WWII and LOTR..Compare/Contrast

Eh, Yes, I am really stuck on the idea of WWII and LOTR....I know this is a very big subject and has many opinions. I have an essay for one of my LA classes and i don't seem to know much about the relationships of the two, would anyone like to give me their say on the subject and matter? I am mostly interested in the Dissimilarities of the two.

[Thinlómien]

Hmmm... Tolkien himself hated allegories.
This is such a big topic that I think this might have already been discussed about. I don't know, though. Perhaps you should make a search.

(When I first read the title I thought WWII meant Werewolf II... Silly me... Too much werewolfing... )

[Rimbaud]

Any essay based on that comparison is going to be necessarily hampered by Tolkien's repeated refutation of any allegorical connection twixt the two. In fact, he would become quite heated when many insisted despite his denials that it was clearly an allegory - like any good work, however, it certainly holds applicability.

As Thinlómien says above, you're in the right place. This forum holds some of the better discussions on allegory / applicability in several fields from Catholicism to environmentalism to international politics as you suggest.

[tar-ancalime]

(When I first read the title I thought WWII meant Werewolf II... Silly me... Too much werewolfing... )

Me too!

As for dissimilarities between Lord of the Rings and the Second World War...well, one had atomic bombs, the other had magic rings. One had concentration camps, the other had talking trees. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

In all seriousness, though, you ought to read the introduction to the second edition of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien addresses the relationship of his story to actual events. The WWII parallel is often drawn, and it's undeniable that certain relationships are easy to find (many people have compared the Ring to the atomic bomb, for instance). However, with Tolkien's work you tread dangerous ground when you start to make specific comparisons like that one.

As Thinlomien mentioned, there are lots of threads on this site about meaning in Tolkien, various interpretations of his work, and some very healthy discussions of authorial intent and its usefulness (or not) in informing one's reading of a text. There may be some threads dealing specifically with WWII--try doing a search, but don't be surprised if you find that "WW" tends to stand for werewolf around here (at least recently).

EDIT: Cross-posted with Rimbaud, who managed to make the same point more clearly and with less verbosity.

[The Saucepan Man]

There are also a number of discussion threads concerning the relationship between LotR and Tolkien's own experiences in WWI, in case you are interested. Again, a Search should bring up the relevant threads.

[Boromir88]

I don't think Tolkien purposefully used allegories. Since he has come out and said he didn't like 'em, I think he even says there are no allegories?

But, I find it hard to say that there can be no connections to WWII (but WWI especially), because something that life changing has got to have an effect on you.

I think Saruman represents the typical view of WWI, down with nature, and all "yay industry!" It was a race to see who could build the best stuff fastest, and when industry really began to take shape. WWI was called "the war to end all wars" because it was so horrific that people couldn't imagine being able to cope with such a disastrous war. If you think about it, it's really the first war (though there are cases prior) where chemical and biological weapons were used. It was the first war where if you stuck your head out of the trench, someone may be able to kill you from a mile a way. And all the technology (machine gun, generic bombers...etc) caused mass destruction and casualties. I can't see Tolkien not being effected by it and probably subconsciously encorporating it into his books.

If lotr was like WWII, Gandalf or Aragorn would took the ring to fight against Sauron...

[davem]

On Allegory

Don't know if this is relevant to the discussion, but at the beginning of the essay Tolkien wrote on Smith of Wooton Major he writes:

This short tale is not an allegory, though it is capable of course of allegorical interpretations at certain points.

Flieger (the editor) comments:

In fact, as Tom Shippey has pointed out, Tolkien used allegory frequently & to good effect....What he seems to have disliked & repudiated was ''moral'' allegory, in which the second level of meaning is related to a moral or ethical or religious or political position.

I don't think LotR (or any of Tolkien's writings) can be interpreted as 'allegory' per se, but certainly 'it is capable of allegorical interpretations at certain points'.

For all his proclaimed preference for 'applicability' over allegory, he certainly took things from his experience of the primary world & presented them in a new form in his secondary world, but the point is, once they had entered the secondary world they became part of it, & no longer required a knowledge of the primary world inspiration to give them meaning.

LotR (or parts of it) can be read as primary world events 'seen through enchanted eyes' (Garth's phrase: 'Tolkien & the Great War). Whether The Fall of Gondolin (BoLT) is an 'allegory' of the Somme, with its 'iron dragons' destroying the Elven city = the tanks which had just appeared on the battlefield & the Balrogs with their whips of flame = the German infantry with their flammenwerfers (flamethrowers) depends first & foremost on whether the reader knows anything at all about WWI - if he doesn't then he won't come up with an allegorical interpretation, obviously.

I do wonder whether Tolkien wrote FoG to be read as an allegory, & even if he did, whether the older Tolkien still wanted it to be read in that way. Applicability is about the freedom of the reader to find whatever meaning they wish in the text - even, one assumes, an allegorical one.

I think Tolkien's objection to an allegorical interpretation wasn't so much that he was offended that a reader would do such a thing, but more that he didn't want to get lumbered with the responsibility for what the reader 'found' there.

[Anguirel]

Werewolf II was more akin to the Silmarillion if I recall...I got a rather Eol-like part, and was landed with a similarly cheerless fate early on...

[Gurthang]

This might be of some interest to you, BeinDk.

As far as my own thoughts go... I had just prepared a fairly long post, but it has been lost. Here's the main points, since I really don't have the time to type it all up again.

Similarities:
1. War in both
2. Rohan coming to Minas Tirith <=> D-Day Invasion
3. Sauron used a strategy similar to Germany's blitzkreig(sp)
4. Both wars had two fronts

Dissimilarities:
1. Mordor/Isengard was doing sandwiching(Isengard-->Rohan/Minas Tirith<--Mordor); Germany was sandwiched(US/UK-->Germany<--Russia)
2. Overwhelming odds in LotR not seen in WWII

I was also thinking of comparing the Ring, being the bane of Sauron/Mordor, as being the equivalent of fuel and oil to Germany. The Axis' lack of fuel towards the end of war was one reason they lost.

