The Structure of The Lord of the Rings

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Only time for a very brief post -- there is one 'truism' about LotR that I have seen batted around here for a while that I'm not sure holds much water. The 'party line' seems to be that in the Scouring of the Shire we see that evil will never suffer a final defeat and that the stain of this incident upon the Shire serves as a reminder of that fact.

Well, the problem I have with this theory is that in the Scouring of the Shire the very last of the (Third Age) evil is done away with in the form of Saruman's death. After this (relatively minor) battle, the story is quite clear that life in the Shire actually improves. The crops are better, thanks to Sam and Galadriel's gift, the borders are secured, thanks to Aragorn, and even the really disturbing memories are expunged, thanks to Frodo's decision to leave. I think that the presence of Saruman in the Shire when the hobbits return is an intrusion into their complaisance about the Shire (it can be touched by evil), but they very handily do away with that evil.

Now, I am not suggesting that there is a final defeat for evil – a personage of no less stature than Gandalf tells us the contrary on more than one occasion. Sauron will never die, just lose strength, people are still flawed, there is greed and weakness and desire, the line of Men is failing…but in the Shire, in the incident of the Scouring and its immediate aftermath, I just don’t see any of that. I find the whole incident an extraordinarily purgative/healing (even cathartic) process of regeneration: of the turn from good to better, through momentary worse.

So this leaves me, I realise, with having to contend what function or place the Scouring does hold in the overall structure. I shall have to turn to that in a later and longer post…

[davem]

Originally Posted by Fordim

but in the Shire, in the incident of the Scouring and its immediate aftermath, I just don’t see any of that. I find the whole incident an extraordinarily purgative/healing (even cathartic) process of regeneration: of the turn from good to better, through momentary worse.

Ok, but if we go back to the Prologue we find:

Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favorite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find.

'They avoid us with dismay & are becoming hard to find.' Maybe the Hobbits, after the War & the defeat of Saruman felt they had entered a Golden Age of living 'happily ever after', but Tolkien knew better, & wasn't going to let his readers get away with not facing the truth that what happens at the end of the story would be the case forever. He makes sure we'll read that its all over now, by putting it at the start of the book, & not tucking it away in one of the appendices.

The interesting thing is that the defeat of Saruman is only an apparent defeat - they destroy the wizard himself, but actually he brings about their permanent destruction - he's the serpent in their Garden - its what he symbolises with his ''mind of metal & wheels'' that seals their fate - Just as Sauron is not fianlly defeated but remains as a spirit of malice to corrupt men's hearts, so 'Saruman' remains as the spirit of the Machine. The Hobbits ultimate tragedy is foreboded in his appearance in the Shire. And while Frodo may believe Saruman has lost all power & that his words:

'Whoever strikes me shall be accursed. And if my blood stains the Shire, it shall wither & never be healed.'

the Shire does wither. Saruman's 'poison', the poison of 'Machine' thinking, control & coercion of nature rather life in harmony with it is the seed that grows from the spilling of Saruman's blood.

There is a darkness at the end of the story - its the 'shadow' cast by all that 'light & joy' perhaps. However wonderful it all may be, for Frodo its not any kind of Utopia, & Sam by the end longs for the Sea. The story ends with Sam coming home 'as day was ending once more'. After the Scouring there is a brief reward for labour spent, but its no more than that. It will all pass away - after all, as we know, Hobbits are 'becoming hard to find'.

[Aiwendil]

Fordim wrote:

The 'party line' seems to be that in the Scouring of the Shire we see that evil will never suffer a final defeat and that the stain of this incident upon the Shire serves as a reminder of that fact.

Well, the problem I have with this theory is that in the Scouring of the Shire the very last of the (Third Age) evil is done away with in the form of Saruman's death. After this (relatively minor) battle, the story is quite clear that life in the Shire actually improves.

I don't think that these two propositions contradict each other. Yes, the result of the Scouring of the Shire is good - that is, Saruman is defeated and life in the Shire improves. But the first point is not contingent upon the outcome of the scouring. The discovery of such evil in the Shire makes the point that even such a tremendous event as the final defeat of Sauron is not a final defeat of evil, and it makes that point regardless of whether Saruman is in the event defeated or not.

