I believe this passage, as disturbing as it is, is the first time I felt serious empathy and compassion for Smeagol, who after all had been accompanying Sam and Frodo with almost no food that he could tolerate.

The ring is obviously working on him hard, but what are the grand desires he wants to fulfill? Not vengeance, not power for its own sake. He wants to escape the dark lord and have enough food to eat every day.

Even in light of his future treachery, how could one not sympathize with that?