Another chapter light on theme but heavy on plot. I tend to enjoy these "traveling" chapters, where the characters must get from point A to point B. What can I say? I enjoy the journey.
Tolkien does an excellent job at evoking Mordor. Jacob believes it's anticlimactic, but I'm with Sam: all of this lead-up has finally gotten them close to their objective, but he hadn't given much thought to what would actually happen when they got inside the eponymous "land of shadow." How are they to get across that plain, filled with armies and vigilant orcs? Especially, as we discover towards the end of the chapter, the agents of Sauron are actively looking for spies that have snuck through the outer defenses?
I feel like all of us have had dreams, nightmares even, where we've been chased by forces seen or unseen. Tolkien brings that emotion home to me in this chapter. Frodo and Sam are constantly on the run, constantly having to skulk deep in the thorny bushes (of course they're thorny), constantly having to hope beyond hope that their enemies don't simply turn around or look over the edge of the roadside curb or peer behind one more bush. There's such a fine line between lying unseen in the shadows and actually being noticed and caught.
I can further imagine Sam's mixed emotion of dread and hope as the orc-troop marches past at the end of the chapter. With each passing line that goes by, his elation had to grow; only for it all to come crashing down as the overseer with the whip noticed the pair of hobbits and forced them onto their feet. As we learn in the next chapter, that forced march is actually a blessing in disguise; it was really the only way for the two to pass across the plain, seen yet unseen as a part of the hosts of Mordor. But again, the desperation and fear that the passages convey makes the journey that much more terrifying than Pippin and Merry's in "Two Towers." The stakes are a lot higher, and our characters are a lot closer to the tipping point. How rousing is it, as well, that Sam considers going out with a bang, by killing the overseer, as he sees his master begin to flag: "At any
moment now he knew that the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and
all would be discovered, and their bitter efforts be in vain." Neither Merry nor Pippin considered such a course of action during their captivity. Despite their adventures, Sam is now made of sterner stuff than either of them.
The slight glimpse of worldbuilding interjected into the tale is also welcome. Jacob points out that Sam foregrounds the issue of how Sauron keeps his evil empire running properly, and while the main answer is "it's the magic," Tolkien at least makes a sally at an explanation: "Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great
slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the
Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads
that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the
Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves."
The chapter, what with its quick glimpses into the lives of the slaves of Sauron, the lethal bureaucracy of his troops, and their rumbling misgivings against their leaders, paints an effective picture of the terror and power of Mordor. It additionally highlights the growing desperation of the hobbits, as well as reminding the reader that Gollum is still a real and present threat. Somehow, the quick glimpse of our favorite "gobbler with the flapping hands" is more terrifying than all the orcs Sauron can muster.
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