A Voice Found on the Shore

In yesterday's class, I did my freewrite on Chapter 9, "The Great River." I think the most significant part of this chapter is the reality that the Fellowship has to make a decision to either move toward Mordor or Minas Tirith because they can no longer travel along the river. While this idea spills over into the next chapter, I think it's significant in the way that it marks a change in Frodo. Up to this point, he has followed Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, and others who have guided him and given him good advice, but he no longer has Gandalf to guide him when he is given the responsibility of deciding the next move for the Fellowship. After a long internal struggle, he decides to completely break away from the Fellowship, marking his decision to become independent and have confidence in his decisions as Ring-Bearer. From that decision on, he seems more confident moving forward, even though he knows that the end of his journey may be marked by his death. It reminds me of Bilbo's transformation from a timid little Hobbit who loved the comforts of his home to the infamous Burglar of both the Ring and Arkenstone in The Hobbit. Adventure seems to change Tolkien's characters from dependent on others' advice in a world unfamiliar to them to independent of those opinions as they find their own voice.