Wander into any videogame store or high school band and you will discover a multitude of Lord of the Rings fans. As a twenty-something female, I also fiercely love Tolkien’s tale and for the same reason as my fourteen-year-old cohorts: its battles. Don’t worry, I am not a bloodthirsty college student with a craving for violence. But this tale deals with goblins, elves, hobbits, and magic and seems an unlikely candidate for being at all applicable to its readers. I do not carry a sword around, but Lord of the Rings has left an indelible mark on who I am.
The intense and nail-biting warfare of Middle-Earth occurs both on the battlefield and within the characters; not only does the fellowship and its allies fight against the evil forces of Mordor, but the defenders of the good are always fighting battles within themselves. Struggling with fear, pride, and conflicting loyalties, some of them fail and fall short of who they could have been. It is in these battles, in these struggles that Lord of the Rings speaks truth about the reality of life as we know it. That is human existence. We are not simple creatures with a single goal and identity. Each one of us faces a constant inward struggle about who choose to be. It is here that the fantasy tale establishes its claim to reality. The characters who joined the Fellowship of the Ring chose to fight evil and as the tales moves forward, had to keep choosing good. When faced with overwhelming odds or treacherous places, each person struggled inwardly about what to do and who to become. It was through these battles within themselves that the heroes of the tales emerged and evil was destroyed.
W.H. Auden, in his 1956 review of the final book of the trilogy writes that “Life, as I experience it in my own person, is primarily a continuous succession of choices between alternatives…my subjective experience of time is not of a cyclical motion outside myself but of an irreversible history of unique moments which are made by my decisions.” The world around us does not offer an easily paved road, but one that is rift with byways and boulders. We are not simple creatures, but complex in who we are and who we can become. The difficulties of always making choices weigh heavily on a person.
When we first meet Aragorn, the heir to the throne of Gondor, is in hiding, refusing to accept the crown, trapped by his own fear. After fierce battles within himself, he ultimately triumphs over his own fears and doubts and returns to his kingdom, defeating the evil lord, Sauron, and claiming the crown. Although it was his calling to become this great leader, his own choices and inward struggle led him to that greatness. Each illustration of overcoming crippling fear and doubt carry over to the real world. Although we all have the possibility of becoming a great person, we can only do so when we make those decisions. And, it does not come easily. Tolkien’s battles show the pain and sacrifice one must make in order to achieve something. I may be only a student, but I know life is hard. But knowing the possibility of good coming out of the struggle, out of the pain, gives hope. Thanks to the battle for Middle Earth, I know that battles are a part of becoming who we are meant to be. Bring on the swords!
Best last line ever Elly, you can borrow the sword in my car any day you would like to
ReplyDeleteYeah,... i liked the last line too! I donno about the ''multitude'' of LOTR fans in a video game store tho... lol jk :P id lie if i said i dint buy the ''two towers'' for ps2 back in the days lol
ReplyDeleteTE was here! Good work.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm going to be the devil's literary adjudicator, I might as well admit that I'm NOT fond of J.R.R. Tolkien for many tiny reasons that will not likely stand muster with his legions of adoring readers. While Tolkien's use of myth and imagery is often compelling; while Tolkien exhibits an extraordinary grasp and fusion of detail and archetype, Tolkien simply does not do the writing thing--the craft of words--well. His prose is banal; his characters flat; his descriptions of scene dull; his artifice witless. Tolkien suffers what might be described as the malaise of the genre writer: compelling technologies--here, largely ancient, medieval, etc.--substitute for nuance, depth, perplexity, ambiguity even.
ReplyDeleteI confess that I thoroughly enjoyed the movies, but I have repeatedly read and re-read the first 500 or so pages of the trilogy and met the green monster of tedium. Perhaps I'm too old; too monstrously complicated to listen to the simple tunes of Tolkien.
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ReplyDeleteWell I must admit that I do find the first book quite tedious and long as well. It's very difficult to read and the characters, at times, can be quite distant from anything resembling a human being. Aragorn appears, at times, to have stepped out of a generic King Arthur PBS movie.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Tolkien was writing in a culture completely surrounded by war. Britain during WWII was a society entirely engulfed by a single struggle. In the face of such a monumentous war, I can imagine many people feeling less like an individual and more like a cog in the machine of war. Also, most of the characters create an identity for themselves only because of and after the war against Sauron. Theoden, another king, literally had spent the years before the war in a complacent seemingly drugged state. He woke up only in the face of battle. Towards the end, all the characters became more dynamic after the war, proving to be more interesting and three-dimensional. For someone living within a land influenced irrevocably by war, Tolkien's characters also display a deep change due to the war of the ring. They develop, in the end, into characters who are interesting and worth reading hundreds of pages.
Quidam, you're absolutely right-on about the material conditions of the war and struggle to survive: beseiged England was limping along before the intervention of the United States and, in the interim, facing the real, immediate, an horrifying prospect of an invasion. Your observation is worth considering even at our distance from the calamity of a world war.
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