Abstract
This paper investigates the essence of death by exploring the distinct races of and in John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. I will present the weakness of immortality, and show mortality as a possibility to transcend death for in Tolkien's world. In Chapter one Elves and Mortality, we will see from the stories of the Three Rings of and Lothlorien that immortality, which most think as perfection, has its own weakness and causes a certain degree of emptiness and grief. The thus create experiences of pseudo-mortality to aestheticize their sorrowfulness. Chapter two Men and Immortality is a contrast to that of the and shows that the Numenoreans' fear of death and their desire for immortality are the main reasons that lead to their downfall and the biggest challenges that test their free will and virtue. The last Chapter Path to Transcendence: Virtue and Love focuses on the process of gaining a transcendence in the spiritual world through virtue and love. It will show virtue as a path of transcendence by examining the characters Gollum, Bilbo and Boromir, and presents love as a power to conquer the fear of death from the love stories of Beren and Luthien, and Aragorn and Arwen.
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