The Lord of the Rings
The
Lord of the Rings is an epic[1] high-fantasy
novel written by English author and scholar J.
R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to
Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The
Hobbit, but eventually developed into a
much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the
Rings is one of the best-selling novels ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.[2]
The
title of the novel refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark
Lord Sauron,[a] who had in an earlier age created the One
Ring to rule the other Rings
of Power as the ultimate weapon in his
campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire,
a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges
across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the
eyes of its characters, most notably the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry
and Pippin.
Although
generally known to readers as a trilogy, the work was initially intended by
Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set, the other to be The
Silmarillion, but this idea was dismissed by his
publisher.[4][5] For economic reasons, The Lord of the Rings was
published in three volumes over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20
October 1955.[4][6] The three volumes were titled The Fellowship of the Ring, The
Two Towers and The Return of the King. Structurally, the novel is divided internally into six
books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material included
at the end. Some editions combine the entire work into a single volume. The
Lord of the Rings has since been reprinted numerous times and translated into 38
languages.
Tolkien's
work has been the subject of extensive analysis
of its themes and origins. Although a major work
in itself, the story was only the last movement of a larger epic Tolkien had
worked on since 1917,[7]
in a process he described as mythopoeia.[b] Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The
Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, religion and the author's
distaste for the effects of industrialization, as well as earlier fantasy works
and Tolkien's experiences in World War I.[9] The Lord of the Rings in its turn is considered to
have had a great effect on modern fantasy; the impact of Tolkien's works is
such that the use of the words "Tolkienian" and
"Tolkienesque" has been recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary.[10]
The
enduring popularity of The Lord of the Rings has led to numerous
references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans
of Tolkien's works,[11]
and the publication of many books about Tolkien and his works. The Lord of
the Rings has inspired, and
continues to inspire, artwork, music, films and
television, video games, board games, and subsequent literature. Award-winning adaptations of The
Lord of the Rings have been made for radio, theatre, and film.[12] In 2003, it was named Britain's best novel of all time in
the BBC's The Big Read.
In 2015, the BBC ranked The Lord of the Rings 26th on its list of the
100 greatest British novels.[13]
Plot summary
The Fellowship of the Ring
The
narrative follows on from The
Hobbit, in which the hobbit Bilbo Baggins finds the
Ring, which had been in the possession
of the creature Gollum.
The story begins in the Shire,
where Frodo Baggins
inherits the Ring from Bilbo, his cousin[c] and guardian. Neither hobbit is aware of the Ring's nature,
but Gandalf
the Grey, a wizard
and an old friend of Bilbo, suspects it to be the Ring lost by Sauron, the Dark
Lord, long ago. Seventeen years later, after Gandalf confirms this is true, he
tells Frodo the history of the Ring and counsels him to take it away from the
Shire. Frodo sets out, accompanied by his gardener, servant and friend, Samwise
"Sam" Gamgee, and two
cousins, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin
"Pippin" Took. They are
nearly caught by the Nazgûl,
but shake off their pursuers by cutting through the Old
Forest. There they are aided by Tom
Bombadil, a strange and merry fellow who
lives with his wife Goldberry
in the forest.
The
hobbits reach the town of Bree,
where they encounter a Ranger
named Strider, whom Gandalf had mentioned in a letter. Strider persuades
the hobbits to take him on as their guide and protector. Together, they leave
Bree after another close escape from the Nazgûl. On the hill of Weathertop, they are again attacked by the Nazgûl, who wound Frodo
with a cursed blade. Strider fights them off and leads the hobbits towards the Elven
refuge of Rivendell.
Frodo falls deathly ill from the wound. The Nazgûl nearly capture him at the
Ford of Bruinen, but flood waters summoned by Elrond, master of Rivendell, rise up and overwhelm them.
Frodo
recovers in Rivendell under Elrond's care. The Council of Elrond discusses the
history of Sauron and the Ring. Strider is revealed to be Aragorn, Isildur's heir. Gandalf reports that the chief wizard Saruman has betrayed them and is now working to become a power in
his own right. The Council decides that the Ring must be destroyed, but that
can only be done by sending it to the fire of Mount
Doom in Mordor, where it was forged.
