Editing Shelob (section)

=== Darkness opposed to the light ===
{{further|Christian light in Tolkien's legendarium|Character pairing in The Lord of the Rings}}
[[File:Patrick Grant's Jungian View of LOTR.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|Patrick Grant's [[Jungian]] view of Shelob (darkness) as the counterpart of [[Galadriel]] (light), fitting into a pattern of opposed [[Jungian archetypes|archetypes]]<ref name="Grant 1973"/>]]

The critic Joyce Tally Lionarons writes that Tolkien constructs the [[Elves (Middle-Earth)|Elves]] and the spiders such as Shelob as polar opposites, the Elves good and bright, the spiders evil and dark.<ref name="Lionarons 2013">{{cite journal |last=Lionarons |first=Joyce Tally |title=Of Spiders and Elves |journal=[[Mythlore]] |date=2013 |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=5–13 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol31/iss3/2}}</ref> Milbank writes more specifically that the ancient Shelob's adversary is another ancient female character, the elf-queen [[Galadriel]]. Galadriel both chooses not to be "[[She: A History of Adventure|She-who-must-be-obeyed]]" by rejecting Frodo's offer of the [[One Ring]], and gives Frodo [[Decline and fall in Middle-earth#Splintered light|her light]] (the [[Phial of Galadriel]]) which enables the hobbits to defeat Shelob.<ref name="Bassham Bronson 2013"/>

Patrick Grant, a scholar of [[Renaissance]] literature, saw Shelob and Galadriel's [[Character pairing in The Lord of the Rings|character pairing]], one of several such relationships between characters in the novel, as fitting the opposition of [[Jungian archetypes]]. Frodo's [[Anima and animus|anima]] is the Elf-queen Galadriel, who is opposed by the evil giant female spider Shelob. Frodo's [[Shadow (psychology)|Shadow]] is the male Hobbit [[Gollum]]. All of these, along with oppositions between other characters in the story, create an image of the self.<ref name="Grant 1973">{{cite journal |last=Grant |first=Patrick |title=Tolkien: Archetype and Word |journal=Cross Currents |date=1973 |issue=Winter 1973 |pages=365–380 |url=https://crosscurrents.org/tolkien.htm#_ednref9}}</ref>