When thinking of what love at first sight is, what is the first image that pops into focus? Is it to strangers meeting for the first time and instantly falling in love? Love at first sight is a story that children are told from a young age. Parents and society have fantasized it for years telling their children princess stories of how the beautiful women met the handsome stranger in the woods, fell in love with him, and lived happily ever after after together. However in the real world finding your true love in a forest and instantly falling in love would not happen to an average, everyday person. There are tons of writers that use the idea of love at first sight in their novels. Tolkien is another author who dances around with this idea as well. In his novel The Silmarillion, Tolkien introduces the love between Beren and Lúthien and the adventure that they embark on. Although it seems to society that love at first sight is a hox, Tolkien is able to wrestle this idea in order to bring it into a new light.
To start off with Tolkien’s view on love at first sight, Beren and Lúthien ironically meet in the woods, just like all the fairytales children are told before they go to bed. Beren first lays on Lúthien, “he fell into an enchantment” due to her being “the most beautiful of all the Children of Illúvatar” (Tolkien 194). By societies view on love at first sight this can be seen as a superstitious kind of love, because he knows nothing about her other than she is a beautiful elf. From society's viewpoint there can be no love without something else being there other than a physical attraction. This can be seen in liking the same things, trying to convince the other that chocolate is better than vanilla, and a ton of other things. In Tolkien’s romance being portrayed, readers are not given this “other thing”, but as they read they can see that there is something else underneath the first layer. Even though they fall in love at first sight there are some aspects that separate it from an unrealistic love at first sight story.
In the aspect that Tolkien is putting love at first sight in, there is no reason for individuals to be hesitant to the idea of love at first sight. In his novel the world is still in a sense perfectness and not full of sin. It is not set in a fallen world, which allows for the love between Beren and Lúthien to be true and pure. Even though many people will disagree with falling in love at first sight, the two love birds also for a relationship for their love to be based off. Beren and Lúthien go on a quest to obtain a silmaril from Morgoth possession. In order to attempt to steal it fro Morgoth, Beren and Lúthien disguise themselves. Beren is said have come “in all things like a werewolf” and Lúthien a “bat-like creature clinging with creased wings” (Tolkien 212). With disguising themselves like this and making the trek to were Morgoth was at, only shows how committed Lúthien was to Beren. Also along the quest to obtain the silmaril, it can be speculated that they started to build a relationship and a deeper connection to one another. This can be concluded, because not many women that are lusting over a man will go out of there way to go on a dangerous quest just to be with him. There had to be a serious spark there in order for Lúthien to stay around.
Even though in reality people in today’s society view love at first sight as being ridiculous, in a perfect world they would not. If there was no such thing as sin, then there would be no such thing as lust which in term would not make love at first sight so shallow. In Tolkien’s novel, he is describing a place that is in all aspects perfect which sets the love taking place as pure and unsettled in lust. Their love in some aspects would be like the love that Adam and Eve had with one another. They existed in the world first, before sin was brought into the equation. However, the Bible does not go into much detail about their love, having your mate made from your rib is already a step into having a relationship with some. Society can also seen they type of love Beren and Lúthien had in the way a mother falls in love with her newborn baby. When the mother first looks at her brand new baby, she instantly falls in love with it. She finally gets to see her child that has been growing inside of her for nine months. In this example the baby and the mother already have a previous relationship, which allows for society to view love at first sight for mother’s as acceptable.
Love at first sight is a concept that many people view as terrible and in today’s society they are not far off. However in a perfect world, love at first sight would be the best kind of love. It would be the purest and simplest. In The Silmarillion Tolkien does a fine job in developing the love at first sight. He shows us how a relationship is formed at love at first sight but then over the course of the chapter he also develops the relationship between the two lovers into something stronger than just a physical attraction, by the end it is also a kind of spiritual connection as well. They both will sacrifice what they have for the sake of the other, making there love in the end an actual true love.
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