Frodo takes this task upon himself. Elrond, with the advice of Gandalf, chooses
companions for him. The Company of the Ring are nine in number: Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn,
Gandalf, Gimli
the Dwarf,
Legolas the Elf,
and the Man Boromir,
son of Denethor, the Ruling Steward
of the land of Gondor.
After
a failed attempt to cross the Misty
Mountains over the Redhorn Pass, the Company
take the perilous path through the Mines of Moria.
They learn of the fate of Balin
and his colony of Dwarves. After surviving an attack, they are pursued by Orcs
and by a Balrog, an ancient fire demon. Gandalf faces the Balrog, and both
of them fall into the abyss. The others escape and find refuge in the Elven
forest of Lothlórien,
where they are counselled by its rulers, Galadriel and Celeborn.
With
boats and gifts from Galadriel, the Company travel down the River Anduin to the
hill of Amon Hen. There, Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo, but Frodo
puts it on and disappears. Frodo chooses to go alone to Mordor, but Sam guesses
what he intends and goes with him.
The Two Towers
Uruk-hai
sent by Saruman and other Orcs sent by Sauron kill Boromir and capture Merry and Pippin. Aragorn, Gimli
and Legolas debate which pair of hobbits to follow. They decide to pursue the
Orcs taking Merry and Pippin to Saruman. In the kingdom of Rohan,
the Orcs are slain by a company of Rohirrim.
Merry and Pippin escape into Fangorn Forest, where they are befriended by Treebeard, the oldest of the tree-like Ents. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas track the hobbits to Fangorn.
There they unexpectedly meet Gandalf.
Gandalf
explains that he slew the Balrog. Darkness took him, but he was sent back to
Middle-earth to complete his mission. He is clothed in white and is now Gandalf
the White, for he has taken Saruman's place as the chief of the wizards.
Gandalf assures his friends that Merry and Pippin are safe. Together they ride
to Edoras, capital of Rohan. Gandalf frees Théoden, King of Rohan, from the influence of Saruman's spy Gríma Wormtongue.
Théoden musters his fighting strength and rides with his men to the ancient
fortress of Helm's Deep,
while Gandalf departs to seek help from Treebeard.
Meanwhile,
the Ents, roused by Merry and Pippin from their peaceful ways, attack Isengard, Saruman's stronghold, and trap the wizard in the tower of Orthanc. Gandalf convinces Treebeard to send an army of Huorns to Théoden's aid. Gandalf brings an army of Rohirrim to
Helm's Deep, and they defeat the Orcs, who flee into the forest of Huorns,
never to be seen again. Gandalf offers Saruman a chance to turn away from evil.
When Saruman refuses to listen, Gandalf strips him of his rank and most of his
powers.
After
Saruman crawls back to his prison, Wormtongue drops a sphere to try to kill
Gandalf. Pippin picks it up. It is revealed to be a palantír, a seeing-stone that Saruman used to speak with Sauron and
through which Saruman was ensnared. Pippin is seen by Sauron. Gandalf rides for
Minas
Tirith, chief city of Gondor, taking
Pippin with him.
Frodo
and Sam capture Gollum, who has followed them from Moria. They force him to
guide them to Mordor. They find that the Black Gate of Mordor is too well
guarded, so instead they travel to a secret way Gollum knows. On the way, they
encounter Faramir, who, unlike his brother Boromir, resists the temptation to
seize the Ring. Gollum – who is torn between his loyalty to Frodo and his
desire for the Ring – betrays Frodo by leading him to the great spider Shelob in the tunnels of Cirith
Ungol. Frodo falls to Shelob's sting. But
with the help of Galadriel's gifts, Sam fights off the spider. Believing Frodo
to be dead, Sam takes the Ring to continue the quest alone. Orcs find Frodo;
Sam overhears them and learns that Frodo is still alive.
The Return of the King
Sauron
sends a great army against Gondor. Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith to warn
Denethor of the attack, while Théoden musters the Rohirrim to ride to Gondor's
aid. Minas Tirith is besieged. Denethor is deceived by Sauron and falls into despair. He
burns himself alive on a pyre, nearly taking his son Faramir with him. Aragorn,
accompanied by Legolas, Gimli and the Rangers of the North, takes the Paths
of the Dead to recruit the Dead Men of
Dunharrow, who are bound by a curse which denies them rest until they fulfil
their ancient forsworn oath to fight for the King of Gondor.
