tolkien’s early life is atypical to say the least, and becomes more unique, changing and challenging until adulthood. Tolkien was born in early 1892 to English parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa where his father worked in banking.[1] He would live in Africa for only three years, when he, his mother and brother would travel to England to have a better climate for Tolkien’s health, which suffered in the extremes of South Africa.[2] In 1896 with his family still in England, Tolkien’s father passed away of an unexpected illness.[3] The Tolkiens (J.R.R., his mother Mabel, and younger brother Hilary) would live in England for the rest of their lives. His mother would make many sacrifices, and with some assistance from family managed to provide for her sons, even homeschooling them for several years, being unable to afford education.[4] Tolkien and his family would find a happy and wonderful life for four years living in a rented cottage in the countryside as a child. Life became much harder for the Tolkiens when Mabel converted herself and her sons to Catholicism, against the wishes of her Anglican family or Baptist in-laws when Tolkien was eight years old.[5] The Tolkien’s had to leave their idyllic country life for the slums of Birmingham when Tolkien was old enough to attend proper school, and moved again to live almost adjacent to the Birmingham Oratory (famous as the residence of it's founder, John Henry Newman) where the Tolkien’s all became close friends with Fr. Francis, the pastor. In 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, his mother was diagnosed with diabetes, which took her life later that year.[6] Tolkien and his brother, now orphans, were taken under the legal guardianship of Fr. Francis, who provided for them. As a teenager, Tolkien would meet his future wife, Edith. He would go on to attend Oxford, marry Edith, and fight in and survive the Great War before his life would “settle down.” Tolkien would work at several universities, studying and teaching the more linguistic side of English, and would raise a family, become a sensation with his book The Hobbit and spend twelve years writing The Lord of the Rings (while getting distracted on many side projects) before a comfortable retirement.
Erikson’s theory is clearly discernable in Tolkien’s life considering most stages of psychosocial development occur in the early part of life. These years are considered formative and both Tolkien’s difficult and fluctuating living situations and strong experiences of joy and love will become formative experiences visible in an exploration of the later stages of Tolkien’s life. The correlation of Erikson’s stages to Tolkien’s experience follows as such: infancy in Africa, early childhood in transition to England, play age newly anchored in England, school age in the countryside, adolescence as an orphan in the city raised by Fr. Francis, young adulthood in all aspects of his college experience and his relationship with Edith, adulthood beginning with the Great War and continuing through his career and major publications, and maturity experienced in his retired life.
Fowler’s stages of faith formation synchronize in Tolkien’s life as follow: Infancy in Africa represents Tolkien’s primal faith, while Tolkien’s early childhood, mostly in England represents his formation in intuitive-projective faith. Tolkien experiences the transition to mythic-literal faith in his country side living and education from his mother. This becomes synthetic-conventional faith upon the loss of his mother. Tolkien shows signs of possible individuative-reflective faith in high school and into college, and shows evidence of conjunctive faith well into his settled family life with Edith with some slight indication of encounter with universalizing faith.
Erikson identifies infancy as equating to the first stage of psychosocial development.[7] As all of Erikson’s stages, there is a developmental goal of discerning and integrating a healthy balance between two poles; in this case, Trust vs. Mistrust. Tolkien’s infancy was spent in an arid climate far from extended family, but he had an attentive family and a strong relationship with his mother and father. As is the nature of infancy, deep personal reflection is hard to come by; extensive details about Tolkien’s infancy are accordingly rare. One possibly formative pattern in his infancy apart from the expected loving care from parents was a consistent habit of placing the infant Tolkien in the garden every morning and evening where he could watch his father plant trees and tend the plants.[8] Another potentially influential experience doubles as part of Tolkien’s earliest memory. Tolkien’s biographer Henry Carpenter writes “When Ronald was beginning to walk, he stumbled on a tarantula. It bit him… When he grew up he could remember a hot day and running in fear through long, dead grass”[9] Tolkien would always be deeply reverent of nature, and while he would develop no phobia of spiders,[10] the avid reader of Tolkien’s literature cannot help but notice the more than occasional presence of monstrous spiders in his literature. A caring home with lots of maternal and paternal love and affection, even if in a dangerous setting, led to a successful integration of Trust vs. Mistrust in Tolkien’s infancy. Tolkien’s experiences in the garden and his encounter with pain and fear in his early years are of more interest in relation to Fowler’s stage of primal faith. Fowler describes how primal faith develops from an experience of the reliability of parents:
“The first symbols of faith are likely to take primitive form in the baby’s hard won memories of maternal and paternal presence. As dependable realities who go away but can be trusted to return, our primary caregivers constitute our first experience of superordinate power and wisdom.”[11]
Tolkien’s deep love of nature therefore may go back as far as his earliest experiences with his father. Likewise, his fearful experience may have informed Tolkien’s later literary symbols of fear and terror.
