CRITICISM
Randel Helms devotes an entire chapter to the Akallabêth in Tolkien and the Silmarils (1981). He notes that the work involves Tolkien in one of his favorite literary tricks, the creation of the real source or origin of a famous tale (p. 64). But it is also Tolkiens first full-scale brief epic of men as opposed to elves, presenting his deepest thinking about death, the Gift of Men. He had prepared for it in the Quenta Silmarillion, where it is said that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein, but they would be able to shape their life. The price they pay for this freedom of will and ability to yearn toward Ilúvatar is that though their longings be immortal, their bodies are not.
Here Tolkien sets a major theme of Akallabêth, showing as well his grasp of human psychology. Always to yearn for what we do not have, to seek beyond the confines of our world, is our destiny, and one resulting directly from our freedom. Because of this combination of desire and liberty, unique in the mortal creatures of Arda, man is peculiarly susceptible to temptation, and men long for what they can never have, immortality in the flesh.
Tolkien thus uses Platos story of Atlantis, but deepens its themes. The Atlanteans desired conquest and empire . The Númenóreans desired not merely conquest though that was indeed one of their aims they wanted an attribute of divinity itself, eternity. They wanted to be as gods knowing not good and evil only, but endlessness for Tolkien has blended Platos legend of Atlantis with the Bibles story of the Fall of Man, to produce a tale of great resonance. [pp. 667]
David Harvey in The Song of Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkiens Themes, Symbols and Myths (1985) likewise relates the fall of the Númenóreans to a Fall in the theological sense. The actions of Ar-Pharazôn are in direct opposition to a stated Ban imposed by superhuman powers and derived from the authority and decree of the One (p. 41).
In Aspects of the Fall in The Silmarillion, in Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference 1992, ed. Patricia Reynolds and Glen H. GoodKnight (1995), Eric Schweicher points out that in Tolkiens legendarium Mans mortality is neither a punishment nor a direct consequence of their [first] Fall. The condition of Man was determined long before the world was created, in the Great Music of the Ainur . Yet there is a fear of death on Middle-earth, which is paradoxical if one considers death as a gift. Therefore he suggests that the Fall must have had an influence on the attitude of Man towards death, and there one must see Melkors influence, which lures Men into believing that what they had been given as a gift is but a bitter fruit (p. 169). Thus the desire of the Númenóreans for immortality, and Ar-Pharazôns attempt to gain it by conquest, are directly related to the first Fall.
Anne C. Petty, in Tolkien in the Land of the Heroes: Discovering the Human Spirit (2003), thinks that
the passage in the Akallabêth that describes the coming of the first Númenóreans to their new land contains some of Tolkiens most inspired saga-style language, conjuring images of dragon ships and seascapes straight out of such Old English poems as The Seafarer. He balances this vision of wonder with an equally stark vision of horror that concludes the account. This is something Tolkien does better than anyone: he presents the reader with a vision of incredible beauty, and then allows it to be ruined to equally incredible depths, making the end result all the more poignant and devastating. [p. 82]
Númenórean Linear Measures. Series of notes from various manuscripts, published as an appendix to *The Disaster of the Gladden Fields in *Unfinished Tales (1980), pp. 2857, under a collective title devised by *Christopher Tolkien. These concern the relationship of Númenórean measurements to British units (leagues, yards, feet), and the stature of Númenóreans (especially Elendil), the Eldar (especially Galadriel), the Rohirrim (with a note on Morwen, wife of Thengel), the Hobbits, and the Dúnedain.