LotR - an allegory? No, not WW2 this time, I promise... ;)

[Thinlómien]

I was talking about the wisdom of LotR with my sister yesterday, and I started to think of something. One of the big themes of LotR is undoubtedly the diminishing of the old world - the departure of the Elves, the eventual fading of the Hobbits and the Dwarves and so on - and the beginning of the era of Men. All the mystery, magic and old beauty is gone, and Men are left to govern the world and make their own decisions.

Now, this sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? It sounds like the relatively recent development of our world, or the beginning of our modern times. People know more, solve many unsolved mysteries and change the world around them... and if Tolkien, when he was writing LotR, looked back he could still see, in his childhood or in the times of his parents or grandparents, a different world, a world where science had not solved the mysteries of the world or humans did not dominate earth the way they now do.

I cannot help thinking this was reflected in the Lord of the Rings. It is another question whether the allegory was deliberate - as has been said dozens of times, Tolkien hated allegories and denied LotR being one - or whether something Tolkien (a conservative person with a dislike of modern technology, mind you) subconsciously wove this theme to his book.

Any thoughts?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Now, this sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? It sounds like the relatively recent development of our world, or the beginning of our modern times. People know more, solve many unsolved mysteries and change the world around them... and if Tolkien, when he was writing LotR, looked back he could still see, in his childhood or in the times of his parents or grandparents, a different world, a world where science had not solved the mysteries of the world or humans did not dominate earth the way they now do.

I cannot help thinking this was reflected in the Lord of the Rings. It is another question whether the allegory was deliberate - as has been said dozens of times, Tolkien hated allegories and denied LotR being one - or whether something Tolkien (a conservative person with a dislike of modern technology, mind you) subconsciously wove this theme to his book.

I believe it was a sort of self-reflection, like you say, and I think that is the general feeling of the modernising world. If you read On Fairy-Stories, he again says something very similar there plainly - I will quote:

...the great voyages had begun to make the world seem too narrow to hold both men and elves; when the magic land of Hy Breasail in the West had become the mere Brazils, the land of red-dye-wood...

That more or less catches the point. With the growing knowledge of the world, there remained less and less to place the fantasy in, here in the "Primary world". (Tolkien is also saying something similar in his essay about translating Béowulf: by the time of Béowulf, the world of the Men ended by the wooden wall enclosing the village, and further on, the world was unknown and untamed. Not as much anymore.)

However, I am not sure whether Tolkien himself was really as much concerned by this. Even the thing I quote above was something he said in the middle of the polemic on how Elves need not to be small (and thus hide better even in the known world). The Elves do not rely on our knowledge of the world, or on the size of the "Primary World". Actually, Tolkien even said - "to make seem too narrow"! - now doesn't that in fact say that the world seems too narrow for Elves and Men, but in fact, it isn't still?

However I am sure this is just a very general feeling people have, and Tolkien had it as well, I am sure - to think that the world nowadays is losing some of its "magic" (that is not a feeling only a modern man gets when the world gets "modernised", though: I believe it is a feeling every man and woman gets when they are growing up. Because for a child, even a small wood next to their house is sufficient to contain many Elves and Orcs and Ents). But I am not sure that it would have frustrated the Prof to that point to make LotR an "allegory" of that. Maybe it surfaced unconsciously.

In either case, the narration of the Elves leaving was a way to make the Middle-Earth connected to our current world: this is the way it used to be, a long time ago, and now we are in the present, in the Age of Men. There are no Elves: for all of them have left (only a few remained in the woods, somebody lucky might meet them). (And, I cannot resist to say, there are no Hobbits: for they are small and can run away from a Big Person coming - now here poor Prof did after all resort, against all his beliefs, into this "they are small, thus we can't see them" - cf. On Fairy Stories, where he is really strongly against such dealings.)

This way, Tolkien managed to solve the problem of his Middle-Earth having place in our world. A 7th century writer could have said that in the mountains on the horizon, there is a Dragon living there. A 15th century writer could not have said that some are in the land beyond the Sea. A 19th century writer could have said that Dragons live on Mars. Nowadays, one would have to say - and many writers do that - that Dragons live in a different star system, or in a different galaxy. Or - and that's what a postmodern fantasy writer does most often - that in some fantasy world, which has no connection to our own, there are Dragons, Elves, Dwarves or anything...