Erikson articulates his second stage of development as defined by the balance between autonomy on one hand and shame and doubt on the other.[12] Tolkien experienced much transition in this stage of his life. In concern for his poor health, he, his mother and brother moved to live with family in England for an extended duration. This is the time in Tolkien’s life where he got to know his extended family well on both sides, living in close quarters. He also experienced, albeit from thousands of miles away, the loss of his Father. One strong indication of his development of autonomy is a letter dictated by Tolkien at the age of four, intended to be sent to his father.
“I know you will be so glad to have a letter from your little Ronald it is such a long time since I wrote to you I am got such a big man now because I have got a man’s coat and a man’s bodice… I walk every day and only ride in my mail cart a little bit.”[13]
It is clear from Tolkien’s letter that he is proud of growing up, and extra proud the he walks as any child of this age might brag “all by myself!” This indicates a good integration of autonomy supported by a strong and supportive family life in England. This big extended family presence and the absence of Tolkien’s father which begins in this stage and continues in the next will characterize Tolkien’s experience of intuitive-projective faith.
Erikson identifies the tension in the third stage of development as between the poles initiative and guilt.[14] This stage would be extraordinarily formative for Tolkien. Erikson writes of this stage:
“Adults by their own example and by the stories they tell of the big life and of what to them is the great past, offer children of this age an eagerly absorbed ethos of action in the form of ideal types and techniques fascinating enough to replace the heroes of picture books and fairy tales.”[15]
Tolkien’s relatives on both sides shared great, likely embellished, family histories which Tolkien used as a means to begin to define himself. Tolkien learned, if in simpler terms then, that he took more after his mother’s side (the Suffields) in regards to interests, demeanor and character. He would later reflect “Though a Tolkien by name, I am a Suffield by tastes, talents and upbringing.”[16] This is indicative of Tolkien’s fulfillment of Erikson’s identified basic virtue of this developmental stage; purpose. Tolkien chooses at this stage what kind of a person he will be: A Suffield person. As was started with the previous stage, Tolkien more fully develops intuitive-projective faith at play age. Fowler writes “For now, stimulated by experience and by stories, symbols and examples, children form deep and long-lasting images that hold together their worlds of meaning and wonder.”[17] As with Erikson’s stage, Tolkien’s life with the extended family is the context in which he begins to integrate the first of the stories and symbols that ground his intuitive-projective faith, manifest in a sort of “Suffield myth”.
Tolkien would experience another large transition near the end of stage three which would define the entirety of Tolkien’s life at Erikson’s fourth stage. His mother would move herself and her two sons to the countryside outside of Birmingham, opening up the world to Tolkien.
Erikson understands the fouth age of development to be a time to navigate and develop industry in relation to inferiority. For Tolkien, this time was his truly idyllic life in the countryside exploring and playing with his younger brother, and being educated by his mother. Carpenter writes “The effect of this move on Ronald was deep and permanent. Just at the age when his imagination was opening out, he found himself in the English countryside.”[18] Hilary would reminisce that “We spent lovely summers just picking flowers and trespassing.”[19] Tolkien himself would say of this time “Four years, but the longest-seeming and most formative part of my life.”[20] He had playtime of freedom, companionship and nature. Tolkien’s intuitive-projective faith would further develop around symbols of nature. His studies were equally exciting and formative in these years; Homeschooled by his mother, Tolkien was an apt student, having learned to read by age four and capable of writing shortly after.[21] He was particularly interested in all aspects of language study, especially Latin. Tolkien would spend years of his life devoted to languages, mastering archaic tongues like Anglo-Saxon and Gothic while inventing many of his own. Truly, language study, which would be his work and delight to the end of his days was the development of a sense of industry in his life.
Tolkien would develop what Fowler calls mythic-literal faith at this time. His faith experience came from weekly Mass, originally at the High Anglican church, but later in the Catholic Tradition. Tolkien would absorb the faith as he would the stories he read in his studies with his mother. Along with education in favorite subjects such as botany, languages and art, his faith would become a lasting and dear gift he received from his mother. Though Tolkien’s faith and understanding of faith develops greatly past this stage, the formative power of his surroundings and family at this time ensure the value of myth would persist in his faith.
Unfortunately the paradise in the countryside would fade. Tolkien’s extended family on both sides was deeply offended by and hostile towards his mother’s conversion. The little assistance she had been receiving from them ended, and the Tolkien’s would come to live in a rundown part of Birmingham, growing in faith and friendship with Fr. Francis, the parish priest, for a short while before tragedy would advance Tolkien to both the next psychosocial and faith development stages.
