J.R.R. Tolkien |
The Lord of the Rings | J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings |
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J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
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In this new mythology, Tolkien adapted the fairy-tale world of The Hobbit to a broader purpose. He drew upon his unpublished Silmarillion mythology for some of the backstory, as well as an unpublished Atlantis mythology. But Tolkien also devised new elements, including the Ents, the Rohirrim and other Northmen, and the story of the Elven Rings of Power. Sauron and Cirdan were the only characters brought from The Silmarillion to The Lord of the Rings. Elendil and Ar-Pharazon were brought forward from The Fall of Numenor. Bilbo and Gandalf, Elrond and Gloin, and Gollum all came from The Hobbit, as well as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, but no other characters from the original children's story published in 1937 survived into the main story. In fact, of all these characters, only Gandalf played a significant role in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien shifted his dramatic theme, too. Both The Silmarillion and The Fall of Numenor were stories about moral failures and their catastrophic consequences. The Hobbit was basically just an adventure story which removed Bilbo from his safe home in the West, took him to the distant East, and brought him safely home again, somewhat changed but mostly the same person he had always been. The Lord of the Rings, however, was a story about the struggle between individuality and the loss of that individuality to tyranny. The Silmarillion was a protracted morality story. The Fall of Numenor was a fable. The Hobbit was a playful romp through an imaginary landscape. The monsters of The Silmarillion were remote, almost Biblical in scope, but they were deadly serious perils. There were no monsters in The Fall of Numenor, except for Sauron himself. However, the greatest evil came from the Numenoreans (Atlanteans) themselves. And the monsters of The Hobbit were kind of scary but a bit goofy. Even Smaug, who is almost universally deemed a pretty cool monster, comes off as more arrogant than wise. In The Lord of the Rings, it's difficult to tell the monsters from the good guys. Even Hobbits have their faults, dimly hinted at in the estrangement between Samwise Gamgee and Ted Sandyman, as well in the bitter rivalry between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and their cousins, the Sackville-Baggins family. Elves are portrayed as "good" people, but Gildor Inglorion is curiously reluctant to involve himself in Frodo's perilous journey, even though Gildor suspects Frodo is carrying a "great burden". Why should the Elves fear that burden? Aragorn, who literally steps out of the shadows on the road to offer his help to Frodo, turns out to be a diamond in the rough, almost the true hero of the story. Gandalf, while both wise and powerful, proves to be an unreliable ally who misplaces his good judgement in the wizard Saruman, misses a tryst, and ultimately choose a route which both leads to his own death and the release of Gollum from his accidental imprisonment in the Mines of Moria. At almost every step of the journey, Frodo or his companions are faced with dangerous choices. They are not sure of whom to trust, and the people they meet either covet the One Ring of Power Frodo carries, or else they are so afraid of it they want little or nothing to do with Frodo. The Elves of Lorien want to help in the quest, but they are so reluctant to involve themselves with the outside world they almost turn Frodo and his companions away -- even as a large company of Orcs emerges from Moria to hunt down them down. The One Ring insdiously tempts every person it comes near who might prove to be a stronger, more capable courier. Its goal, according to Gandalf, is to return to Sauron, who lost it three thousand years previously when Isildur cut it from his hand. Isildur, it is told, caused all the trouble with Sauron by refusing to destroy the One Ring when he had the chance. But as Tolkien points out in Letter 154, ...the Elves are NOT wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasuance, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' -- and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret....The fault really lies with the Elves, because they created the Rings of Power in the first place, providing Sauron with an opportunity to capitalize on their own evil and use it against them. Faced with certain defeat by Sauron's armies, many Elves flee Middle-earth rather than stand and fight. They abandon their responsibilities, consigning themselves to a distant purgatory in which they will have to live with their regrets, the remorse they feel over the choices they have made. It thus falls to Frodo Baggins, his companion Sam, and the vicious, corrupted former Hobbit Gollum to carry the Ring into the heart of Sauron's realm, where it may be destroyed. Gollum agrees to help Frodo out of a desperate hope of regaining possession of the Ring, which he had once possessed but lost just prior to meeting Bilbo Baggins (in The Hobbit). Frodo accepts the moral burden to attempt to save the world, not because he feels worthy, but because he fears what the Ring would do to anyone else he might give it to. Sam accompanies Frodo out of pure love and loyalty. He has no claims on the Ring nor any desires to control other wills or dominate people. He is good-hearted, simple, and devoted to Frodo. In the end, it is Sam who both saves the world and almost brings about the complete failure of the mission. For Frodo eventually succumbs to the Ring's constant demonic torment, and at the last moment he claims it for himself. But Sam is never able to fully accept Gollum's submission to Frodo. Tolkien speculates that, had Sam accepted Gollum, Gollum would have willingly sacrificed himself in order to destroy the Ring. On the contrary, Gollum becomes so estranged from Frodo and Sam that he betrays them, first to the monstrous spider Shelob and later at the Sammath Naur, where he steals the Ring back from Frodo and accidentally stumbles into the fire as he celebrates. The inevitable conclusion of the story is the Ring's destruction, but the destruction is brought about by providence rather than by design. The hand of God is seen by the reader in a few places, but he doesn't force the story toward its conclusion. Instead, he moves the characters gently as far along a likely path as they are willing to go, and they gradually drop off, one-by-one, until only Sam, Frodo, and Gollum are left. Sam, however, negates himself by being the only person actually willing to give up the Ring. The subtle irony in Sam's choice is that he removes himself from the path willingly out of love and loyalty to Frodo. It thus falls to Frodo to carry the Ring the last few steps, but he proves unwilling (in fact, incapable) of destroying the Ring, which finally overcomes him. But Gollum, spared by Frodo's pity (and weakness), moves in to satisfy his purely selfish craving for the Ring, and he unwittingly carries it in the wrong direction. Frodo is only released from the Ring's bondage by Gollum's accidental death, but Frodo remains scarred both physically and emotionally. He is not redeemed because he failed in his mission. Sam does not need redemption because he stayed faithful to the mission. In fact, no one is really redeemed in this story, except perhaps the Elves, who through Elrond, Galadriel, and those who choose to remain in Middle-earth to see the conflict through to its end atone in some minor way for their selfish choices in the past. The final message of the story is that there can really not be a complete victory over evil through human endeavor. The fight costs us too much, especially in that we are ourselves flawed, capable of committing great evil (the treachery or failure of various characters including Ted Sandyman, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, Grima Wormtongue, Bill Ferny, and Denethor underscores the weakness of the human spirit). In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's heroes are flawed, not in the classic dramatic sense which results in predictable conflicts, but in the spiritual sense. They are inhibited from fulfilling the promise of pure good by the darkness of their sins. At best, they can only hope to play a small part in a delaying action. Evil's ultimate victory over the world is deferred, not defeated. A respite is granted to humanity until a greater savior comes along. Tolkien is often accused of inserting Christ-like figures into The Lord of the Rings, but the truth is that none of his characters are Christ-like -- not even Gandalf, who does not save the world or defeat the chief evil. Gandalf dispatches a Balrog, but the Balrog really hasn't posed much of a threat to the world. |
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