Lord of the Rings: Was Gollum an allusion to golems, or are the names merely coincidental?

Answer 1

J R R Tolkien was a professor of Philology in Oxford University, and it is highly unlikely that Gollum's name is purely coincidental. Of course within the story, he was called Gollum because of the sound he habitually made in his throat.
If he is a golem, he would be the golem of the Ring itself. Originally a hobbit, he was changed by the Ring into the creature he became. The Ring used him to keep it safe but available.
In folklore, if a golem gains a soul it becomes very dangerous, since a golem cannot be perfect, and if it starts making its own choices, they are bound to be bad. From the point of the Ring, something like this happened to Gollum. Frodo allowed the old hobbit's true self to surface a little bit, and Gollum helped him to get to the volcano. This proved to be the Ring's undoing.

Answer 2

Coincidental.

Gollum is the sound the horrible side of Smeagol's twisted mind made, so with increasing detachment from reality he developed a split personality. It was given the name Gollum by those that were in Smeagol's home village, that's all they knew was the gollum sound so the name stuck with him and it became a means to root the problem ever deeper in his poisoned mind.

They just heard his "gollum" noise for he had the ring on and that made him invisible.

Answer 3

It's mere coincidence.
Once Gollum was a hobbit, but then he killed his friend Deagol, and took the ring away from him. He changed because of the ring. He was named Gollum because of the sound he made probably. Before he was known as Smeagol.

Answer 4

A name is NEVER just a name. NEVER!!!! So, yes, I would say Gollum was an allusion to golems.

Answer 5

Well, it was not smeagol that came up with this name, but everone around him. He was resented, and slowly the ring overtook him, as he reverted to gollum he would make a lot of these noise, gurgles and kinda coughs, these noises is what got him the name. I dont exactly know how gollum relates to these noises but it does.

Answer 6

Tolkien likely meant you to at least think of golems when he named Gollem. "Allusion" is the best way to put it, actually, because he wasn't saying Gollem was a golem, but wanted you to consider him as having some of the qualities of a golem.

Authors, often use names for characters that tell us something about them. Blanche DuBois and her sister Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire," for example. Blanche means "white" and Stella means "star". Tennessee Williams wasn't saying Blanche was pure... or was he? It's meant to raise the question.

More in the vein of Gollem, J.K. Rowling has given many of her Harry Potter characters allusion names. My favorite is Dobby, the House Elf. A "doby" as a gnomish creature in Scottish mythology who is always trying to help and usually creates havoc instead. If you've read the Potter books, you know that's an excellent description of poor Dobby.

Answer 7

he was named gollum due to the sound he made, not because he is anyway associated with golems, there are no simalarities between golems and Gollum whatsoever, other than they are both creatures of fantasy.

Answer 8

Yes, I would say coincidental. They say that Gollum got his name from a noise he used to make in his throat and he was originally very similar to hobbits except that he liked water more than most hobbits.

Answer 9

An object vested with anima for movement and morphia for the movement's pattern. Usually human shaped and used for simple labor.
www.savageearth.net/glossary.html

I think its based on a real golem..tolkien was very smart and did lots of reseach....

Answer 10

You might want to read an annotated version of the Ring trilogy for this information. Tolkien took his characters from many sources, and "golem" is just one of them.