The fifth stage of Erikson’s model correlates strongly with adolescence, where growth means the healthy integration of one’s identity in opposition to role confusion. This stage also functions as the end of “childhood” for many. In Tolkien’s case, this might be the clearest and most abrupt stage transition, being marked by the death of his mother while Tolkien was only twelve. Because of religious concerns, Fr. Francis was Mabel Tolkien’s choice for guardian of her sons, and the Tolkien’s would live near and spend much time at the Oratory over the next years, developing an identity built on gratitude towards his mother and Fr. Francis.
Tolkien would become deeply involved in his faith, and as he aged and could reflect on his mother’s many sacrifices, viewing it as a gift his mother died to give him. Tolkien later reflects
“My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.”[22]
Not only does the death of his mother signify Tolkien’s abrupt transition to Erikson’s fifth stage, but it also causes an equally abrupt development of Conventional-synthetic faith. It is resoundingly clear that Tolkien’s faith is his mother’s faith handed on. Catholicism would be Tolkien’s lifelong connection to his too-early-departed mother. This maternal element, added to life under the guardianship of Fr. Francis, and so much time at the Oratory make it difficult to identify how or where Tolkien’s faith might develop into his own faith. One could make a case that Tolkien had a remarkable intellectual foundation and environment to develop individuative-reflective faith, while just as easily one might argue that the deep connection between faith and love of his mother was too strong to allow anything but synthetic-conventional faith to exist in Tolkien at this time. One can see the likelihood of Tolkien experiencing and developing both of these kinds of faith in an overlapping fashion. Evidence of individuative-reflective faith includes an ability to speak candidly and without bitterness about faith with his good school friend of another Christian tradition.
Erikson’s sixth stage involves the integration of intimacy in opposition of isolation.[23] Tolkien would begin this stage with a budding romance. Fr. Francis rented a room in a boarding house for the Tolkien boys and they quickly befriended Edith, another resident orphan three years J.R.R.’s senior. Tolkien would later date and marry Edith. Unfortunately for Tolkien, splitting time between his schoolwork and Edith led to lower grades, and Fr. Francis took note. Tolkien was banned from seeing or writing Edith until he came of age in three years.[24] In that time, Tolkien went off to Oxford where he would learn to find companionship in exceptionally strong male friendships. “At the age when many young men were discovering the charms of female company, he was endeavoring to forget them and to push romance into the back of his mind.”[25] As soon as he came of age, Tolkien wrote to Edith, and they became engaged almost immediately. Tolkien would have trouble integrating both kinds of intimacy he developed, such that Edith would be frustrated by the exceptionally large quantity of her husband’s time devoted to his friends.
The new experiences of young adulthood brought challenges and changes to Tolkien’s faith too. In his first year away at Oxford, Tolkien became rather lazy in his practice of religion. This slacking in self-ownership of faith was ultimately reversed, evidenced by Tolkien’s later reflection and regret on his lax faith at that time.[26] By the time of his reunion with Edith, Tolkien had resumed proper practice of faith. They celebrated their reunion by attending benediction together.[27] They, previous to the three year ban, had unsuccessfully used church as a means to see one another when they had been told not to. The choice to worship together again as an important part of their relationship without an ulterior motive or fear of reprisal, in addition to Tolkien’s self-reflection indicates he had firmly established individuative-reflective faith. Tolkien’s young adult years would see Tolkien start not only his married life, but also his career as a professor.
Tolkien would, as many in his generation, be plunged into adulthood by the Great War. Tolkien fought as an officer, lost some of his dearest friends to battle, and came home to establish his married life with Edith during the years of the war. Erikson defines this stage as a tension between Generativity and Stagnation.[28] Tolkien would certainly live a generative life, but had trouble integrating this characteristic into his life. Maybe as a result of never truly having had a permanent home (the closest being his four years in the countryside), Tolkien and Edith would frequently move houses, even if not as part of a career shift to another university. Tolkien loved Edith dearly, but continued to struggle accommodating her concerns and insecurities alongside of his own social and professional life in academia.
Tolkien also struggled to integrate his faith life into his marriage. In the years since his first year of undergraduate studies, Tolkien’s faith grew deeply and intellectually, but still harbored what might be described as insecurities. Edith was a practicing Anglican interested in Catholicism when the two met. She converted for Tolkien when they were married, but retained her own reservations, including a dislike of confession to a priest. Tolkien on the other hand went to confession quite frequently, and encouraged Edith likewise.[29] These tensions persisted in his marriage, with Edith less and less happy about Catholicism, and Tolkien’s inability to discuss it with her, (while he could easily do so with his friends like C.S. Lewis)[30] After one of many sporadic spats over religion in the Tolkien household, true reconciliation over differing views occurred. Edith harbored no more anti-Catholic sentiment, and J.R.R. accepted that she would not the Church-going type. This acceptance of religious difference with his wife shows that (though it took until his late 40s) Tolkien had developed some elements of conjunctive faith.