It's the same pattern that we see throughout the Legendarium. Morgoth is defeated, but Sauron survives. Sauron is defeated twice, but he returns both times. He is defeated a third time, this time utterly, but Saruman survives. Saruman is defeated - but based on this pattern we would be fools to expect that no evil will ever return. As indeed The New Shadow shows.

Still, I think you have a good point. Too often is it said that LotR is a tragedy, or that despite the defeat of Sauron it has a sad ending (and the same mistake is made with the Silmarillion). But surely it does have a happy ending, if not a simple one. The great evil is defeated - as indeed is the lesser evil of Saruman. We are reminded that this does not mean that all evil has been defeated; but that hardly makes the ending tragic. Or, to say it in allegory, if someone suddenly gave me 999,999 dollars I would not say "What a stroke of bad luck! I didn't get a million."

[Boromir88]

I think we have all agreed that Tolkien's message is to show that evil will never be fully defeated. But, as Aiwendil points out, the story of LOTR, is not a tragedy, it does have a good ending. The "evil" in the story is defeated, but evil in general is not defeated. Even Sam states:

"I shant call i the end, till we've cleared up the mess," said Sam gloomily. "And that'll take a lot of time and work."

I think this is Tolkien showing us life after a war. The destruction of the ring wasn't the end of the "War." The Battle of Bywater was, but even after the war you have the effects of war. And indeed it will take a lot of time and work, and maybe will never look as it did before. With that being said, I don't classify this as a tragedy.

Throughout the story we still get the reoccuring theme that evil will never be gone. After the Battle of Helm's Deep is won, there is still work that needs to be done. After the Siege of Minas Tirith there still work that needs to be done. Even after the destruction of the Ring, work needs to be done. And even after the end of Saruman. It's like a cycle, time and time again we see evil defeated, there is always more that needs to be defeated.

After reading LOTR I get the feeling that I think a lot of people get after war. It's great, we were victorious, but it won't last forever. But that to me doesn't classify it as a tragedy, it classifies it as the fact of life. A tragedy is a noble hero (or heroes) defeated by overwhelming odds beyond their control. The heroes in this story were not defeated, they just didn't defeat evil.

A true classification of tragedy is what we see at the end of FOTR (well actually beginning of TTT) the death of Boromir. A noble hero that was overpowered by odds he couldn't control.

[Mister Underhill]

Following on the heels of davem, Aiwendil, and Boromir88, I don't need to belabor the point. The Scouring and its aftermath, far from being an anti-climactic, long-winded ending or a mere tieing up of loose strings, serves an important structural and thematic purpose -- arguably as important as the destruction of the Ring itself. Here we have the qualifiers of victory: evil, so lately defeated, rising up again where it is least expected; the warrior who cannot heal; the stained homeland -- stained not only by the depredations of an enemy, but by the shame of collaborators and cowards; the bitter loss of dear friends.

‘This is worse than Mordor!’ said Sam. ‘Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined.’

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Mr. Underhill, I await your erudition in regard to Milieu or not.

I'm not sure what you mean, lmp. I continue to be puzzled by the concept of a story that is principally driven by milieu and am hard pressed to think of anything even approaching an example outside the works of Michener. In any case, I can't see much value in artificially separating such intertwined elements as character, plot, concept, and milieu, and then deeming one or the other as ascendant over the others. Sorry, but I think Card is all wet on this one.

[mark12_30]

So this leaves me, I realise, with having to contend what function or place the Scouring does hold in the overall structure.

Sam & his helpers (including, indirectly, Galadriel) create a hobbitish earthly paradise with an air of elvishness wafting around the tree branches. The best ale in decades is flowing freely, young hobbits are bathing in strawberries and cream, and prosperity is **everywhere** you look...

Except in the heart of Frodo Baggins. There it has no hold. Frodo is too broken to enjoy it, and must leave Middle-Earth. That he leaves in the midst of this astounding bounty makes Frodo's departure all the more wrenching.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Gandalf-was said to not really to be represented by a Maia but is most like Manwe, so he succeeds in his "task."