Following
Aragorn, the Army of the Dead strikes terror into the Corsairs
of Umbar invading southern Gondor. Aragorn
defeats the Corsairs and uses their ships to transport the men of southern
Gondor up the Anduin,
reaching Minas Tirith just in time to turn the tide of battle. Théoden's niece
Éowyn, who joined the army in disguise, slays the Lord of the Nazgûl with help
from Merry. Together, Gondor and Rohan defeat Sauron's army in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, though at great cost. Théoden is killed, and Éowyn and
Merry are wounded.
Meanwhile,
Sam rescues Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol. They set out across Mordor.
Aragorn leads an army of men from Gondor and Rohan to march on the Black Gate
to distract Sauron from his true danger. His army is vastly outnumbered by the
great might of Sauron. Frodo and Sam reach the edge of the Cracks
of Doom, but Frodo cannot resist the Ring
any longer. He claims it for himself and puts it on his finger.
Gollum
suddenly reappears. He struggles with Frodo and bites off Frodo's finger with
the Ring still on it. Celebrating wildly, Gollum loses his footing and falls
into the Fire, taking the Ring with him. When the Ring is destroyed, Sauron
loses his power forever. All he created collapses, the Nazgûl perish, and his
armies are thrown into such disarray that Aragorn's forces emerge victorious.
Aragorn
is crowned King of Arnor and Gondor, and weds Arwen, daughter of Elrond. The four hobbits make their way back
to the Shire, only to find that it has been taken over by men directed by one
"Sharkey" (whom they later discover to be Saruman). The hobbits raise a rebellion and liberate the
Shire, though 19 hobbits are killed and
30 wounded. Frodo stops the hobbits from killing the wizard after Saruman
attempts to stab Frodo, but Gríma turns on Saruman and kills him in front of
Bag End, Frodo's home. He is slain in turn by hobbit archers, and the War of
the Ring comes to its true end on Frodo's very doorstep.
Merry
and Pippin are celebrated as heroes. Sam marries Rosie Cotton and uses his
gifts from Galadriel to help heal the Shire. But Frodo is still wounded in body
and spirit, having borne the Ring for so long. A few years later, in the
company of Bilbo and Gandalf, Frodo sails from the Grey Havens west over the
Sea to the Undying Lands
to find peace.
In
the appendices, Sam gives his daughter Elanor the Red Book of Westmarch, which contains the story of Bilbo's adventures and the War
of the Ring as witnessed by the hobbits. Sam is then said to have crossed west
over the Sea himself, the last of the Ring-bearers.
Frame-story
Tolkien
presents The Lord of the Rings within a fictional frame-story where he is not the original author, but merely the
translator of part of an ancient document, the Red Book of Westmarch. Various details of the frame-story appear in the Prologue,
its 'Note on Shire
Records', and in the Appendices, notably Appendix F. In this frame-story, the Red
Book is also the source of Tolkien's other works relating to Middle-earth: The Hobbit,
The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of
Tom Bombadil.[14]
Concept and creation
Background
The
Lord of the Rings started as a sequel to J. R. R.
Tolkien's work The Hobbit, published in 1937.[15] The popularity of The Hobbit had led George Allen
& Unwin, the publishers, to request a sequel. Tolkien warned them that he
wrote quite slowly, and responded with several stories he had already
developed. Having rejected his contemporary drafts for The
Silmarillion, putting on hold Roverandom, and accepting Farmer Giles of Ham, Allen & Unwin thought more stories about hobbits would be popular.[16] So at the age of 45, Tolkien began writing the story that
would become The Lord of the Rings. The story would not be finished
until 12 years later, in 1949, and would not be fully published until 1955,
when Tolkien was 63 years old.
Writing
Persuaded
by his publishers, he started "a new Hobbit" in December 1937.[15] After several false starts, the story of the One Ring
emerged. The idea for the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party")
arrived fully formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, the
significance of the Ring, and the title The Lord of the Rings did not
arrive until the spring of 1938.[15] Originally, he planned to write a story in which Bilbo had
used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more;
however, he remembered the Ring and its powers and thought that would be a
better focus for the new work.[15] As the story progressed, he also brought in elements from The
Silmarillion mythology.[17]
Writing
was slow, because Tolkien had a full-time academic position teaching
linguistics (with a focus on languages with linguistic elements he incorporated
into his books, such as Old English).[18] "I have spent nearly all the vacation-times of
seventeen years examining [...] Writing stories in prose or verse has been
stolen, often guiltily, from time already mortgaged..."[19] Tolkien abandoned The Lord of the Rings during most
of 1943 and only restarted it in April 1944,[15] as a serial for his son Christopher Tolkien,
who was sent chapters as they were written while he was serving in South Africa
with the Royal Air Force.