Tolkien was a great man in the sense that he made his tale believable - on the most basic level - in the Primary World. True, the archeaologists have never found the remains of Barad-Dur, the tomb of Elendil or any mithril weapons, but still - for a common man, it is not an apparent contradiction: they might find some still, perhaps one day. (Well, recently, some have found the Hobbit skeletons, right? )

I have a constant fear that I might stray too off-topic on this thread. I could write a lot more of paraghraphs, but they won't be as much touching the original question. So, let us leave it at that.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I was talking about the wisdom of LotR with my sister yesterday, and I started to think of something. One of the big themes of LotR is undoubtedly the diminishing of the old world - the departure of the Elves, the eventual fading of the Hobbits and the Dwarves and so on - and the beginning of the era of Men. All the mystery, magic and old beauty is gone, and Men are left to govern the world and make their own decisions.

Now, this sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? It sounds like the relatively recent development of our world, or the beginning of our modern times. People know more, solve many unsolved mysteries and change the world around them... and if Tolkien, when he was writing LotR, looked back he could still see, in his childhood or in the times of his parents or grandparents, a different world, a world where science had not solved the mysteries of the world or humans did not dominate earth the way they now do.

I cannot help thinking this was reflected in the Lord of the Rings. It is another question whether the allegory was deliberate - as has been said dozens of times, Tolkien hated allegories and denied LotR being one - or whether something Tolkien (a conservative person with a dislike of modern technology, mind you) subconsciously wove this theme to his book.

Any thoughts?

I don't think Tolkien was at all subtle or allegorical when it came to his abhorrence of technology or the modern over-consumption and destruction of the environment. He purposely placed many sequences in LotR that mirror his feelings (particularly in the Scouring of the Shore, and Saruman's deforestation of Fangorn), and even Tom Bombadil is an admitted inclusion based not on significance to the story, but rather on the significance Tom had to Tolkien in regards to nature and the woods of Oxfordshire of Tolkien's youth.

In another sense, the diminishment of wonder and waning glory not only mirrors Tolkien's feelings, but his choices in literary influences and the bedrock of his studies: Icelandic/Norse tales, Beowulf, the Arthurian cycle, Plato and the bible itself, all refer to the twilight of the gods, the death of the last great warrior, the Once and Future King sailing for Avalon, of the destruction of the Atlantean superculture and the world destroyed in Flood, as well as a Ragnarok or Apocalypse at world's end.

Tolkien was a man bound to his influences. His true genius lay in the manner in which he synthesized those influences into something altogether different, vaguely familiar yet totally unique, a new mythos built on the bones of the old. And an integral part of his mythos, like those that preceded it, is the loss of grandeur and nobility as the youthful world turns to bitter middle age.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I believe it was a sort of self-reflection, like you say, and I think that is the general feeling of the modernising world. If you read On Fairy-Stories, he again says something very similar there plainly - I will quote:

That more or less catches the point. With the growing knowledge of the world, there remained less and less to place the fantasy in, here in the "Primary world". (Tolkien is also saying something similar in his essay about translating Béowulf: by the time of Béowulf, the world of the Men ended by the wooden wall enclosing the village, and further on, the world was unknown and untamed. Not as much anymore.)

However, I am not sure whether Tolkien himself was really as much concerned by this. Even the thing I quote above was something he said in the middle of the polemic on how Elves need not to be small (and thus hide better even in the known world). The Elves do not rely on our knowledge of the world, or on the size of the "Primary World". Actually, Tolkien even said - "to make seem too narrow"! - now doesn't that in fact say that the world seems too narrow for Elves and Men, but in fact, it isn't still?

