Shelob is afictional monster in the form of a giantspider fromJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings. Her lair lies inCirith Ungol ("the pass of the spider") leading intoMordor. The creatureGollum deliberately leads theHobbit protagonistFrodo there in hopes of recovering theOne Ring by letting Shelob attack Frodo. The plan is foiled whenSamwise Gamgee temporarily blinds Shelob with thePhial of Galadriel, and then severely wounds her with Frodo's Elvish sword,Sting.

Some scholars have stated that Shelob is in the literary tradition of female monsters. Others have interpreted her as symbolising a sexual threat, with multiple sexual allusions. Scholars have noted her opposition to the Elves, and in particular her adversary,Galadriel, whose light helps the hobbits to defeat her darkness.

Shelob's physical appearance inPeter Jackson'sfilm trilogy was based on theNew Zealand tunnel-web spider.

Shelob is described inThe Two Towers as an "evil thing in spider-form...[the] last child ofUngoliant to trouble the unhappy world",^{[T 1]} living high in theEphel Dúath mountains on the borders ofMordor. Although she resided in Mordor and was unrepentantly evil, she was independent ofSauron and his influence. Her exact size is not stated, but she is significantly larger than her descendants, the Great Spiders ofMirkwood, and her hobbit opponents. She has a powerful bite to inject her venom and paralyse or kill her victims. Her hide is tough enough to resist sword-strokes, and the strings of her webs are likewise resilient to ordinary blades, though the magicalSting manages to cut them. Her main weak point is her eyes, which can be easily harmed or blinded.^{[1][T 1][T 2]}

She is introduced as both evil and ancient: "But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone ofBarad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood ofElves andMen, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness". Her descendants include the Giant Spiders ofMirkwood defeated byBilbo Baggins inThe Hobbit.^{[T 1]}

Shelob's lair wasTorech Ungol, below Cirith Ungol ("Pass of the Spider"), along the path that theHobbitsFrodo Baggins andSam Gamgee took into Mordor, where Shelob had encountered Gollum during his previous trip to Mordor, and he apparently worshipped her. TheOrcs of the Tower of Cirith Ungol called her "Shelob the Great" and "Her Ladyship", and referred to Gollum as "Her Sneak".Sauron was aware of her existence, but left her alone as a useful guard on the pass, and occasionally fed prisoners to her. In the story, Gollum deliberately led Frodo and Sam into her lair, planning to recover theOne Ring once she had consumed the hobbits. She cornered them; but Frodo used the Phial ofGaladriel's light to drive her off, and used Sting to cut the webs blocking the tunnel. Gollum waylaid the pair and tried to strangle Sam, while Shelob paralysed Frodo; but Sam fought off Gollum and then wielded Sting against Shelob. Seeking to crush Sam, she instead impaled herself upon Sting; and, being evil, was nearly blinded by the Phial of Galadriel, containing pure light from theSilmarils; whereupon she fled. Her eventual fate, Tolkien mentions in passing, "this tale does not tell." Thinking Frodo dead, Sam took the Ring from his friend and left his body behind in a bid to finish the quest himself, but discovered by listening to a pair of Orcs that Frodo was alive but senseless, under a minor influence ofvenom.^{[T 1]}

As Tolkien admitted in a letter to his son, Shelob "is of course only 'she + lob'",lob being an archaic English word for spider, influenced byOld Englishloppe or "spider". The word is not related to "cob" nor "cobweb".^{[T 3]}Old Englishattercoppe (meaning "spider") is derived fromatter meaning "poison" andcoppe meaning "head".^[2] Tolkien used "attercop" as well as "cob" and "lob" inThe Hobbit, where Bilbo Baggins sings songs taunting the giant spiders in Mirkwood: "Attercop, Attercop, Old Tomnoddy" and "Lazy Lob and Crazy Cob".^{[T 4]}

The critic Joyce Tally Lionarons writes that Tolkien constructs theElves and the spiders such as Shelob as polar opposites, the Elves good and bright, the spiders evil and dark.^[4] Milbank writes more specifically that the ancient Shelob's adversary is another ancient female character, the elf-queenGaladriel. Galadriel both chooses not to be "She-who-must-be-obeyed" by rejecting Frodo's offer of theOne Ring, and gives Frodoher light (thePhial of Galadriel) which enables the hobbits to defeat Shelob.^[5]

Patrick Grant, a scholar ofRenaissance literature, saw Shelob and Galadriel'scharacter pairing, one of several such relationships between characters in the novel, as fitting the opposition ofJungian archetypes. Frodo'sanima is the Elf-queen Galadriel, who is opposed by the evil giant female spider Shelob. Frodo'sShadow is the male HobbitGollum. All of these, along with oppositions between other characters in the story, create an image of the self.^[3]

