Research paper on Tolkien

[The Telcontarion]

I learned alot about Tolkien doing this paper, and I assumed so would any diehard fan, so I have posted it. My first post here, hope you like it.

World War One And it’s Influences on Tolkien’s Writing of Middle-Earth: The Hallmark of it’s Applicability.

The Lord of The Rings has sold 50 million copies in numerous languages, has had creative influence over popular films such as star wars and single handedly spawning the genre of fantasy at the same time. Why? From the Vietnam War to the present day people can find something in Tolkien's writings of Middle-earth that they believe defines the issues they are confronted with, this is because Tolkien's experiences gave truth to his writings “Leading to universals that are revealed yet at the same time allowing the work to be redefined, and to a large extent re-created by each reader” (applicability and truth). Anti-war activists during Vietnam saw a clear link between the threat of the one ring and the scourge of nuclear weapons; both should be destroyed, environmentalists speak of the Ents, and pot smokers, with the Hobbits and their frequent time outs for “pipe weed,” felt they knew exactly what Tolkien was driving at (kicking the Hobbit).

How could so many people glean such seemingly different meanings from a single body of work? There are many opinions as to the intent of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien in his writings on middle-earth; whether it is a religious (mainly Christian catholic) text, allegory, or has applicability. The one that most Tolkien scholars agree on and the one I believe as fact, which Tolkien himself had said was his intent, was that of applicability. What is more illusive is what gives his work such a subjectively unique quality. As with any writer, life experiences play a very important role in the creation of any story and Tolkien was no exception. Obviously his life long interest in language and history played a major role in the creation of middle-earth, but it is his experiences as a second Lt. in world war one that gave Tolkien's writings the ring of truth; the hallmark of it’s applicability.

In World War One Tolkien experienced first hand the harsh realities of war: ecological destruction, social disruption and death.

In all his writings of Middle-earth Tolkien had a clear message about living in harmony with, displaying his love for, nature. The villains were always characterized as being the antithesis to nature and/or anything natural: the orcs were elves made into a mockery of elves, trolls were made to represent a mockery of the Ents. In World War One Tolkien witnessed the destruction of, pollution of, the ravaging of, the literally littering of with dead bodies, the land: the digging of trenches and the bombings. For Tolkien who has been characterized as a pastoralist (The Great War and Tolkien), this must have been an especially horrific thing to witness, therefore, “The lord of the rings can be read as his response to modernity, to the world of catastrophic wars, terrible weapons, and industrialization that Tolkien felt was destroying his beloved rural, Edwardian England (represented in his books by the Hobbits’ peaceful, if parochial, homeland of “the Shire”). And if Tolkien’s One Ring represents technology, or humanity’s hubristic capacity to tamper with nature, then the message is: Destroy it forever” (Kicking the Hobbit).

The level of social disruption that took place in English society during World War One must have been significant. Disrupting whole generations of families; this was certainly true for the United States of America during World War Two, as women had to take over the traditional roles of men both at home and at the work place. Consider then the impact this had, which is obvious, on the writings of Tolkien. Throughout his work is a sense of the destruction of families, the mother being left with children in situations that accentuate the fact of the missing paternal figure. In the Silmarillion the story of Turin Turambar is a good example of this. After the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (a war) Morwen had stayed in Dorlomin because she was with child and her son Turin was only eight, but Easterlings now ruled the land and they were taking the possessions of the remnant of her people and enslaving their children, and she feared that they would take her son Turin from her, but this was largely due to the lack of men after the war because when the quote speaks about her being now poor and without aid it is clear that it is talking about the absence of her now deceased husband, who is no longer there to defend his family and saying that she was poor was literal, Hurin her husband was lord of Dorlomin. This situation was mirrored in Turin’s cousin Tuor’s fate, as without his father Huor brother of Hurin, his mother Rian, committed suicide and Tuor who had to be fostered by the elves, was later captured and enslaved. This relates closely to the realities of fostered children of any age. In the Lord of the Rings Aragorn himself was a foster son of Elrond’s after an orc arrow pierced his fathers eye rubbing him of a father figure. Frodo too was taken in by Bilbo.