However I am sure this is just a very general feeling people have, and Tolkien had it as well, I am sure - to think that the world nowadays is losing some of its "magic" (that is not a feeling only a modern man gets when the world gets "modernised", though: I believe it is a feeling every man and woman gets when they are growing up. Because for a child, even a small wood next to their house is sufficient to contain many Elves and Orcs and Ents). But I am not sure that it would have frustrated the Prof to that point to make LotR an "allegory" of that. Maybe it surfaced unconsciously.

In either case, the narration of the Elves leaving was a way to make the Middle-Earth connected to our current world: this is the way it used to be, a long time ago, and now we are in the present, in the Age of Men. There are no Elves: for all of them have left (only a few remained in the woods, somebody lucky might meet them). (And, I cannot resist to say, there are no Hobbits: for they are small and can run away from a Big Person coming - now here poor Prof did after all resort, against all his beliefs, into this "they are small, thus we can't see them" - cf. On Fairy Stories, where he is really strongly against such dealings.)

This way, Tolkien managed to solve the problem of his Middle-Earth having place in our world. A 7th century writer could have said that in the mountains on the horizon, there is a Dragon living there. A 15th century writer could not have said that some are in the land beyond the Sea. A 19th century writer could have said that Dragons live on Mars. Nowadays, one would have to say - and many writers do that - that Dragons live in a different star system, or in a different galaxy. Or - and that's what a postmodern fantasy writer does most often - that in some fantasy world, which has no connection to our own, there are Dragons, Elves, Dwarves or anything...

Tolkien was a great man in the sense that he made his tale believable - on the most basic level - in the Primary World. True, the archeaologists have never found the remains of Barad-Dur, the tomb of Elendil or any mithril weapons, but still - for a common man, it is not an apparent contradiction: they might find some still, perhaps one day. (Well, recently, some have found the Hobbit skeletons, right? )

I have a constant fear that I might stray too off-topic on this thread. I could write a lot more of paraghraphs, but they won't be as much touching the original question. So, let us leave it at that.

Very good point, Legate that the fading of the elves etc was a way for Tolkien to connect Middle earth with our earth!

However, I do wonder if this is a true way to think of dragons, elves, fairies, that they belong to an age of ignorance. I think they belong to the imagination, and the imagination and fantasy is a central feature of the human mind. After all, we have the new (for the twentieth century) genre science fiction which began as a way to imaginatively apprehend what science brings to us (and I don't mean just space science fiction, but SF placed in the here and now or the immediate future.)

Just because we have learnt many things about the earth and the stars does not mean we know everything or that the world operates only according to those rules or that we really understand how those rules work. Sometimes, the things we think we know best may surprise us and we are then faced with dragons where before we were--or thought we were--in control.

Tolkien did say in OFS that he desired dragons immensely but not that he ever wished to actually meet one. Dragons are challenges and while one form of dragon might die out or hide from us, others are bound to appear, like the sudden appearance of the balrog on the bridge or the evidences of global warming. This might be a rather Jungian way of thinking about dragons.

Thanks, Lommie, for raising the question in a new way!

Opps--cross posted with Morth and now have no time to reply to his bitter assertion about middle age!

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right, Bb, great, you have actually said things I wanted to include in my post at first, but then decided that they are too off-topic. But now, I can say it was you who started about that, so it's not entirely just my fault

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, I do wonder if this is a true way to think of dragons, elves, fairies, that they belong to an age of ignorance. I think they belong to the imagination, and the imagination and fantasy is a central feature of the human mind. After all, we have the new (for the twentieth century) genre science fiction which began as a way to imaginatively apprehend what science brings to us (and I don't mean just space science fiction, but SF placed in the here and now or the immediate future.)

Certainly. However, let's be careful on not mixing things together. One thing is that fiction does not belong to the era of imagination. Quite so. Another is SF: now we have SF which is not in fact a story with the primary goal of being "'just' a story", but has a message (some G.Orwell, 1984 or such). Then, there is SF which is mainly a story and has no other value, what more, we cannot even hope to meet those characters, unlike the Elves or Dragons (example: Star Wars - the only way you can meet people from there is a certain fake, when you and your friends dress up as Darth Vader and go fighting with fake lightsabers). But then, there is also a SF (or similar) literature which tries to appear "real", but the story is unreal (like a story that right now, aliens have landed in South American jungle and nobody noticed them, except for a group of random travelers and a secret NASA mission).