I remember Child of the Seventh Age saying that Gandalf was (to some degree) associated with Nienna-- the one who weeps so copiously. Perhaps this helps explain Gandalf's compassion-- for instance, towards Smeagol.

Being compassion-oriented towards the smaller folk, he therefore cares about the peoples of Middle-Earth as a whole. And that's a better platform for his task than (for instance) greed.

[Mithalwen]

One of the things that I like most about the Lord of the Rings is that there are few if any simplistic happy endings. Although Tolikien perhaps kills off an unrealistically small number of his major protagonists given the vast slaughter of the War of the RIng, the survivors generally have to pay a price. It is a good versus evil struggle but the battles are not definitive throughout the history of Middle Earth. The war of the ring is no more final than the war of wrath or the last alliance. Each merely hold back the tide for a while. The seeds of evil sown by Melkor and Morgoth cannot be eradicated rather like original sin in the Judeo-Christian view of our own world. Only in the Last Battle when the world is remade can all its ills be put right. However, the Hobbits have to live in the world as it exists at their point of history and so , while it is fitting that the Shire is touched by the evil that threatened all of Middle Earth albeit in the form the minion Saruman rather than Sauron, it is also fitting that the damage is swiftly repaired and the hobbits have a spell of increased peace and prosperity as a reward for the labours of Frodo and Co. I think there is a lot of symbolism in the "only Mallorn west of the mountains and East of the Sea". Only Frodo, Sam and Bilbo will go to the undying lands but an echo of that land lives in the Shire.

Someone pointed out elsewhere on the forum that the White Tree of Gondor and the Shire's Mallorn are echoes of the Two Trees of Valinor and on reflection it "tidies up" the whole history of middle earth. The stories start (near enough) with the Two Trees of Valinor and we leave Gondor with the white tree flourishing as Arwen sings a song of Valinor and we leave the Shire with the mallorn flourishing and Elves singing the paean to Elbereth of the pilgrims. But this gives progression aswell as completion for having started with "gods and angels" in realms of bliss we end in mortal lands that are rapidly losing their "fairytale/supernatural" elements and are closer to the borders of our own history.

[littlemanpoet]

I continue to be puzzled by the concept of a story that is principally driven by milieu...

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that plot and character and idea can drive a story, but setting can't.....very well. Your verb, drive, however, may be pointing up a misconception. Perhaps an analogy may help: the structure of an automobile is that which houses the engine, which drives it. In the same sense, the structure of a story could be that which houses the engine that drives the story. Of course, being an analogy, it's sure to have its limits, but it helps (I hope) to get the idea across. The Milieu which is Middle Earth is the "house" of the plot, characters, and ideas. But of course a story is far more fluid than a car, and that's where the analogy breaks down. The characters and plot move through the setting, interacting with different aspects of it. I admit to thinking out loud here, but it's the best I can do here. At any rate, this is as least part of the sense in which the Milieu of LotR is that upon which plot, character, and idea, hang. By no means do I intend to imply that milieu overshadows plot and character in LotR! They interrelate, of course. Oh well, enough blather about this.

[Bêthberry]

I'm coming in late with a reply here, but I have a very interesting observation about Anglo-Saxon culture which I think might shed some light on this milieu/setting issue.

We seem to recognise fairly clearly the features, of, say, Beowulf which inspired Tolkien--the heroic ideal, the rings and fealty, the camaraderie of the mead hall, the wonderfully robust lines of alliterative verse. We tend not to talk about any influences from OE religious verse, or the riddles, or prose, but those exist also. The poem The Dream of the Rood, for instance, is written in the voice of the cross on which Christ was crucified, a talking tree, if you will. (The Cross, the Rood, that is, refers to itself as a tree.) Then there is the theme of exile and the sea. There are other aspects of Old English literature and Anglo-Saxon culture which also appealed to Tolkien besides the heroic ideal.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to copy a very interesting comment which Peter Ackroyd makes in his book Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. I won't quote passages from OE texts, but for the time being ask us to consider this idea.