Tolkien made another major effort in 1946, and showed the manuscript to his
publishers in 1947.[15] The story was effectively finished the next year, but
Tolkien did not complete the revision of earlier parts of the work until 1949.[15] The original manuscripts, which total 9,250 pages, now
reside in the J. R. R. Tolkien Collection at Marquette University.[20]
Influences
Main article: J. R. R. Tolkien's influences
The
influence of the Welsh language,
which Tolkien had learned, is summarized in his essay English
and Welsh: "If I may once more refer to
my work. The Lord of the Rings, in evidence: the names of persons and places in
this story were mainly composed on patterns deliberately modelled on those of
Welsh (closely similar but not identical). This element in the tale has given
perhaps more pleasure to more readers than anything else in it."[21]
The
Lord of the Rings developed as a personal exploration
by Tolkien of his interests in philology, religion (particularly Catholicism[22]), fairy tales,
Norse
and general Germanic mythology,[23][24] and also Celtic,[25][better source needed] Slavic,[26][27][28] Persian,[29] Greek,[30] and Finnish
mythology.[31] Tolkien acknowledged, and external critics have verified,
the influences of George
MacDonald and William
Morris[32] and the Anglo-Saxon poem
Beowulf.[33] The question of a direct influence of Wagner's The Nibelung's Ring on Tolkien's work is debated by critics.
Tolkien
included neither any explicit religion nor cult in his work. Rather the themes,
moral philosophy, and cosmology of The Lord of the Rings reflect his Catholic worldview. In one of his letters Tolkien states, "The
Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work;
unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have
not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like
'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious
element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."[22]
Some
locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood in Birmingham, where he first lived near Sarehole
Mill, and later near Edgbaston Reservoir.[35] There are also hints of the Black
Country, which is within easy reach of
northwest Edgbaston. This shows in such names as "Underhill", and the
description of Saruman's industrialization of Isengard and The Shire. It has
also been suggested that The Shire
and its surroundings were based on the countryside around Stonyhurst College
in Lancashire where Tolkien frequently stayed during the 1940s.[36] The work was influenced by the effects of his military
service during World War I, to the point that one critic diagnosed Frodo as
suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, which was called "shell-shock" at the Battle of the Somme,
in which Tolkien served.[37]
Publication history
A
dispute with his publisher, George
Allen & Unwin, led to the book being offered to Collins in 1950. Tolkien intended The
Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this
point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but A&U
were unwilling to do this. After Milton Waldman, his contact at Collins,
expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself "urgently
wanted cutting", Tolkien eventually demanded that they publish the book in
1952.[38] Collins did not; and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin,
saying, "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the
stuff", fearing his work would never see the light of day.[15]
For
publication, the book was divided into three volumes to minimize any potential
financial loss due to the high cost of type-setting and modest anticipated
sales: The Fellowship of the Ring (Books I and II), The
Two Towers (Books III and IV), and The Return of the King (Books V and VI plus six appendices).[39] Delays in producing appendices, maps and especially an index led to the volumes being published
later than originally hoped – on 29 July 1954, on 11 November 1954 and on
20 October 1955 respectively in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Houghton Mifflin published The Fellowship of the Ring on 21 October
1954, The Two Towers on 21 April 1955, and The Return of the King
on 5 January 1956.[40]
The
Return of the King was especially delayed due to
Tolkien revising the ending and preparing appendices (some of which had to be
left out because of space constraints). Tolkien did not like the title The
Return of the King, believing it gave away too much of the storyline, but
deferred to his publisher's preference.[41] Tolkien wrote that the title The Two Towers
"can be left ambiguous,"[42] but also considered naming the two as Orthanc and Barad-dûr, Minas Tirith
and Barad-dûr, or Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.[42][43] However, a month later he wrote a note published at the end
of The Fellowship of the Ring and later drew a cover illustration, both
of which identified the pair as Minas
Morgul and Orthanc.[44][45]
Tolkien
was initially opposed to titles being given to each two-book volume, preferring
instead the use of book titles: e.g. The Lord of the Rings: Vol. 1, The
Ring Sets Out and The Ring Goes South; Vol. 2, The Treason of
Isengard and The Ring Goes East; Vol. 3, The War of the Ring
and The End of the Third Age. However these individual book titles were
later scrapped, and after pressure from his publishers, Tolkien initially
suggested the titles: Vol. 1, The Shadow Grows; Vol. 2, The Ring in
the Shadow; Vol. 3, The War of the Ring or The Return of the King.[46][47]
Because
the three-volume binding was so widely distributed, the work is often referred
to as the Lord of the Rings "trilogy". In a letter to the poet W.