Jane Chance compares Shelob with the wizardSaruman, stating that both are "monsters" that live in "towers"; they have similarly structured books inLord of the Rings, one ending in a military attack on Saruman's tower,Orthanc; the other, in the hobbits' venturing into Shelob's lair in Cirith Ungol. On the other hand, she writes, while Saruman's evil is in his mind, Shelob's is in her body.^[7]

Chance stresses Shelob's "gluttony", one of the traditionalseven deadly sins, consisting of an "insatiable appetite"; her laziness, since the Orcs bring her food; and her "lechery" with many bastard offspring. Chance compares Shelob with the guardian of the gateway toHell, noting that inJohn Milton'sParadise Lost,Satan mated with his daughter,Sin, their offspring being Death, constantly lustful for his mother:^[7][8] but Tolkien in one place describes Shelob as Sauron's cat rather than his daughter.^[7] The scholar of literature George H. Thomson similarly compares Shelob to Milton's Sin and Death, noting that they "serve neither God nor Satan but look solely to their own interests", as Shelob does; she is "the Death and Chaos that would overcome all".^[1]

The Tolkien scholar Carol Leibiger writes that Shelob is presented as a disgusting female monster in the story.^[9] The Anglican priest and scholar of religionAlison Milbank adds that Shelob is undeniably sexual: "Tolkien offers a most convincingFreudianvagina dentata (toothed vagina) in the ancient and disgustingly gustatory spider Shelob."^[5] Milbank states that Shelob symbolises "an ancient maternal power that swallows up masculine identity and autonomy", threatening a "castrating hold [which] is precisely what the sexual fetishist fears, and seeks to control".^[5] The Tolkien scholarJane Chance mentions "Sam'spenetration of her belly with his sword", noting that this may be an appropriate and symbolic way of ending her production of "bastards".^[7]

The scholar of children's literature Zoë Jaques writes that Shelob is the "embodiment of monstrous maternity"; Sam's battle with Shelob could be interpreted as a "masculine rite of passage" where a smaller, weaker male penetrates and escapes the vast female body and her malicious intent.^[10] The Tolkien scholar Brenda Partridge described the hobbits' protracted struggle with Shelob as rife with sexual symbolism.^[8] She writes that Tolkien derived Shelob from multiple myths:Sigurd killingFafnir the dragon;Theseus killing theMinotaur;Arachne and the spider; and Milton's Sin inParadise Lost.^[8] The result is to depict the woman as a threat, with implicit overtones of sexuality.^[8]

Not all commentators have agreed with the sexual associations detected by scholars such as Partridge. The Tolkien scholar Daniel Timmons wrote inMythlore in 2001: "The obsession of reading the Shelob episode as a sexually violent encounter, rather than as an archetypal struggle between human and monster, likely reveals more about the decadent social attitudes of the critics, rather than those of Tolkien".^[11] Timmons accepted the possibility of a "subtext of the fear of female sexual appeal", and agreed that the text might "function in the literary tradition of clashes between man and female monsters, with the attendant sexual innuendos", but called it "disingenuous or perverse" to assert that this was the "main or dominant impression".^[11]

In the 1981 BBC Radio adaption ofThe Lord of the Rings, Shelob is portrayed byBBC Radiophonic Workshop member Jenny Lee.^[13]

InPeter Jackson'sfilm trilogy, Shelob's appearance is delayed until the third movie,The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Her design is based on theNew Zealand tunnel-web spider, which Jackson hates.^[12]

Shelob is a major character in the video gameMiddle-earth: Shadow of War, where she serves as both the narrator and an ally toplayer character Talion. In the game, Shelob shape-shifts to assume the form of an attractive woman. Following criticism of this decision, the creative director Michael de Plater explained that Gollum and Shelob were "the unsung heroes ofThe Lord of the Rings": Shelob senses Frodo's weakness and makes a pact with Gollum to hasten him to Mount Doom and destroy the ring. De Plater envisioned Shelob as a dark counterpart toGaladriel, noting how both manipulate lesser beings, but that Shelob is more honest.^[14]

• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981].The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York:HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937).Douglas A. Anderson (ed.).The Annotated Hobbit. Boston:Houghton Mifflin (published 2002).ISBN 978-0-618-13470-0.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954).The Two Towers.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 1042159111.

• Female characters in film
• Female characters in literature
• Fictional spiders
• Literary characters introduced in 1954
• Middle-earth animals
• Middle-earth deities and spirits
• The Lord of the Rings characters

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