To this third thing - Michael Crichton said that we have lost our myths, and thus now, we are making "techno-myths": conspiracy theories about the world governments, secret scientific experiments, dealings of alien invaders with human beings etc. There is quite some truth on it - that is a sort of our modern Béowulf. Although, I think Tolkien did not probably approve of this, he would have liked to preserve the "magic myth", not the "techno-myth".

And now to a completely different thing, again:

Just because we have learnt many things about the earth and the stars does not mean we know everything or that the world operates only according to those rules or that we really understand how those rules work. Sometimes, the things we think we know best may surprise us and we are then faced with dragons where before we were--or thought we were--in control.

Tolkien did say in OFS that he desired dragons immensely but not that he ever wished to actually meet one. Dragons are challenges and while one form of dragon might die out or hide from us, others are bound to appear, like the sudden appearance of the balrog on the bridge or the evidences of global warming. This might be a rather Jungian way of thinking about dragons.

But these are two different things. Or rather, many different things. There is a dragon and a dragon, there is a real dragon who is real in the Faërie and a real dragon who is real in truth, and therefore is dangerous.

I could say it simply: I am certain I would have liked to meet a Dragon, however at the same time of course I would not have liked to really meet him, just like Tolkien did. I would like to read about Dragons, but to read about them the way that I would believe they are real (Tolkien calls this "Secondary Faith"), but at the same point, of course not really believing that they are real! I hope you understand what I mean. But anyway, I will elaborate a bit on the subject.

First, there is one important difference - which many people don't understand, I think - there is a big difference between a belief in a Secondary-world Dragon living in the forest next to my home (whether I am a child or adult) and a belief that such a Dragon comes from the Primary World and really exists here. I could compare it also to the way some people believe in aliens (for they have taken the Dragons' place, in many ways, at least by their function. Certainly not by their beauty, though). Although I do not know of anybody who would believe in aliens coming from the Secondary World like people do believe in Dragons. But people in general cannot believe in Dragons anymore the way some of them do believe in aliens: our ancestors perhaps did.

So, that's one thing. There is this, kind of, "pathologic" Secondary Faith, which even becomes Primary. In the sense, that you start to believe that if you go out at night, there will really be the Dragon (or aliens) and eat you (or kidnap you).

Then there is this Secondary Faith, which is believeable: that is the way the Middle-Earth is believable for me, for example (and for many of us, I am sure). Even now I really cannot say that Middle-Earth does not exist, because I won't be telling the truth: it does. The same way as you can still encounter an Elf in the woods, if you are lucky (children have generally more chance of that happening). This chance, however, was not bigger for our ancestors any more than it is for us (cf. what Bethberry said about the elves not belonging in the era of ignorance). It is the same. Our ancestors were perhaps more prone to the thing I mentioned in the paraghraph above. (Hmm... or were they... *thinks about whether there is a difference in how many people believed in dragons and how many people believe in aliens*)

The thing Bb spoke about in her last paraghraph is yet something different. That is about real things which actually are there and we don't know about them. But they are things which exist in the Primary World, come from the Primary World, and have nothing to do with Faërie at all. They are serious threats and the only connection they have to the Dragons are, like you say, Jungian: people disappear at night in the forest, and the villagers say it was a Dragon who did it. But that is the psychologisation of mythology, or the psychology-based creation of mythos, which is there as well, but it is another thing which needs to be separated from the Fantasy itself.

[Bêthberry]

Well now, after being rudely kept away by the Primary World, I return to find that this Secondary World of our internet community has quietly waited for further posts. I must say that I am very awed by Legate's classifications of so many different dragons.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

All right, Bb, great, you have actually said things I wanted to include in my post at first, but then decided that they are too off-topic. But now, I can say it was you who started about that, so it's not entirely just my fault

Perhaps we can remain on-topic-ish this way, which I hope will satisfy Lommie.

