Themes of The Lord of the Rings

Academic analyses of Tolkien's ideas embodied in The Lord of the Rings

Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and redemptive suffering. There is also a strong thread throughout the work of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with moralisation from descriptions of landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality. In addition, some modern commentators have criticised Tolkien for supposed failings in The Lord of the Rings, such as not including significant women, not being relevant to city dwellers, not overtly showing any religion, and for racism, though others have defended Tolkien against all these charges.

[[File:Galahad grail. jpg|thumb|upright=1.75|Unlike a typical quest like seeking the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend, Frodo's is to destroy an object, the One Ring. The critic David M. Miller agrees that the quest is the "most important narrative device" in the book, but adds that it is reversed from the conventional structure: the hero is not seeking a treasure, but is hoping to destroy one. He notes that from Sauron's point of view, the tale is indeed a quest, and his evil Black Riders replace the traditional "errant knights seeking the holy of holies", while the Fellowship keeping the Ring from him cannot use it: thus there are multiple reversals. The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey concurs that it is "an anti quest", a story of renunciation. He writes that Tolkien had lived through two world wars, the "routine bombardment" of civilians, the use of famine for political gain, concentration camps and genocide, and the development and use of chemical and nuclear weapons. Shippey states that the book raises the question of whether, if the ability of humans to produce that kind of evil could somehow be destroyed, even at the cost of sacrificing something, this would be worth doing.

The Lord of the Rings presents a sharp polarity between good and evil. Orcs, the most maligned of races, are in one interpretation a corruption of the mystically exalted race of the Elves. Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery, home of the Lord of the Nazgûl, the most corrupted King of Men, directly opposes Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard and the capital of Gondor, the last visible remnant of the ancient kingdom of Men in the Third Age. Mordor, the land of the Dark Lord Sauron, is opposed to Gondor and to all free peoples. These antitheses, though pronounced and prolific, are sometimes considered to be too polarizing, but they have also been argued to be at the heart of the structure of the entire story. Tolkien's technique has been seen to "confer literality on what would in the primary world be called metaphor and then to illustrate [in his secondary world] the process by which the literal becomes metaphoric".

Tolkien explores the theme of "the ennoblement of the ignoble". The scholar of English literature Devin Brown links this with the Magnificat's "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree." He gives as example the humble hobbits who defeat the proud and powerful Sauron. Tolkien's biographers Richard J. Cox and Leslie Jones write that the heroes who destroy the Ring and scour the Shire are "the little guys, literally. The message is that anyone can make a difference"; they call this one of Tolkien's main themes. Tolkien contrasted courage through loyal service with arrogant desire for glory. While Sam follows Frodo out of loyalty and would die for him, Boromir is driven by pride in his desire for the Ring, and would risk the lives of others for his personal glory. Likewise the refusal of the ring by Sam, Faramir, and Galadriel is a courageous rejection of power and glory and personal renown. Courage in the face of overwhelming odds is a recurring theme. Tolkien stated in The Monsters and the Critics that he was inspired by the apocalyptic Norse legend of Ragnarök, where the gods know that they are doomed in their final battle for the world, but go to fight anyway. Frodo and Sam share this "northern courage", knowing they have little prospect of returning home from their mission to Mount Doom.

thumb|upright|Lord Acton famously stated "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", an idea embodied in the addictive power of the One Ring. A major theme is the corrupting influence of the One Ring through the power it offers, especially to those already powerful. Tom Shippey notes Gandalf's statements about the corrupting influence the Ring has on its bearers. The powerful Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn and Faramir all reject it, believing that it would overpower them. The Hobbits Frodo and Sam, much less ambitious for power, are less susceptible but not totally immune to its effects, as can be seen in the changes it works in Frodo, Bilbo and Gollum. On the other hand, Boromir becomes murderously obsessed with the Ring, but never possesses it, while Sméagol kills his friend Déagol, the first Ringbearer after Isildur, to obtain it. The corrupting effect of power is, according to Shippey, a modern theme, since in earlier times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey quotes Lord Acton's 1887 statement:

Critics have argued that this theme can be found as far back as Plato's The Republic, where the character Glaucon argued that doing justice to others is never to one's benefit; he cited the mythical Ring of Gyges, which could make any man who wore it invisible and thus able to get away with theft or other crime. Glaucon claimed that such power would corrupt any man, and that therefore no man truly believes that acting justly toward others is good for him. Colin Manlove criticises Tolkien's attitude towards power as inconsistent, with exceptions to the supposedly overwhelming influence of the Ring. The Ring can be handed over relatively easily (Sam and Bilbo), and removing the Ring by force (Gollum to Frodo) does not, despite Gandalf's assertion at the beginning of the story, break Frodo's mind. The Ring also appears to have little effect on characters such as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. Shippey replies to Manlove's doubt with "one word": addictive. He writes that this sums up Gandalf's whole argument, as in the early stages, as with Bilbo and Sam, the addiction can be shaken off easily enough, while for those who are not yet addicted, as with Aragorn and indeed others like Galadriel and Faramir, its pull is like any other temptation. What Gandalf could not do to Frodo, Shippey writes, is make him want to hand the Ring over. And for the owner of the Ring, the destructive aspect is the urge to use it, no matter how good the intentions of the owner might be at the start.

