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The Gift of Men refers to a gift of Ilúvatar to his Younger Children, which remains a source of some confusion for Tolkien enthusiasts. The concept includes both mortality, leading to death of old age, and free will. Below are two interpretations of the nature and extent of the Gift of Men as articulated by Tolkien.

Ilúvatar willed that the spirits or hearts of Men are not content within Arda, and find no rest therein, and therefore seek beyond the world and its confines. They are not bound to the Circles of the World, as the Elves and all other creatures of Arda are bound to the Earth. The spirits of Men truly leave the physical world, and do not return. Thus their fates are completely sundered from that of the Elves, who do not die until the world dies, unless slain by violence or ill chance, or by wearying at the last of the passage of centuries. But as the years grow long and Time wears, even the Valar will come to envy the gift of Ilúvatar to the race of Men, that of liberation from the physical world, and the inevitability of loss and sorrows that must come with this existence within Arda.

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