Death—The Gift of God to Man: Exploring the Understanding of Death in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Abstract

In his Middle-earth lore, Tolkien presents death as a special gift that Eru gave to Men alone, and not any other beings. This paper tries to answer why death can be understood as a gift even by us, even though this idea seems to contradict the traditional belief that death is a punishment for the sin of the first people in Paradise. As unorthodox as it may seem, this paper suggests that it might have been inspired by Aquinas, who presented death as an essential attribute of the human body given to it from the moment of creation, but which in Paradise was only suppressed by a special grace from God. Aquinas suggests that after the introduction of sin to the world, this grace was removed and death regained its appointed effect. Death actually became a necessary means through we are able to come back to God’s presence—thus in a sense, it is a gift.