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Social Issues behind Lord of the Rings From the very first time of my introduction to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien I have experienced a strange feeling of kindness and happiness, which was virtually pouring out of the pages of his books. I became very interested in the person of the writer, his culture, education, and traditions. In this paper I would like to analyze the social trends, which affected Tolkien, and, consequently, Tolkien's representation of the social structure, which in turn have changed the world.
When I tried to research for this paper, I saw that J. R. R. Tolkien has created a huge following from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and his other fine masterpieces. There is at least one Website dedicated to the story in almost every country. The people behind marketing are making a fortune selling items from toys and books.
There are also authors who have devoted their whole lives interpreting the plot and conceiving themes from the story that would relate to our time. But I believe that theyre way too many people spending way too much time on this epic. Granted it is brilliant, but when I read that J. R. R. Tolkien was a racist and a male chauvinist, I thought that maybe those people are taking themselves too seriously.
Also, when an author writes for pure fiction, then it should interpret as fiction, not misrepresenting Tolkien's personal beliefs. Personally, I am not the type of person to get so intimately involved in literature. I have many favorite books, and I do appreciate their value to help stimulate imagination. Though I should point that J. R.
R. Tolkien wrote both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings from a purely fictional stance. He wrote The Hobbit based on the bedtime stories he told from his children. Tolkien was a devout catholic, and his religious beliefs are very visible in the story. But there are many elements that would contradict the notion that there is a Christian presence in Lord of the Rings. I am reminded that the Bible condemns witchcraft and sorcerers, and who are the main characters?
Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, Gabriel, and the Dark Lord Sauron are examples of characters that jeopardize the credibility of the Bibles presence. A writer from Faith Magazine commented on Tolkien's masterpiece saying Tolkien omitted overt references to God, worship, prayer and Christianity in the 500, 000 words of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It wasnt an effort to hide his Christian faith, he said. Rather, he believed the technique communicated Christian values more effectively precisely because they were less obvious. (web) The fact that Tolkien did not specifically refer to any Christian idea was that the storys primary purpose was to exploit pure fantasy, not his Christian beliefs. The third age of Middle-Earth is supposed to be a lack of a deity because of the hostile take over of Sauron. The major critics believe that Tolkien has inadvertently created characters that fit around the social prejudices that exist today.
The fact that makes the women in the novel seem as minor roles, and are not involved as in depth as the other male characters. The Fellowship only involves the males and lacks any female element (Hardy, 25). Though in almost every classic epic, the male dominates over evil and rescues the damsel in distress. The only story I can think of in medieval literature where the woman was the protagonist was Joan of Arc, but thats a bad example for feminist because she was burned at the stake for heresy.
Tolkien wrote this epic in the 1940 s, and the social movement in that time did pick up like in the 60 s. Other critics believe that there is a sense of elitism and racism from the characters Sam and the Dark Lord. Sam is depicted as slow and dim-witted, and his constant concerns for Frodo make him seem more like a servant rather than a friend. That fact that he is the only one who calls him Mr. Frodo shows that some of the critics might have a point. Sam does carry Frodo to the top of the mountain and he performs numerous tasks for his master.
Though I think it would be rather ridiculous to think J. R. R. Tolkien is a snob because others see Sam as an indentured servant. If I was a critic, I might think that Sam was a faithful sidekick and a good friend. Though the other arguments attacks Tolkien as racial bigot because of the usage dark in reference to the Dark Lord.
The critics may infer that the dark lord is an evil element, just like many white supremacists believe that people of color are their enemies (Chance, 45). Now this I thought was funny because when I think of evil, I dont think white and fluffy, but dark and gruesome. When Tolkien makes reference to evil in consideration of shadows and darkness, he is not referring to someones skin pigment, but the metaphors of the words to add a dreadful element to the epic. Tolkien should be considered an advocate of racial diversity because he has both elves and dwarves working together in the Fellowship, much like Caucasians and African-Americans working together. The most influenced by Tolkien has referred to both stories in forms of art ranging for music to poetry. There are many references in such works and within certain organizations.
