Mother-less Heroes

the result of physical movement as on a journey. The severance of a child (of any age) from his parents, especially by violent death, is a more deeply rooted form of disassociation from the social fabric than a temporary departure from hearth and home. As Mr. Campbell explains "the mythological journey -...the 'call to adventure' - signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown."

The destiny which summons Tolkien's 'mother-less hero' decentralizes the hero's society by the removal of mother and/or father. The hero's basic societal unit is traumatically dis-integrated. The most direct blood-ties have been severed. He is dispossessed within his community. This traumatic emotional separation serves to prepare the hero for the actual physical departure from home in answer to the 'call to adventure'.

In a compassionate society, like the Shire or Rivendell, the orphan is adopted into an extended family, as is the case for Frodo and Aragorn. Nevertheless, in literature and myth, the orphan assumes the role of perennial 'outsider'. Tolkien's heroes and heroines begin their mythological journey from the social fringe, disassociated from the community, with one foot in the 'zone unknown' before ever there is a rap on the door summoning the hero to his or her destined doom.

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