Shire chapters: where did Cotton come from?

[pgt]

Try this:

read the 1st few chapters in FOTR covering the shire and then read Scouring... - e.g. just read the book strictly from the setting and perspective of the shire.

It kinda sorta seems to me that Cotton kinda comes out of nowhere in Scouring. What is interesing is that we are treated to so many insights into so many different and interesting Hobbit characters in the 1st few chapters including Maggot, Fatty etc. Yet fast forward to Scouring and it's all pretty much Cotton Cotton Cotton...

I guess I would have expected Cotton to been mentioned a bit more prominently in the ealry chapters or a more assertive reappearance of previous characters - perhaps some Tooks or Brandybucks or Maggot etc...

Just thought I'd throw this one out and see what others thought...

Still - I suggest reading those chapters in the sequence I suggested above and see how they flow for yourself.

thanks,

 

[Inderjit S]

The Cotton's are important because the Battle takes part in Bywater, and they are the first family that Sam mentions when Frodo and co. wonder who could help them in the over-throw of the Men who were in the Shire.

They meet the some of the Cotton's when Merry blows the Dwarvish horn her was given by Eowyn. Sam then goes and checks on them and we realise he is in love with Rosie. The two latter get married. The Cotton's also look after Frodo when they are restoring Bag End and their prosperity increase after the WoTR as they were very much a working class family beforehand and related to the Gamgees.

 

[Greenwood]

Actually Sam mentions Rosie Cotton and her brothers twice when he and Frodo are climbing Mount Doom, so there is already a mention of the family and we can surmise that Rosie is important to Sam. As for why Farmer Cotton is not mentioned in FOTR, I think one just has to simply remember that Tolkien wrote the story over a period of years. When he wrote the initial chapters he had no idea of the Scouring of the Shire. By the time he came to write that section it would have taken quite a bit of contrivance (or rewriting) to give Farmer Maggot, who lived in a distant part of the Shire a large part in the Battle of Bywater.

 

[pgt]

Thanks Greenwood!

I suspected there was a notable time lapse between these chapters being written. This is precisely why I suggest folks read the chapters back to back so to speak.

I think it would have read better had Cotton been intro'd and just a bit better developed on FOTR or in Scouring, using an already established and developed character such as Maggot. Once familiar w/ FOTR - it seems like Cotton sort of comes out of nowhere as an influential local leader. Just my $0.02 - thanks

 

[jallan]

It wouldn't have hurt if Tolkien had mentioned the Cottons as present at the party or young Tom Cotton as the recepient of one of Bilbo's gifts.

On the other hand we have Frodo's good friend Falco Boffin in the early chapters who goes off home when Frodo and Sam and Pippin leave Bag End and is never mentioned again. Nor is Fatty Bolger mentioned in the final chapters.

There's a certain enjoyable neatness in tying up all the characters but on the other hand there is a gain in realism by having characters pop in who never appear again and new characters appearing who might have been mentioned earlier but weren't and bits of background about people and their lives that aren't filled in.

The latter is more like real life.

But I would dearly like to see Bywater again, and Rosie Cotton and her brothers, and the Gaffer and Marigold and all.

Suddenly Rosie Cotton and her brothers and Marigold, whoever she is are introduced. Just like that Tolkien lays down some past for him so we can see through his eyes what he is perhaps giving up. One must search through the genealogies of Appendix C to find that Marigold is Sam's younger sister, one might guess the only one still unmarried and living at home.

Later on the slopes of Mount Doom:

He felt the cool mud about his toes as he paddled in the Pool at Bywater with Jolly Cotton and Tom and Nibs, and their sister Rosie. ‘But that was years ago,’ he sighed, ‘and far away. The way back, if there is one, goes past the Mountain.’

In some ways this introduction is like Tolkien's introduction of Arwen in the Council of Elrond. Tolkien provides only enough that hopefully when Arwen reappears later it will not be an entire surprise. But Tolkien was not inspired to say more and there was no point in forcing story when not inspired or one may get uninspired story. Tolkien didn't try to force story and make up story. He always tried to write in a mode of finding out what happened.

So Rosie Cotton and her family suddenly appeared to Tolkien when required. They are, like Arwen, very important to the end of the tale. He probably realized it then. But they were not important to the beginning. Sam as like as not had not been particularly serious about Rosie before his return. And Tolkien was intentionally not writing a novel but an heroic romance.

And would it have improved matters much to have turned, say Falco Boffin into Nibs Cotton or Fatty Bolger into Fatty Cotton?

Perhaps indeed not laying some groundwork for the Cottons is one of the many flaws that Tolkien claimed he could see in the work. But I don't think this matters much.

 

[Inderjit S]

Actually Fatty does make a _brief_ appearance when he comes out of the lock holes, considerably thinner. He had joined a rebel band and had been smoked out of somwhere or another, in the East-Farthing maybe since that was where he came from.

 

[jallan]

It's Will Whitfoot the formerly fat mayor who comes out of the Lockholes.

But he's also mentioned in the early chapters.

 

[Inderjit S]

The clearing up certainly needed a lot of work, but it took less time than Sam had feared. The day after the battle Frodo rode to Michel Delving and released the prisoners from the Lockholes. One of the first that they found was poor Fredegar Bolger, Fatty no longer. He had been taken when the ruffians smoked out a band of rebels that he led from their hidings up in the Brockenbores by the hills of Scary.
‘You would have done better to come with us after all, poor old Fredegar!’ said Pippin, as they carried him out too weak to walk.
He opened an eye and tried gallantly to smile. ‘Who’s this young giant with the loud voice?’ he whispered. ‘Not little Pippin! What’s your size in hats now?

'The Grey Havens'

 

[jallan]

Oops! Oops!