Death. The single most overwhelming theme in Tolkien’s work makes it largely a mortality tale. What makes one more aware of one’s own mortality than war? As any soldier could tell you, from World War One, World War Two, Vietnam, to what is happening today in Iraq with at least one United States soldier dieing everyday, the fact that you could be laughing with a friend one minute and in the second after he flashes his teeth his head explodes from a sniper bullet, is a very sobering reality; it could have easily been your head. In the Silmarillion death is like to the reader what water most be like to a fish; it surrounds everything, it’s in everything, it is everything. Death impacted Tolkien in a huge way, “It seems now largely forgotten that to be caught by youth in 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead” (introduction the Lord of the Rings-second edition). War took away from Tolkien any pretensions he might have had about death, it brought home the horrific and the tragic; in war there really are no winners, Anna Mathie says it best, “Tolkien looks at the loss and the silence of death, but remains steadfast” (Tolkien and the gift). Unlike most modern day novels or movies where regardless of the situation the hero wins and almost always survive, Tolkien’s stories especially the Silmarillion is no fairytale with a happy ending. Almost all the major characters in the text save a few die, and die horrific and graphic deaths; Tolkien was not at all subtle about depicting battle and death scenes of even major characters:

“At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him; and he fought with Gothmog until another balrog came behind him and cast a thong of fire about him. Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a single white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the high king of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood”(Silmarillion 193-94).

There are several moments in the book such as this. But what this does for Tolkien’s books as stated earlier is that it gives it a character, an unmistaking note of truth that no book had before and only try to duplicate since.

More evidence shows that even scenes in his books are related to experiences he had in World War One:

“Tolkien’s war has the very quality of the war my generation knew. It is all there: the endless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of the front when ‘everything is now ready’, the flying civilians, the lively, vivid friendships, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and such heaven-sent windfalls as a cache of tobacco ‘salvaged’ from a ruin” (Lewis C.S.).

Characters as well, Tolkien said Sam Gamgee is a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen he knew in World War One (Carpenter, Humphrey).

This mixture of fantasy and realism which he is said to do (Wendorf A. Thomas) is what gives Tolkien’s works its force. So to answer the original question of why, that I posed at the beginning of this paper, now that the proofs are given, the applicability inherent in his works is directly related to his World War One experiences which gave him a unique insight into the human condition and gave it a subjective quality that I believe not even the author intended to have. Tolkien once said the way in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience is a complex thing, and any attempt to characterize the process are at best guesses from inadequate and ambiguous evidence (Lord of the Ring). So even to Tolkien the truths of his subconscious understanding has it’s own applicability.

Works Cited

Brennan, Janet. The Great War and Tolkiens Memory: an examination of World War One themes in the Lord of the Rings.

Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton, 1977.

Cooper, Susan. There and Back Again: Tolkien Reconsidered. Horn Book, inc., 2002.

Lewis, C.S. Thedethronement of power. A Readers Companion of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. New York: Quality paperback Books, 1995.

Mathie, Ann. Tolkien and the gift of Mortality.

Mooney, Chris. Kicking the Hobbit. The American Prospect, inc., 2001.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings, second edition. Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Upstone, Sara. Applicability and truth in the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion: readers, fantasy, and canonicity. (Critical essay)

Wendorf A., Thomas. Greene, Tolkien, And The Mysterious Relations of Realism And Fantasy. Marquette University Press, 2002.

[Landroval]

Nice article, congrats!
I would only have problems with your statement that "single handedly spawning the genre of fantasy at the same time." The fantasy genre goes way back in time, starting from the epic of Gilgamesh, Odissey, Boewulf (strongly influenced Tolkien), King Arthur, Don Quixote, Gulliver's travel, Connan the barbarian, Wizard of Oz, Alice's adventures in Wonderland... all these works predate Tolkien's by years or thousands of years. But I would agree that Tolkien had a tremendous influence on all areas of culture in the last century.

[Curubethion]

You could say that he single-handedly spawned modern fantasy. That's a fact, for sure. Without him, there may have been no Salvatore, Martin, or Jordan. Well, okay, they still would have existed, but they never would have written fantasy.

[The Telcontarion]

Hey, thanks guys for all the comments.

Curubethion, your right. Saying he influenced the genre of modern phantasy would be more accurate.