We may identify here a sense of belonging which has more to do with location and with territory, therefore, than with any atavistic native impulses. There has been much speculation on the subject of location theory, in which the imperative of place is more significant than any linguistic or racial concerns. In The Spirit of the People: An Analysis of the English Mind, published in 1912, Ford Maddox Ford suggested that "it is absurd to use the almost obsolescent word 'race'." He noted in particular the descent of the English "from Romans, from Britons, from Anglo-Saxons, from Poitevins, from Scotch..." which is perhaps the best antidote to the nonsensical belief in some 'pure' Anglo-Saxon people. In its place he invoked the spirit of territory with his belief that "It is not--the whole of Anglo-Saxondom--a matter of race but one, quite simply, of place -- of place and of spirit, the spirit being born of the environment." In Ford Maddox Ford's account that tradition is in some sense transmitted or communicated by the territory. It is a theory which will also elucidate certain arguments within this book.

I would suggest it is this "imperative of place" which Tolkien draws upon from his Anglo-Saxon learning. It has much to do with the fullness of detail and specificity of site in LotR. And more: I think it is glorying in this sense of territory which holds all the disparate elements of the story together, the double stranded plot, the rambling, picaresque plotting, the symbolic unity of the Ring and the Shire, the paralleling of so much. Note that I am not saying the Scouring of the Shire is a mistake because we cannot predict it from the earlier anticipations of plot. I am saying that Tolkien's profound sense of the loss of the rural landscape to the machine is part of his lament for a value of this earlier tradition.

The runes from "The Dream of the Rood" are carved on the Ruthwell Cross, a stone cross dated to the late seventh centure, which creates, in Ackroyd's words, "a sacred topography of the nation." I felt some of this even this even late in the seventh age when I toured Great Britain last summer. At least, I felt it in England, but not in Glasgow. The sense of historical place I experience in North America is very different: In one city, the historical site of a great find of oil, which brought wealth and prosperity beyond imagining to the province, was in the way of a large, multi-lane highway which would connect the province. What was done? The oil derrick and the tourist site were moved a mile away, to a spot which never produced oil and never will. (Shades of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) So much for a tangible, spiritual sense of location. It's rather like saying grape juice will do instead of wine. (Lest I raise any hackles with that statement, let me say my family's religious inheritance is Protestant.)

I cannot imagine this ever happening 'in Middle-earth'. The sense of place is palpable in LotR, in the sanctuaries of the Bombadil household, Rivendell, Lothlorien, in the experience of forest in the Old Forest and Fangorn, in the way Rohan is connected with wide open prairie and plains, or Minas Tirith with the walled city. Every place is a measure of continuity and identity. And even the landscapes of darkness have discriminating topologies which in the very absence of this continuity ironically reconfirms it. Place and space reflect the measure of being connected to Arda. This furnishes not just the characters but readers also with "a communal memory of place".

This might not 'drive' the story, but to me it holds it together like the crisscrossing stone walls which roll up and down over the English countryside.

[davem]

|Bethberry's mention of The Dream of the Rood reminded me of the medieval legend that the wood from which the cross was made was cut from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil in Eden. The tree which lead to Man's fall is the same one on which it's salvation was achieved, so that Christ becomes the 'fruit' hanging from that tree - a fruit that brings life rather than death.

So we have Trees & tree- symbolism running through the Legendarium - which begins with the Two Trees of Valinor & ends with the Two Trees of Middle earth - the White Tree in Gondor & the Mallorn in the Shire. Middle earth becomes an 'echo' of the Blessed realm, & Heaven has come down to earth. It is a kind of 'incarnation'. The world is made 'divine' in a small way because the divine has entered into the world. As Above, so Below. As Then, so Now.

So with all the repetitions of name - 'Minas Tirith' is a name which echoes down out of the First Age - names of people echo down in the same way. Some individuals live on through each age - Elrond, Galadriel, Glorfindel, Sauron & prvide a living link to the past. Connections through time - constant references to heroes of the past, & their stories abound to strengthen this meaning, this link, that people have with the past.