This period of Tolkien’s life is also notable for the arduous process of writing The Lord of the Rings. This epic novel took Tolkien twelve years (to the dismay of his patient publishers), often because of his habit for taking on side projects[31]. Additionally, Tolkien would upon receiving criticism of his work, respond by rewriting entire chapters of his work from the top. This is evidence of lifelong self-doubt which possibly derives from a failure to fully define his identity as an adolescent, or maybe to integrate his identity with his close friends with his identity with his wife.
Tolkien would start the eighth of Erikson’s stages with his retirement. Erikson identifies the conflict of this stage as between integrity and despair.[32] Tolkien reaped the benefits of a fulfilling active life, and also the benefits of fame and fortune resulting from his popular writings. Integrity was not an issue for Tolkien. He used this stage find a new purpose: devoting himself fully to Edith. Tolkien was aware of all the sacrifice she made for him from the beginning, and he spent the rest of her life doing what he could to make her happy. This was (rightfully) a deeply fulfilling purpose for Tolkien until his wife’s passing.
Tolkien, while not regretting his path in life, did regret time-wasting. He had trouble focusing the direction of his work related to further publications and fan mail. He would often get distracted playing solitaire all day and then lament all that he could have accomplished.[33] Nonetheless these feelings were not the dominant characteristic of his life. After Edith’s passing, Tolkien found meaning in visits from family friends and guests in addition to correspondence with his fans over his fictional world and languages; his life’s work. There is some sign in Tolkien’s life of the confirmation of Conjunctive faith, and maybe a subtle cresting over the waves of universalizing faith. In a letter to his son Michael giving advice on how to help sagging faith, Tolkien advises frequent communion, but goes further advising to choose “circumstances that affront your taste.”[34] He continues:
“Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children—from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn—open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand—after which [Our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come”[35][36]
Apart from a sense of what developments in faith practiced bothered Tolkien, one can see a real sense of acceptance of the diversity of Christians, and an appraisal of solidarity with the masses over selective solidarity with the pious alone.
Author’s Reflection:
In the course of composing this paper I have discovered much about the integration of human and spiritual development that will be applicable towards my work, prayer life and relationships. In regards to my work as a theology teacher I find the integration of these fields as critical to my success. To effectively encourage growth in faith to teenagers is to encourage growth to a unique audience by unique means. Erikson clearly articulates that adolescents desire identity. To teach theology to them should mean to provide them the developmental tools to authentically incorporate faith as a personal and independently owned aspect of their identities. Fowler identifies two levels of faith that are of particular interest to the theology teacher: synthetic-conventional and individuative-reflective. The former ought to be a transitional stage between childhood faith and young adult faith; the shrinking depth and breadth of faith in Western society is indicative of it becoming the most common height of development. The latter is a kind of faith that encourages a deeper understanding and further development of faith. The job of a theology teacher is essentially to effectively support and encourage the transition from faith taken in reaction to authority to faith that one claims personally.
On a more personal level, I find that I share a number of idiosyncrasies and tendencies with my favorite author. This helps me to better understand myself and how various aspects of my personality that I share with Tolkien may be better integrated. A healthy humility can be practiced by observing how these shared characteristics led to struggles in Tolkien’s life, and accepting that not addressing some of those characteristics could become destructive or burdensome in my own work and relationships. To conclude this study, I present words from Tolkien’s own creative world which reflect well on a study of the parts of life’s journey:
“The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way.
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then I cannot say.
The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet”
Works Cited:
Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher, eds. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000.
Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977.
Erikson, Erik. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1959.
Fowler, James. Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and Christian Faith.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1984.
[1] Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien: A Biography (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1977), 12.
[2] Ibid., 15.
[3] Ibid., 16.
[4] Ibid., 17.
[5] Ibid., 24.
[6] Ibid., 30.
[7] Erik Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle, (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1959), 57.
[8] Carpenter, Biography, 14.
[9] Ibid., 13.
[10] Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, eds., Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000), 217.
[11] James Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and Christian Faith, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1984), 41.
[12] Erikson, 67.
[13] Carpenter, Biography 16
[14] Erikson, 78.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Carpenter, Biography, 19.
[17] Fowler, 42.
[18] Carpenter, Biography, 20.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., 31.
[23] Erikson, 100
[24] Carpenter, Biography, 43.
[25] Ibid., 45.
[26] Ibid., 61.
[27] Ibid., 66.
[28] Erikson, 103
[29] Carpenter, Biography, 157.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid., 207
[32] Erikson, 104.
[33] Carpenter, Biography, 240-241.
[34] Carpenter, Letters, 339.
[35] Ibid.
[36] It is relevant to note that this letter is written in 1963 in the midst of Vatican II.