Allegory is a form of story or extended metaphor in which elements in the story are equated--and that's the rub--with elements outside the story. Lommie sees this equation between the passing of the elves in LotR and the passing of a pre-technological world in the recent history of our world, so it isn't so much that features in LotR represent something specifically outside Middle-earth but rather that the whole feel of the story somehow seems to replay the historical change in the Primary World. Morthoron thought of this thematic equation in human psychological or developmental terms, the movement from the fantasy, wonder, and idealism of youth to the sobre thoughts of dour middle age. I responded by wondering if indeed the old passing world really represents a naive or ignorant response to the world, suggesting that the impulse behind the epic fantasies still exists in humans today--and I would suggest also exists in that middle age which Morth was talking about. And Legate responded by elaborating upon several things, a main point being the great variety of things that dragons may represent. (Although to be fair, I think he was classifying the dragons in my post rather than in Tolkien--and really, if I have that many dragons about, why it just goes to show that there's no diminishment of wonder in the mythos of my age.)

I think this variety of response to the equation of allegory suggests Tolkien was wrong about allegory, that it need not in fact represent the tyranny of the author but the fecundity of readers' responses. This of course is a more elastic definition of allegory than the one Tolkien ascribed to, but we are not alone in this stretching. And if we continue down this road, why, we might eventually end up where Fordim's Canonicity thread feared to tread, however far and long it did tread.

But did Legate really discuss those things that dragons, in an allegory, may represent, so much as set us up for an extended discussion on the relationship between Tolkien's Secondary World and our Primary World?

Originally Posted by Legate

Certainly. However, let's be careful on not mixing things together. One thing is that fiction does not belong to the era of imagination. Quite so. Another is SF: now we have SF which is not in fact a story with the primary goal of being "'just' a story", but has a message (some G.Orwell, 1984 or such). Then, there is SF which is mainly a story and has no other value, what more, we cannot even hope to meet those characters, unlike the Elves or Dragons (example: Star Wars - the only way you can meet people from there is a certain fake, when you and your friends dress up as Darth Vader and go fighting with fake lightsabers). But then, there is also a SF (or similar) literature which tries to appear "real", but the story is unreal (like a story that right now, aliens have landed in South American jungle and nobody noticed them, except for a group of random travelers and a secret NASA mission).

To this third thing - Michael Crichton said that we have lost our myths, and thus now, we are making "techno-myths": conspiracy theories about the world governments, secret scientific experiments, dealings of alien invaders with human beings etc. There is quite some truth on it - that is a sort of our modern Béowulf. Although, I think Tolkien did not probably approve of this, he would have liked to preserve the "magic myth", not the "techno-myth".

And now to a completely different thing, again:


But these are two different things. Or rather, many different things. There is a dragon and a dragon, there is a real dragon who is real in the Faërie and a real dragon who is real in truth, and therefore is dangerous.

I could say it simply: I am certain I would have liked to meet a Dragon, however at the same time of course I would not have liked to really meet him, just like Tolkien did. I would like to read about Dragons, but to read about them the way that I would believe they are real (Tolkien calls this "Secondary Faith"), but at the same point, of course not really believing that they are real! I hope you understand what I mean. But anyway, I will elaborate a bit on the subject.

First, there is one important difference - which many people don't understand, I think - there is a big difference between a belief in a Secondary-world Dragon living in the forest next to my home (whether I am a child or adult) and a belief that such a Dragon comes from the Primary World and really exists here. I could compare it also to the way some people believe in aliens (for they have taken the Dragons' place, in many ways, at least by their function. Certainly not by their beauty, though). Although I do not know of anybody who would believe in aliens coming from the Secondary World like people do believe in Dragons. But people in general cannot believe in Dragons anymore the way some of them do believe in aliens: our ancestors perhaps did.

So, that's one thing. There is this, kind of, "pathologic" Secondary Faith, which even becomes Primary. In the sense, that you start to believe that if you go out at night, there will really be the Dragon (or aliens) and eat you (or kidnap you).