[Nautipus]

I agree, the only thing (besides a few minor spelling errors) that I found wrong with this was the line cited above. Overall a well done essay.

[The Telcontarion]

Spelling, my achilles heel I am afraid.

What line cited exactly, the last one, what was wrong.

thanks for the comments.

[Gordis]

Telcontarion, it is a very good article, but I believe you have a bit misinterpreted the theme of Death.

Tolkien writes in L# 186:

I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly 'a setting' for characters to show themselves. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete. But if you have now read Vol. III and the story of Aragorn, you will have perceived that.

Also here in L#203:

That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is. And since I have not made the struggle wholly unequivocal: sloth and stupidity among hobbits, pride and [illegible] among Elves, grudge and greed in Dwarf-hearts, and folly and wickedness among the 'Kings of Men', and treachery and power-lust even among the 'Wizards', there is I suppose applicability in my story to present times. But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man!

So the main issue is not that there are so many deaths in the Silm., but Death compared to Immortality: Men's desire for Immortality - the base of such stories as Aragorn and Arwen, Downfall of Numenor, nazgul theme...and Elven desire to preserve all things unchanging: Rings theme.

That is how I see it, at least. I hope it helps.

[Curubethion]

Originally Posted by The Telcontarion

Spelling, my achilles heel I am afraid.

What line cited exactly, the last one, what was wrong.

thanks for the comments.

I think he meant the one about single-handedly spawning fantasy.

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Telcontarion, it is a very good article, but I believe you have a bit misinterpreted the theme of Death.

Tolkien writes in L# 186:
Quote:
I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly 'a setting' for characters to show themselves. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete. But if you have now read Vol. III and the story of Aragorn, you will have perceived that.

Also here in L#203:
Quote:
That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is. And since I have not made the struggle wholly unequivocal: sloth and stupidity among hobbits, pride and [illegible] among Elves, grudge and greed in Dwarf-hearts, and folly and wickedness among the 'Kings of Men', and treachery and power-lust even among the 'Wizards', there is I suppose applicability in my story to present times. But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man!

So the main issue is not that there are so many deaths in the Silm., but Death compared to Immortality: Men's desire for Immortality - the base of such stories as Aragorn and Arwen, Downfall of Numenor, nazgul theme...and Elven desire to preserve all things unchanging: Rings theme.

That is how I see it, at least. I hope it helps.

Hmmmm....

I don't see how my statements about death differ from the info you presented. My article did not cover the human complex concerning death and the resulting universal desire to live for ever ("the numinore complex?") specifically but I do believe you could confer those emotions from what I have said; especially after being familiar with the work of Tolkien. Its not hard to see how someone facing death continually in war could become obsessed with living forever.

[Gordis]

I think I was wrong in saying that you "misinterpreted" the theme of Death.

No, everything you said about Death was OK, but I think you should have said more. You narrowed the meaning referring only to many deaths described in the Silm, and leaving out the themes that Tolkien himself believed to be the most important: desire for immortality and desire for things unchanged.

Also I think that your article would have been better if it contained references to Letters where Tolkien himself explained his views.

Here are my two cents anyway.

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by Gordis

I think I was wrong in saying that you "misinterpreted" the theme of Death.

No, everything you said about Death was OK, but I think you should have said more. You narrowed the meaning referring only to many deaths described in the Silm, and leaving out the themes that Tolkien himself believed to be the most important: desire for immortality and desire for things unchanged.

Also I think that your article would have been better if it contained references to Letters where Tolkien himself explained his views.

Here are my two cents anyway.

I agree I should have had more quotes by Tolkien - though not necessary - and I could have said more about Tolkien's true meaning behind death in his writings(which you stated), that too however was not necessary for the purposes of the article.

The article was an argument for the influences of world war one on the writings of Tolkien, not an exploration on the meaning of tolkien's writings. So any "exploration" I did was solely to prove this point. I think this was achieved more than adequately.

Also given the nature of the article, I could only use so much reference from Tolkien himself before it became not credible. I had to use academic articles about the issue to give contemporary credibility to my arguements. So the focus was not so much what he had to say (though integral it was) but what other academics had to say also.