A specifically Catholic theme is the redemptive and penitential nature of suffering, apparent in the dreadful ordeal of Sam and Frodo in Mordor. As another example, Boromir atones for his assault on Frodo by single handedly but vainly defending Merry and Pippin from orcs,

Shippey writes that The Lord of the Rings embodies Tolkien's belief that "the word authenticates the thing", or to look at it another way, that "fantasy is not entirely made up." Tolkien was a professional philologist, with a deep understanding of language and etymology, the origins of words. He found a resonance with the ancient myth of the "true language", "isomorphic with reality": in that language, each word names a thing and each thing has a true name, and using that name gives the speaker power over that thing. This is seen directly in the character Tom Bombadil, who can name anything, and that name then becomes that thing's name ever after; Shippey notes that this happens with the names he gives to the hobbits' ponies. This belief, Shippey states, animated Tolkien's insistence on what he considered to be the ancient, traditional, and genuine forms of words. A modern English word like loaf, deriving directly from Old English hlāf, has its plural form in 'v', "loaves", whereas a newcomer like "proof", not from Old English, rightly has its plural the new way, "proofs". So, Tolkien reasoned, the proper plurals of "dwarf" and "elf" must be "dwarves" and "elves", not as the dictionary and the printers typesetting The Lord of the Rings would have them, "dwarfs" and elfs". The same went for forms like "dwarvish" and "elvish", strong and old, and avoiding any hint of dainty little "elfin" flower fairies. Tolkien insisted on the expensive reversion of all such typographical "corrections" at the galley proof stage.

thumb|upright=1.35|According to Tom Shippey, Tolkien invented parts of Middle earth to resolve the linguistic puzzle he had accidentally created by using different European languages for those of peoples in his legendarium. Tolkien devoted enormous effort to place names, for example making those in The Shire such as Nobottle, Bucklebury, and Tuckborough obviously English in sound and by etymology. Shippey comments that even though many of these names do not enter the book's plot, they contribute a feeling of reality and depth, giving "Middle earth that air of solidity and extent both in space and time which its successors [in fantasy literature] so conspicuously lack." Tolkien wrote in one of his letters that his work was "largely an essay in linguistic aesthetic". He made use of several European languages, ancient and modern, including Old English for the language of Rohan and Old Norse for the names of dwarves (initially in The Hobbit), and modern English for the Common Speech, creating as the story developed a tricky linguistic puzzle. Among other things, Middle earth was not modern Europe but that region long ages ago, and the Common Speech was not modern English but Westron. Therefore, the dialogue and names written in modern English were, in the fiction, translations from the Westron, and the language and placenames of Rohan was similarly supposedly translated from Rohirric into Old English; therefore, too, the dwarf names written in Old Norse must have been translated from Khuzdul into Old Norse. Thus the linguistic geography of Middle earth grew from Tolkien's purely philological or linguistic explorations.

In addition, Tolkien invested a large amount of time and energy creating languages, especially the Elvish languages of Quenya and Sindarin, both of which appear, sometimes untranslated, in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had a private theory on the way that the sounds of a language convey a feeling of beauty; he felt pure pleasure in the vocabulary of the Gothic language, and indeed of Welsh. Shippey explains that "He thought that people could feel history in words, could recognise language 'styles', could extract sense (of sorts) from sound alone, could moreover make aesthetic judgements based on phonology." Thus Tolkien has Legolas say, on hearing Aragorn singing The Lament of the Rohirrim in Rohirric (the language of Rohan), which Legolas does not understand:

Shippey states that Tolkien liked to suppose that there really was such a strong connection between things, people, and language, "especially if the person who spoke the language lived on the thing." He notes that the effect of language appears again and again in The Lord of the Rings, such as when the hobbits hear the Elf Gildor singing and find that the blended sound and melody "seemed to shape itself in their thought"; when everyone at the Council of Elrond quails at the sound of Gandalf's voicing the Black Speech in Rivendell; or when Sam Gamgee responds "I like that!" when the dwarf Gimli sings about the dwarf King Durin long ago.

Tolkien describes the landscapes of Middle earth realistically, but at the same time uses descriptions of land and weather to convey feelings and a sense of something beyond the here and now. Shippey states that "both characters and readers become aware of the extent and nature of Tolkien's moralisations from landscape" in the many passages where he ambiguously writes about landscape, such as Frodo's reflections on the Dead Marshes:

Shippey writes that Tolkien frequently comes close to what the critic John Ruskin called the pathetic fallacy, the idea that things in nature can express human emotion and conduct. However, he states, the literary theorist Northrop Frye more accurately named the function of such passages as hinting at higher literary modes. In his Anatomy of Criticism, Frye classified literature as ranging from "Ironic" at the lowest, via "Low Mimetic" (such as humorous descriptions), "High Mimetic" (accurate descriptions), and "Romantic" (idealised accounts) to "Mythic" as the highest mode; and modern literature is generally at a lower level than literature of past centuries. In Shippey's view, most of The Lord of the Rings is in Romantic mode, with occasional touches of myth, and moments of high and low mimesis to relieve the mood; and Tolkien's ability to present multiple modes at once is a major reason for his success.

The Lord of the Rings has repeatedly been attacked, as scholars such as Ralph Wood write, on the grounds that it is a story about men for boys, with no significant women, that it omits religion from its societies, and that it appears to be racist. Against this, scholars have noted that women do play significant roles, Against this, Wood writes that Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen are far from being "plaster figures": Galadriel is powerful, wise and "terrible in her beauty"; Éowyn has "extraordinary courage and valor"; and Arwen gives up her Elvish immortality to marry Aragorn. Further, Wood argues, Tolkien insists that everyone, man and woman alike, face the same kinds of temptation, hope, and desire. while Katherine Hasser argues in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that gender roles in the Shire are not sharply separated, as males like Bilbo carry out domestic duties like cooking and cleaning.

Wood notes that the work contains no formal religion. Hobbits have no temples or sacrifices, though Frodo can call to Elbereth, one of the Valar, in extremis; the nearest anyone comes to religion is that the men of Gondor "pause before meals". Wood's answer here is that Tolkien intentionally left religion out of Middle earth so that "we might see Christianity reflected in it more clearly if also indirectly".