Then there is this Secondary Faith, which is believeable: that is the way the Middle-Earth is believable for me, for example (and for many of us, I am sure). Even now I really cannot say that Middle-Earth does not exist, because I won't be telling the truth: it does. The same way as you can still encounter an Elf in the woods, if you are lucky (children have generally more chance of that happening). This chance, however, was not bigger for our ancestors any more than it is for us (cf. what Bethberry said about the elves not belonging in the era of ignorance). It is the same. Our ancestors were perhaps more prone to the thing I mentioned in the paraghraph above. (Hmm... or were they... *thinks about whether there is a difference in how many people believed in dragons and how many people believe in aliens*)

The thing Bb spoke about in her last paraghraph is yet something different. That is about real things which actually are there and we don't know about them. But they are things which exist in the Primary World, come from the Primary World, and have nothing to do with Faërie at all. They are serious threats and the only connection they have to the Dragons are, like you say, Jungian: people disappear at night in the forest, and the villagers say it was a Dragon who did it. But that is the psychologisation of mythology, or the psychology-based creation of mythos, which is there as well, but it is another thing which needs to be separated from the Fantasy itself.

So, we are left with: what did Tolkien mean by dragons? If they are allegorical, then they must "represent" something, be equated with something outside the narrative (unless one wishes to provide a different way of thinking about allegory).

So how does an element of Faerie come to be equated with something not Faerie, or outside Faerie--or is it maybe something else inside Faerie? Or does this view of allegory suggest that the dragon in Faerie somehow is not real because the real reality lies with what it points to? That is, if we start thinking of LotR as allegory, does that lessen the reality of the fantasy that Tolkien created?

At least, I think this how I can respond and maintain on-topic-ness.

[Formendacil]

Just a quick comment, before I slip off to Sunday Mass...

I think there's a bit of unnecessary confusion arising here from Lommy's use of the word "allegory." Now, I will not impinge upon her authorial intent in her original post, so she can correct me if I'm wrong, but as I read it, what she was asking could have been stated in a different way, using the word "theme."

The thing about "allegory" is that is carries specific meaning, and the idea is that an allegory is, more or less, a this-for-that reflection of some other thing that is being put forward, quite deliberately by the story in question, and this putting forward is the chief purpose of the story.

Granted, my definition here may be brought into question, but I think we can sidestep the issue nicely if we just use another word... and since I think the definition I have given is mostly accurate, I'm inclined to argue, with Tolkien, against its use of Tolkien's work, and here's why:

Although a regret for the fading of the old days is prevalent throughout Middle-earth, this very fact is one that argues against any specific work being an allegory. Although this sense of fading splendour is captured from the destruction of Almaren clean through "The New Shadow," it seems to me that in no way can all Tolkien's writing on Middle-earth be considered a unified tale, though the theme is present in all.

Again, it could just be my own sense of the word, but "allegory" seems more applicable to a single work, whereas "theme" seems more appropriate to a body of works, and also sidesteps the issue of whether this is the author's planned browbeaten topic.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Again, it could just be my own sense of the word, but "allegory" seems more applicable to a single work, whereas "theme" seems more appropriate to a body of works, and also sidesteps the issue of whether this is the author's planned browbeaten topic.

While I agree with your explanation of allegory as a one for one pointing, with the pointing being the main purpose, it could be argued that allegory is not limited to one work alone. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was a two-parter, with the first book Pilgrim's journey and the second his wife's. (By the way, a 1778 edition of PP includes a fold out map of the places to which Pilgrim travels. Shades of LotR's maps!). Spencer's The Fairy Queen was first published in three books and then re-released in six. Spencer's letter to Raleigh actually outlines plans for 24 books. Now these works might have more thematic purpose or unity than Tolkien's works, but they do suggest that allegory need not be limited to one work alone.

I like this clarification, athough it would be fun to discuss the nature of dragons in Tolkien, none of which, I just remembered, exist in LotR.

[morwen edhelwen]

Bethberry, if you don't mind being corrected.. Pilgrim's Progress' hero is named Christian and his wife is Christiana. The book is mentioned in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Legate

I could say it simply: I am certain I would have liked to meet a Dragon, however at the same time of course I would not have liked to really meet him, just like Tolkien did.

Very neat observation!


