J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium and world of Middle Earth doesn’t just carry fun stories of high and epic fantasy, but also of life themes of great importance. And there are some themes that reoccur throughout every story.
Pride and the subsequent self-destruction is one of these themes. It’s interweaved in and out of most every character and story in Middle Earth, and while most focus on the villains of the tales, there are other examples to be seen. One particular story is with Beren and Lúthien.
Note: if you haven’t read The Silmarillion but are planning to and don’t want spoilers, now’s your chance to click away!
In Chapter 19 of The Silmarillion, Beren is fighting to retrieve a single Silmaril from Morgoth in order to win the right to marry King Thingol’s daughter, Lúthien. The quest sounds insane, but Beren is a man who would do anything for love.
At first, Beren’s quest is successful. He manages to retrieve one of the Silmarils from Morgoth, cutting it from Morgoth’s own crown. However, this is where the success ends, for in Beren’s initial success he thought “…that he would go beyond his vow, and bear out of Angband all three of the Jewels of Fëanor,”.1 The rush of self pride led him to believe that just because he could trick Morgoth once, that he could do it twice more.
His attempt doomed the overall success of his quest.
Beren goes back for the other Silmarils and his knife, Angrist, fails and snaps against Morgoth’s crown. Beren escaped, but later flaunted the success of the one retrieved Silmaril to Carcharoth the giant wolf- a wolf who lived in dedication to Morgoth. In response to the taunts, Carcharoth bites off the hand holding the Silmaril.2
But what did Tolkien mean by writing any of this? Beren and Lúthien still achieve their happy ending and are held in high honor by the elves. The story becomes increasingly more important when one remembers that Tolkien and Edith’s (his wife) graves have “Beren and Lúthien” written on them respectively. So what was the purpose of showcasing this failure?
It’s important to remember that Tolkien was a religious man, and that his Christianity influenced his philosophy. Considering the verse Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall;” it can be presummed that Tolkien meant to illustrate how pride clouds a person’s judgement and skews the perception of what is good or harmful.3
In context of this story, Beren’s pride is inflated after succeeding at something others deemed impossible. The pride quickly turned to vanity, for retrieving the other two Silmarils would make him look even more impressive to others. This shows that he had forgotten the heart of his quest: getting back to the love of his life. For a moment, he forgot her, knowing only his own self gain. Thus causing his knife to break and his hand eaten by Carcharoth. Pride to destruction, haughtiness to a fall.
Had Beren not attempted to retrieve the other Silmarils he would have succeeded his original quest.
Beren is a good man overall, but he fails sometimes. That’s part of life. Tolkien knew that, and wasn’t shy about admitting his own faults. Showcasing this in Beren meant that Tolkien wasn’t secluding failure to villains only. He knows it’s something everybody struggles with. It’s realistic. And it forces the reader to recognize their own faults, struggles, and how they are responding to them. But Tolkien is also warning readers that a path of destruction will follow a prideful and vain heart, and that it’s easy for anyone to develop.
A. B. Schwartzkopf 
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