H. Auden (who famously reviewed the final
volume in 1956[48]), Tolkien himself made use of the term "trilogy"
for the work[49] though he did at other times consider this incorrect, as it
was written and conceived as a single book.[50] It is also often called a novel; however, Tolkien also objected to this term as he viewed
it as a heroic romance.[51]
The
books were published under a profit-sharing arrangement, whereby Tolkien would
not receive an advance or royalties until the books had broken even, after
which he would take a large share of the profits.[52] It has ultimately become one of the best-selling novels
ever written, with 50 million copies sold by 2003[53] and over 150 million copies sold by 2007.[2]
The
book was published in the UK by Allen & Unwin until 1990 when the publisher
and its assets were acquired by HarperCollins.[54][55]
Editions and revisions
In
the early 1960s Donald A. Wollheim,
science fiction editor of the paperback publisher Ace
Books, claimed that The Lord of the
Rings was not protected in the United States under American copyright
law because Houghton Mifflin, the US
hardcover publisher, had neglected to copyright the work in the United States.[56][57] Then, in 1965, Ace Books proceeded to publish an edition,
unauthorized by Tolkien and without paying royalties to him. Tolkien took issue with this and quickly notified
his fans of this objection.[58] Grass-roots
pressure from these fans became so great that Ace Books withdrew their edition
and made a nominal payment to Tolkien.[59][60]
Authorized
editions followed from Ballantine
Books and Houghton
Mifflin to tremendous commercial success.
Tolkien undertook various textual revisions to produce a version of the book
that would be published with his consent and establish an unquestioned US
copyright. This text became the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings,
published in 1965.[59] The first Ballantine paperback edition was printed in
October that year, and sold a quarter of a million copies within ten months. On
September 4, 1966, the novel debuted on New York Times' Paperback Bestsellers
list as number three, and was number one by December 4, a position it held for
eight weeks.[61] Houghton Mifflin editions after 1994 consolidate variant
revisions by Tolkien, and corrections supervised by Christopher Tolkien,
which resulted, after some initial glitches, in a computer-based unified text.[62]
In
2004, for the 50th Anniversary Edition, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull,
under supervision from Christopher Tolkien, studied and revised the text to
eliminate as many errors and inconsistencies as possible, some of which had
been introduced by well-meaning compositors of the first printing in 1954, and
never been corrected.[63] The 2005 edition of the book contained further corrections
noticed by the editors and submitted by readers. Further corrections were added
to the 60th Anniversary Edition in 2014.[64]
Several
editions, notably the 50th Anniversary Edition, combine all three books into
one volume, with the result that pagination varies widely over the various
editions.
Posthumous publication of drafts
From
1988 to 1992 Christopher Tolkien published the surviving drafts of The Lord
of The Rings, chronicling and illuminating with commentary the stages of
the text's development, in volumes 6–9 of his History of Middle-earth series. The four volumes carry the titles The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring, and Sauron
Defeated.
Translations
Main article: Translations of The
Lord of the Rings
The
novel has been translated, with various degrees of success, into at least 56
languages.[65] Tolkien, an expert in philology, examined many of these translations, and made comments on
each that reflect both the translation process and his work. As he was unhappy
with some choices made by early translators, such as the Swedish
translation by Åke
Ohlmarks,[66] Tolkien wrote a "Guide to the Names
in The Lord of the Rings"
(1967). Because The Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of
the fictitious Red Book of Westmarch, with the English language representing the Westron of the "original", Tolkien suggested that
translators attempt to capture the interplay between English and the invented
nomenclature of the English work, and gave several examples along with general
guidance.