I think that the allegory/theme is about the disappearance of magic (as much as Galadriel objects to that word in LOTR). Now we want proof for everything. Logic. Evidence. What evidence is there in immortal creatures with pointy ears who sing about stars or their glowing swords? None, in "our" world. Therefore it's all a myth/fairy tale/simply lie. But at the same time, they are here, whatever the "here" is.

Sci-fi novels today are usually based on a set of scientific rules/assumptions/proofs/abilities (either current or futuristic), and they hardly ever include the beauty of unexplained things - things that shouldn't be explained. If we found out everything, the world woulfd be a very boring place. However, we never know if we indeed found out everything, because there might be something else lurking around the corner witing for us to relax...........

Anyways, the acceptance / belief in magic is one thing that makes legends and mythologies so beautiful.

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I was talking about the wisdom of LotR with my sister yesterday, and I started to think of something. One of the big themes of LotR is undoubtedly the diminishing of the old world - the departure of the Elves, the eventual fading of the Hobbits and the Dwarves and so on - and the beginning of the era of Men. All the mystery, magic and old beauty is gone, and Men are left to govern the world and make their own decisions.

Now, this sounds rather familiar, doesn't it? It sounds like the relatively recent development of our world, or the beginning of our modern times. People know more, solve many unsolved mysteries and change the world around them... and if Tolkien, when he was writing LotR, looked back he could still see, in his childhood or in the times of his parents or grandparents, a different world, a world where science had not solved the mysteries of the world or humans did not dominate earth the way they now do.

I cannot help thinking this was reflected in the Lord of the Rings. It is another question whether the allegory was deliberate - as has been said dozens of times, Tolkien hated allegories and denied LotR being one - or whether something Tolkien (a conservative person with a dislike of modern technology, mind you) subconsciously wove this theme to his book.

Any thoughts?

This had me looking up a dictionary definition of ‘allegory’: a story, poem or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one: Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey.

Now by that specific definition, one could say Tolkien didn’t consciously write it as an allegory, but it is possible for the reader to interpret it as an allegory. So long as it is possible to interpret it as an allegory, it is one, whether that was the intent of the author or not.

To my mind, if science fiction is in theory about exploring ideas and new technology, fantasy is often about the nature and struggle between Good and Evil. Fantasy authors also often have opinions on the nature of Good and Evil, and create sub creations and magic systems that allow exploration of their world views and values.

Personally, I think you can get too specific in basing an allegory on someone else’s work. I’m not at all pleased with any who might think The War of the Rings is any more a retelling of World War II than any other war. At the same time, it is hard to believe that scenes like the Dead Marshes and others that explore the horrors of war owe nothing to Tolkien’s time on the Western Front. A work of fiction can echo reality without echoing a specific reality.

And yet, there are elements of Good and Evil in the work. One can also see an apple and oranges comparison between the best parts of pre industrial economy agricultural civilization and the worst parts of the industrial age. It is no secret that Tolkien had a touch of nostalgia about the good old days. I would not want to argue in debate that there are no moral or political meanings, hidden or not, in Tolkien’s works.

At the same time, I would not want to argue that the book is specifically about any one particular allegorical meaning. There is a great danger of a critic or fan projecting his own values and world view onto as broad and varied a body of work as Tolkien’s. I would be very dubious about anyone trying to use The Lord of the Rings as a club to beat any particular value system onto anyone else.

I would go on to say that if fantasy in general explores Good and Evil, if it presents moral questions, then any such work of fantasy can be treated as an allegory, whether the author intended it so or not. Also, to a great extent, if one is going to have a conflict and heroic character development, it is hard to avoid presenting a conflict between Good and Evil.

I might even propose that a conflict between Good and Evil might be considered shallow and easy in some contexts. There is something to be said for a conflict between two factions that think they are doing what is best, a conflict between good and good, with opposed protagonists who are all flawed. This might be one way to avoid allegorical interpretations, simply by making it hard to make easy judgements.

Anyway, I would suggest that a contrast between agricultural and industrial cultures is present in Tolkien’s works, while suggesting that this is not necessarily a driving theme, not necessarily the reason Tolkien wrote the books.