Sorry I can't expand anymore on any of that. Hope it helps.

[Bergil]

I (and Tolkien) dispise allegory. what's more, the end results of the wars were opposite. the corruption in gondor ended with the War Of The Ring, but World War 2 started the moral fall of the United States (pet theory, no offence meant to Americans). What's more, I think Lord Of The Rings was written before world war 2, but published after.

Welcome to the downs BienDK. did no-one else remember to say this?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bergil

I (and Tolkien) dispise allegory.

I can't speak for you, of course, but I have to say that Tolkien's attitude towards allegory was far more subtle. As I pointed out in my earlier post, Tolkien was not averse to using allegory when he felt it served his purpose - & he used it very effectively.

Leaf by Niggle is clearly an allegory, so is the story of the Tower in the Beowulf lecture & he even went so far as to provide an allegorical intrerpretation of part of his own story Smith of Wooton Major

[Bêthberry]

I think it might be helpful to consider Tolkien's explanation in the Foreword to the Second Edition why he rejected allegory. It was to avoid a too limited vision of what the 'text' meant. He wanted readers to consider his themes from a larger perspective than just that of contemporary history/politics. When writing a different story or tale, he could well have decided that an allegorical style would better suit that new tale. But note that in the Foreword Tolkien rejects both allegorical and topical interpretations.

It is also very instructive to consider his comments on how his story would have gone had the "real war" (WWII) "inspired or directed the development of the legend". It is a very sobering indictment of the Allies in WWII.

[radagastly]

I think Bethberry has it right. Tolkien rejected allegory for the sake of timelessness. He didn't want his personal experiences to influence peoples "applicability" of his work. While World War Two may have had a personal impact on Tolkien's telling (and creating) of this story, he did not want (it seems to me) that experience to impact the reception of the story as a story. He wanted (like most authors) for the readers to bring their own experience into the story and find what lessons or meaning they encountered or discovered. Isn't that any artist's hope?

Bergil:
I (and Tolkien) dispise allegory. what's more, the end results of the wars were opposite. the corruption in gondor ended with the War Of The Ring, but World War 2 started the moral fall of the United States (pet theory, no offence meant to Americans).

Being an American, I suppose I should challenge this, but I really can't. I can only say that this moral decay is shared across the rest of the western world. This is probably more a discussion for PM's or chat than here, though.

I must take Tolkien at his word, and say that the war of the Ring is not World War Two, despite the similarities the reader may bring to it.

[Boromir88]

I must take Tolkien at his word, and say that the war of the Ring is not World War Two, despite the similarities the reader may bring to it.

I agree and I think it goes along with what davem said earlier. Tolkien didn't intentionally write allegories in his stories, but you can find allegories in them. Simply, because I think it seems more general.

It's sort of like how you can always connect atleast one of the Seven Deadly sins to a bad guy, or one of the Seven Heavenly virtues to a good guy. You can connect things in LOTR and say, hey that sounds an awful like this. For instance, the example I used with Saruman destroying nature and acting like the industrial/scientific brain of his day. Wanting to know how things work, and how to improve.

Authors do intentionally use allegories. I know Henry James for one based his character Daisy in Turn of the Screw off his wife. Where I don't think Tolkien purposefully put references to political, social...etc issues at the time. But, this is what he grew up around.

[Bêthberry]

I forgot to thank Gurthang for providing that link to the earlier discussion of this topic. Good work! That thread contains HI's very useful quotation of Tolkien's letter, dated 31 July 1947, about this issue. Tolkien's letters are a wonderful read, full of shrewd perception, subtle analysis, and great wit. Even when I disagree with him!

I want to go back to Tolkien's hypothesis in the Forword, because I think it is a fascinating observation on the victors in WWII.

Originally Posted by Tolkien, Forword to the Second Edition

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it [ie, the real war] had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

Hmm. Hmmm.

[Bergil]

for example, the last chapter of the humerous book No Coins, Please by Gordon Korman proves a lot of my (not written here) arguments about the fall of the united states/the world and the danger of efifciancy, but Korman surely never thought about that well righting that. I was once told that the only books anyone had to read were Dr. Seuss's Are You My Mother and The Cat In The Hat, because the former was about the search for love and the latter about "order and chaos" vs. "freedom and enslavement". I don't agree, but it proves my point. I could (with reserch) find a way to beleivably cry "Allegory" about any of those 3 (and I almost believe some scholers do something like that). Besides, we all agree that Tolkien was smart enough to make up his own plot, this is just like the people who say Shakespeare didn't write his own plays.

[Rumil]

Two particular points which I noticed regarding LoTR and WWII were;-

Tolkien states that he was 'stuck' with the story on reaching Balin's tomb during the dark days of 1941. I imagine that the war must have understandably depressed and agitated JRRT, especially with his son serving abroad, and that he lost the appetite to continue his tale. If I remember, he started again later in 1942, where the situation had improved somewhat in that the USA and USSR were now our allies and Hitler looked to be stoppable. I wonder if it is possible (HoME readers?) to relate the events in the real war to the War of the Rings in respect of the time each occurred / was written? If the Nazis had won perhaps LoTR would have ended with the victory of Sauron and now be banned as anti-Fascist allegory!

I've always been reminded of the atomic bomb explosion when the Fall of Barad-Dur is described, and Tolkien, in the passage above, seems to me to imply a link between 'the ring' and 'the bomb'. Could anyone say when the Fall of Barad-Dur was written (or foreshadowed!), before or after Hiroshima?