When Eowyn said she feared "A cage"

[herlig9]

Is that a reference to being a traditional woman? One who isnt riding on a hourse and going on a journey.

Or was it something else?

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Is that a reference to being a traditional woman? One who isnt riding on a hourse and going on a journey.

Or was it something else?

Well, it could also be reference to if Sauron/Saruman wins, and she deteriorates into an old woman in captivity without ever knowing valiant deeds.

CL

 

[Deimos]

Is that a reference to being a traditional woman? One who isnt riding on a hourse and going on a journey.

Or was it something else?

The answer to this (and you are pretty close) is found in the conversation of Aragorn, Eomer and Gandalf in the Houses of Healing. (ROTK, Book 5, Ch 8)

Aragorn recounts the harm Eowyn endured in battle with the Withcking, but also her bravery.
Yet he says "It was an evil doom that set her in [the Witchking's] path....When I first looked at her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that turned its sap to ice... soon to fall and die? Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Eomer?"

Eomer responds,"... I knew not that Eowyn,my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked on you. Care and dread she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king's bewitchment, and she tended the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass."

Eomer's reply shows that he is pretty clueless about what Aragorn is getting at, because, what he first says about her caring for Theoden, is precisely tho' not the only thing, that "[brought] her to this pass." Gandalf has to spell it out for him...

"My friend,." said Gandalf, "you had horses and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait on an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.

Setting aside the possibility of being Worntongue's "prize" (because she was not aware of it) the cage is, first, being a caretaker for Theoden, which she does first out of love, but also duty. But secondly she knows that this kind of role will be her doom (destiny), that she will never be free to experience "horses and deeds of arms and the free fields" because she is a woman in a society where such a life that her brother leads is not permitted her. He is free (to roam the fields), she is not; that is, she is caged. In that era, that society, she is an anomaly.

 

[Elthir]

My first thought was. . .

Sorry!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yeah, yeah.

 

[Radaghast]

 

[Halasían]

She didn't seem to mind being caged with Faramir in Emyn Arnen...

 

[Radaghast]

She didn't seem to mind being caged with Faramir in Emyn Arnen...
View attachment 39008

What? No credit for the wigs? 🧐

 

[Halasían]

What? No credit for the wigs? 🧐

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Why didn't they fly the wigs to Mordor?🤔

 

[Radaghast]

Why didn't they fly the wigs to Mordor?🤔

Do Balrogs have wigs? 🤔

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

 

[herlig9]

She didn't seem to mind being caged with Faramir in Emyn Arnen...
View attachment 39008

Why do i find that cute <3

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

She didn't seem to mind being caged with Faramir in Emyn Arnen...
View attachment 39008

Good to see Faramir not letting married life deflect him from his interest in lore.

 

[Deimos]

Why do i find that cute <3

View attachment 39020

Sorry, but that pic of David Wenham's Farmair not only bears no resemblance to "Book Faramir" but my kid brother playing at soldier had more military bearing and could have easily been imagined to "outmatch [Faramir] in battle...."

 

[herlig9]

This makes me think of a certain movie