The past is alive in the present, rather than being simply 'memory' - & that's principally because of the Elves (& to an extent to the Ents). When they have passed into the West, or into the Land, that link will be gone, & there will be only memory - which is 'not what the heart desires'. And perhaps that's it - what we have now is not what our hearts desire. They desire a living connection with the past, so that it is not truly 'past'. They desire 'Elves'. Which, I think, is FMF's point. Its also, perhaps, the reason of our dislike of change - if it involves the loss of the old. Perhaps it also explains the desire for destruction that some individuals have. To break free of the past & begin anew is also part of what we desire. We have inherited (within the mythology, at least) an Elvish 'strain'. The Elvish side of us wants that living link, wants to preserve our connection with what we were & where we came from. The 'Mannish' side wants to move forward & explore, & has to break those links. We are pulled in both directions - towards past & future. LotR is a book about endings & loss of what was, but its also one that looks forward to a new future. It is a kind of frozen moment, an eternal 'present' - which perhaps explains why we can continually go back to it - it will never become 'stale', because it's always right at the point we are at as individuals - caught between past & present.

[Lalwendë]

The sense of place is palpable in LotR

I too have to defend the importance of setting in LotR. Without it, the book may not have gripped me in quite the same way. Each place travelled through or visited is very real due in no small part to the description of the setting. I have been to Rivendell, and I have been not only to The Shire, but right into a hobbit hole, and this was done by reading about them. This world is, to put it simply, vivid.

Each place emphasises the characteristics of those who live in those places. Think of how Lothlorien is constructed of tall and beautiful trees, echoing the characteristics of those who reside there, or how The Shire is simple, comfortable and homely, rather like the Hobbits themselves. This sense of place also tells us the history of the peoples of Arda. There are ancient barrows, which tell us that a great people once lived near the Downs, and we have Moria, to tell us of how strong and powerful the Dwarves once were. Yes, it may indeed not drive the story, but the sense of place not only takes us right into the picture of Arda that Tolkien had, but it also tells us what characteristics its people possess, and it tells us their history, and it adds that all important depth which we value so much. Even after the 'race' of men who inhabited the Barrow-Downs have long since departed, we still know they existed because of what they left behind, and we only know that because Tolkien shows us what they left behind.

This is true of our own landscapes. The places where we live or where we grow up really can define our characters. I grew up in a village where people naturally knew each others' business which has made me nosey; those who grow up amongst people of many other cultures often become very open to other ideas. Look at Aragorn, raised in Rivendell, and hence much more amenable to Elven ways than most Men.

This imperative of place is not unique to Tolkien. Two other writers who appreciated the importance of place were Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. In Wuthering Heights, we see the contrast between the more elemental and much older house of the title with the genteel elegance of the house belonging to the more socially acceptable Linton family. If the situations were reversed and the Lintons lived at the Heights then the story would not be the same. In Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native the nature of Egdon Heath almost becomes a character in the novel itself; it is brooding and temperamental, it hides people, it even kills.

The essence of place, the resonance it brings for us, is a deep seated sensation, one which is being hurt in this modern world of globalisation and the fragmentation of community. No longer do we linger in the places where our families have lived time immemorial, and we instead have 'progress'. Perhaps the loss of features of our landscape, the demolition of old buildings, cutting down of familiar trees, the building of roads through what to others might look to be ordinary fields, perhaps these losses have resonance to us because we are all clinging to any sign of the past, in a world which is always threatening to take us along with it whether we like it or not. I think Tolkien felt this too, the need to feel 'rooted' in a place, to have a 'connection' to somewhere. One of the great sorrows is that while our world is changing so fast about us, it is in a book that we find a place which is always familiar to us, and it is to a book that we have to go to find that comfort of place which we all seek.

I don't think its so surprising that there is such an interest in genealogy these days as many of us seek to find our roots in something; it is interesting that despite where we eventually end up on the planet, we always carry our names with us, words that give away our history; this too is echoed in Arda. I also think that one reason behind interests in ancient history is that we seek to find meaning within our landscape, to know what might have happened there in the past, and to know who lived there and what they might have shared with us. It is a natural need, at least for many of us, and this need is echoed by Tolkien's work.

[littlemanpoet]

One of the great sorrows is that while our world is changing so fast about us, it is in a book that we find a place which is always familiar to us, and it is to a book that we have to go to find that comfort of place which we all seek.