Reception
Main article: Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien
While
early reviews for The Lord of the Rings were mixed, reviews in various
media have been, on the whole, highly positive and acknowledge Tolkien's
literary achievement as a significant one. The initial review in the Sunday
Telegraph described it as "among the
greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century".[67] The Sunday Times echoed this sentiment, stating that "the
English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the
Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them".[67] The New York Herald Tribune also seemed to have an idea of how popular the books would
become, writing in its review that they were "destined to outlast our
time".[68] W. H. Auden,
an admirer of Tolkien's writings, regarded The Lord of the Rings as a
"masterpiece", further stating that in some cases it outdid the
achievement of John Milton's
Paradise Lost.[69] Kenneth F Slater [70] wrote in Nebula Science Fiction, April 1955, "... if you don’t read it, you have
missed one of the finest books of its type ever to appear" [71]
New
York Times reviewer Judith Shulevitz
criticized the "pedantry" of Tolkien's literary style, saying that he
"formulated a high-minded belief in the importance of his mission as a
literary preservationist, which turns out to be death to literature
itself".[72] Critic Richard Jenkyns, writing in The
New Republic, criticized the work for a lack of
psychological depth. Both the characters and the work itself are, according to
Jenkyns, "anemic, and lacking in fibre".[73] Even within Tolkien's literary group, The
Inklings, reviews were mixed. Hugo
Dyson complained loudly at its readings.[74][75] However, another Inkling, C.
S. Lewis, had very different feelings,
writing, "here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold
iron. Here is a book which will break your heart." Despite these reviews
and its lack of paperback printing until the 1960s, The Lord of the Rings
initially sold well in hardback.[7]
In
1957, The Lord of the Rings was awarded the International Fantasy Award. Despite its numerous detractors, the publication of the Ace
Books and Ballantine paperbacks helped The Lord of the Rings become
immensely popular in the United States in the 1960s. The book has remained so
ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the
twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys.[76] In the 2003 "Big
Read" survey conducted in Britain
by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's
best-loved book". In similar 2004 polls both Germany[77]
and Australia[78] also found The Lord of the Rings to be their
favourite book. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be
their favourite "book of the millennium".[79]
It
may seem that the characters in The Lord of the Rings are "all
either black or white", but Tolkien's friend C.
S. Lewis observed that the writing is richer
than that: some of the 'good' characters have darker sides, and likewise some
of the villains have "good impulses".[80]
Themes
Main article: Themes of The Lord
of the Rings
Although
The Lord of the Rings was published in the 1950s, Tolkien insisted that
the One Ring was not an allegory
for the atomic bomb,[81] nor were his works a strict allegory of any kind, but were
open to interpretation as the reader saw fit.[82][83]
A
few critics have found what they consider racial elements in the story, which
are generally based upon their views of how Tolkien's imagery depicts good and
evil, characters' race (e.g. Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Southron, Númenórean, Orc), and how the characters' race is seen as determining
their behaviour.[84][85][86] On the contrary, counter-arguments note that race-focused
critiques often omit relevant textual evidence,[87][88][89] cite imagery from adaptations rather than the work itself,[90] ignore the absence of evidence of racist attitudes or events in the author's personal life,[87][90][91] and claim that the perception of racism is itself a
marginal view.[91]
The
opinions that pit races against each other most likely reflect Tolkien's
criticism of war rather than a racist perspective. In The Two Towers,
the character Samwise sees a fallen foe, a man of color, and considers the
humanity of this fallen Southron.[92] Director Peter Jackson, in the director's commentary of
this scene, argues that Tolkien isn't projecting negativity towards the
individual soldier because of his race, but against the evil authority that is
driving them.[93] These sentiments, Jackson argues, arose from Tolkien's
experience in the Great War and found their way into his writings to show the
evils of war itself, not of other races.
Critics
have also seen social class rather than race as being the determining factor in
the portrayal of good and evil.[87] Commentators such as science fiction author David
Brin have interpreted the work to hold
unquestioning devotion to a traditional elitist social structure.[94] In his essay "Epic
Pooh", science fiction and fantasy
author Michael Moorcock
critiques the world-view displayed by the book as deeply conservative, in both
the "paternalism" of the narrative voice and the power-structures in
the narrative.[95] Tom Shippey
cites the origin of this portrayal of evil as a reflection of the prejudices of
European middle-classes during the inter-war years towards the industrial
working class.[96]
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