Songs by the popular rock band Led Zeppelin in the 1970 s borrowed images from Tolkien. The Hobbit habit of ingesting mushrooms and smoking pipe weed got translated into drug use for counter-culture readers, pot smokers felt they knew exactly what Tolkien was driving at. Symphonies have performed In Memoriam Tolkien, a composition by Sonoma State University philosopher Stan McDaniel, who also argued that Tolkien paid conscious homage to nature worship. Tolkien's beloved Ents, the ruminative tree-creatures who are roused to protect their forest of Fangorn from the ax-loving wizard Saruman - who, with his mind of metal and wheels... does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment support this thesis.
White supremacists appeal to Lord of the Rings on the Internet, apparently attracted by allusions to Germanic-Norse gods. Stephan Holder of the Los Angeles Gnostic Society put Tolkien on level with the Bible in leading to spiritual salvation. Many academics find the psychological work of Carl Jung illustrated in the storyline, while others prefer a Freudian interpretation. (web) Now I would simply have to say that meaning of an important work of literature confuses some people, much as religious fundamentalist might misinterpret the Bible or the Quarin. That is not the case that their own ideas should negate or contradict the authors own message. The authenticity of this story lies with only Tolkien and the only authority over this epic belongs to him.
Although the author claims this story has no inner meaning or message and that the story is merely a story to be told, it would take a far stretch of the imagination not to find the ideas of the book as metaphors for the real world around it. The very essence of the characters and plot lends the book so completely to the idea of its metaphorical representation of World War II, it is obvious why the author would deny the relation (Chance, 34). The plot of the book evolves around one small thing a Ring of Power. The Ring in the story represents the center of power and action throughout the novels. Sauron created the Ring in an earlier age, along with eight other rings, in order to increase his power.
The Rings all represented greater power but were tainted by the forging and the forger. The Ring, which Sauron made for himself, is the ultimate source of power, the power of hate. The Ring is a metaphor for hate. It makes the wearer of it invisible to prying eyes. Through the use of hate, a person can mask his true character from those around him. Also with the Ring, any wearer is granted the power of invisibility, but only specially trained people can harness its true power, which is to alter the world around it.
So is true with hate. Only those who are truly masterful in the art of speech can use hate to its full potential and extreme. Also, the Ring has a side effect: it corrupts that which is good to evil and distorts those who use it to hide from others. This is true, too, of the power of hate. Those who begin with the best intentions commonly cause more harms than that which they originally intended to solve. As a person uses hate to disguise him from what he fears the world sees them as, he becomes what they fear the world sees him as being.
But the critical objections to The Lord of the Rings arent merely stylistic; many find Tolkien's sensibilities to be pre-modernist, even retrograde. Tolkien's worldview was hardly forward-looking. On the contrary, his youthful traumas in World War I left him reclusive and devoutly anti modern for the rest of his life. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel its oppression, wrote Tolkien. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. (Mooney) Today The Lord of the Rings may be on the verge of some form of canonicity. There s certainly enough Tolkien scholarship out there to sustain that.
Tolkien's phalanx of adoring literary defenders insist that his story of hobbits and Middle Earth is an outstanding, original, and, above all, thoroughly modern literary work that has been unjustly maligned by snobbish literati. Certainly, The Lord of the Rings is a rich and multi-layered text; its author was a man of deep learning and imagination who created a mind-boggling vast and detailed fictional world, complete with its own history, civilizations, and languages. Touring Middle Earth with Tolkien can be like touring the Mediterranean with Herodotus (Mooney). In 1961 Philip Toynbee wrote optimistically in The Observer of London that Tolkien's works had passed into a merciful oblivion. (Toynbee) Forty years later, The Lord of the Rings has sold 50 million copies in numerous languages, influencing everything from Star Wars to Led Zeppelin and single-handedly spawning the genre of fantasy fiction in the process. Bibliography: Bird, Craig. Lord of the Rings hits big screen with Christian themes.
Faith Works magazine. web Mooney, Chris. Kicking the Hobbit. The American Prospect. Volume: 12.
Issue: 10. June 4, 2001: 37. Toynbee, Philip. Tolkien's World. Observer. June, 1961.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2 nd edition. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Tolkien, J. R. R.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Chance, Jane. Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Hardy, Gene B.
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Lincoln, NE: Cliffs Notes, 1996.
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Research essay sample on Social Issues Behind Lord Of The Rings