Lalwendë, this is the only thing you said that I disagree with. Tolkien addressed this in On Fairy Stories, in his section on Escape, Recovery, and Consolation. A good fairy story helps us to "recover a clear view", as Tolkien put it, so that we see trees and clouds and even our neighborhood, with fresh eyes. Come to think of it, it's not only fairy stories that achieve this. Anyway, LotR sends us back into our own world with a fresh appreciation and hunger for those things the story revealed to us as beautiful and worthwhile. And we go and look for them in our own world. I find myself, for example, with an unstoppable hunger to go north, where there are fewer people and more trees and cleaner air. And so I go. I think that it's a good thing that I mourn the loss of a small forest that just got leveled to make room for a parking lot near my home. So rather than this being a sorrow, I consider it a gift that I have these books in my life to help me recover a clear view.

[Lalwendë]

LotR sends us back into our own world with a fresh appreciation and hunger for those things the story revealed to us as beautiful and worthwhile

lmp - I do agree with you there. Thinking back to when I first read LotR one of the profoundest effects on me was that I viewed the world around me with new eyes. I don't think I was alone as many environmentalists and outdoors enthusiasts seem to have derived their interest from reading LotR. I did already have a keen interest in history before reading LotR but I also gained a deeper interest in archaeology and ancient history - and a thirst to know about how the past affected us, and still affects us.

What I mean when I say we have to resort to literature to find the comfort of place is that LotR is familiar. It is a book and hence the setting does not alter (unless it is affected by new input to our own imaginations from visiting new places), unlike the world about us which is ever changing and being lost.

[littlemanpoet]

Lalwendë, thanks for your clarification. It is very much in the spirit of Tolkien ... which comes as no surprise, eh? The older I get, the more I understand - on a feeling level - this aspect of Tolkien's themes. Fighting the long defeat, as it were.

[Lalwendë]

Thinking again about the essential aspects of LotR and what makes it so successful, there is a real paradox within the book. It is at once utterly simple and outrageously complex.

It is simple because at the heart of the narrative, it is a tale of good against evil, and the plot is nothing more than the tale of one person taking a journey at the end of which he hopes to destroy evil. Everything else ultimately centres upon and supports this one aim. It is the core of the tale, the focus of the narrative, despite everything else, and it is an ancient tale, seen in many other works. In some ways it reminds me of The Canterbury Tales, which is also centred upon the journey of several pilgrims, using this as the basis on which to build a whole series of other stories. It also reminds me of Huckleberry Finn, another seemingly simple tale of an adventure, a journey, onto which is layered meaning.

But LotR is also incredibly complex. We are taken not just along this journey, but into the myriad aspects of the world it takes place in. This one journey is supported by many other journeys and tales. It is enriched by the place it happens in, a place of history, cultural differences, and natural wonders. It has languages and maps. There is philosophy and poetry and art. And death, disaster, darkness. There are people who are noble, those who are mad, those we struggle to comprehend. There is a character for everyone to identify with in this world, a mirror for all of us. It is also the output of a lifetime's work, and into it are poured all the imaginings, and all the intellect, of one life.

Through all of this complexity we move inexorably onward towards the end of that one simple story. What holds this whole immense body of words together, even at the points where it all threatens to shatter into many incomprehensible pieces, is that Tolkien never at any point loses sight of that one central tale. Everything is intricately linked to it and ultimately contributes to it, and we cannot forget that.

The journey down the River Anduin symbolises this paradox. Here we have the remains of the Fellowship doing nothing more, on the surface, than travelling towards their ultimate destination. Yet on this journey we have shadows of the past in the shape of Gollum, we have portents of the future with the Orc attack, we see the myriad of other stories going on, all in microcosm, as we read of Boromir's ideals, Aragorn's worries, regret and hope, so many things.

Tolkien took an utterly basic and fundamental theme and then layered many other tales, histories and characters upon it to create something vast and expansive yet at its heart really quite simple. I think that we respond on a deep level to the fundamental tale, and then we take on the rest as we travel through the book, our sense of wonder growing as we go. The combination of a classic narrative theme with real depth is ultimately what holds LotR together.