Questions of Discourse and Allegory in The Lord of The Rings
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations”[1] J.R.R. Tolkien; language scholar, professor, author, poet and veteran of World War I, has gone on record to say that his fantasy epic The Lord of The Rings has no allegorical significance, nor does it have any intentional inner meaning. In the foreword to The Lord of The Rings he stated as such; “As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical.” [1] This is often a case for critique surrounding the fantasy genre, that it has nothing to offer the world of literature. For example, critic Richard Jenkyns (in the magazine the New Republic) criticised the text for having charters that lacked psychological depth. He stated that the charters and the world itself were “anaemic and lacking fibre”. [2]
Therefore, according to the author and critics, the text should have little to no socioeconomical or political commentary upon it whatsoever. However, in numerous letters to scholars, fans and those important to Tolkien, he appears to contradict himself. As in a letter to his friend Fr. Robert Murray from December 1953 Tolkien says, “of course the text is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” [3] If the text is neither allegorical nor topical, how can it be Catholic? Tolkien even says “of course” as if it is obvious. Tolkien seems to contradict himself again in a letter to a fan when asked if the one ring is an allegory for atomic power. He replied; “not an allegory for Atomic power but of power (exerted for domination) [3]” He expanded upon this; “I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story…. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality.” [4] Therefore, plainly the statements in the foreword are a lot more nuanced than they may appear. J.R.R. Tolkien addressed the atomic bomb allegory in an interview rather simply; “Many people apply the ring to the nuclear bomb don’t they. They say the whole thing was in my mind as an allegory of it. But it isn’t.” [5].
Christopher Tolkien, known for finishing and publishing his father’s work that happened to be left unfinished following his death in 1973, spoke at length about allegory and his father’s writings, notably in interviews featured in a documentary entitled “J.R.R. Tolkien '1892-1973' - A Study Of The Maker Of Middle-earth”. In said interviews he says, “people can of course find the allegories if they wish to… it was wholly outside his conception of what he was doing and what he called fantasy. The world he created existed for itself and for what it tells you and for what delight it gives you.” [6] Under these clarifications there is simply no need, nor place for allegory. Christopher Tolkien places his father’s “Legendarium” in a vacuum that may be consumed by itself with no further knowledge of what the text is an allegory for if indeed it does possess such allegory. This insistence that the text must have some allegorical or topical significance suggests that the text can only be used for escapism to an extent. That the “secondary world”, as Christopher and his father call it, has to pay homage or exist for the “primary world”.
Adam Lowenstein’s Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema and Modern Horror Film explores representations of trauma and pain of victims or survivors of real-life horrors and atrocities in horror cinema. Which, for the purposes of this essay; to explore allegory that may or may not be found in The Lord of The Rings, I am going to extend to fiction literature. In the introduction to his book, Lowenstein says “To speak of history’s horrors or historical trauma, is to recognise events as wounds. Wounds in the fabric of culture and history that bleed through conventional confines of time and space.” [7] In other words when we talk about traumatic events, we recognise that such events have a lasting impact on societies and individuals. Such impacts find their way into fiction produced by the affected (directly and indirectly) and often hold some sort of allegorical meaning or message.
Lowenstein describes the events acted out in the conclusion to Deathdream or Dead of Night, written by Alan Ormsby directed by Bob Clark in 1972. Which is a representation of the horrors of the Vietnam war and how soldiers never truly moved on from it. And he refers to an “allegorical moment” [7] in the film where its “images, sounds and narrative combine with visceral spectator affect to embody issues that characterise the historical trauma of the Vietnam War” [7]. I would like to put forward that Tolkien uses similar images and narratives in his writings to give a visceral experience of war, he puts this in a fantastical setting to provide a horrific juxtaposition that at sometimes can be considered a bastardisation. Could professor Tolkien bastardise a genre that he defined? Such a question may be considered a debate for another time. I would like to put forward the idea that Tolkien’s writing embodies very real issues – from seeing fallen soldiers and watching friends die to seeing his home ravaged by war and in doing so, he characterised the very real trauma caused by World War I and World War II similar to how Ormsby and Clark characterise the very personal trauma caused by the Vietnam war.
Lowenstein goes on to suggest that trauma studies, particularly those made by Signum Freud, often reproduce the binary oppositions of melancholia/mourning; acting out/working through; historically irresponsible/ historically responsible; realism/modernism. He suggests that such studies do not maintain a tension between them. Deathdream questions the impulse to categorise representations of historical trauma into these binary oppositions put forward by Signum Freud in Remembering and Working-Through (1914) and Mourning and Melancholia (1917). Lowenstein also talks about the two distinct processes, put forward by Freud, that individuals may go through when facing a loss of an object. – the “normal and healthy” [7] process of mourning requires the individual to separate themselves from the “object” thereby remembering the loss as an event outside of one’s self rather than an incontrollable illness within the self. The “pathological unhealthy”[7] state of melancholia is where the individual refuses to let go of what is lost and instead “acts out the loss compulsively” – here the individual repeats the trauma inside themselves, reliving horrors over and over again until it becomes a form of “self-torment”.
Lowenstein argues that the best representations of trauma in film, which I think can also be attributed to written fiction such as Professor Tolkien’s work, are representations that call into question such binary oppositions laid out by Freud and whose allegorical moments cannot be defined or categorised into such binary oppositions. Lowenstein does go on to say that Freud hints that the binary nature of trauma does not always apply. Sometimes melancholia and mourning; acting out and working through are interdependent process rather than contrasts. In other words, they depend upon the other to survive – two sides of the same coin; yes, in ways very much opposites, but one cannot exist without the other. Therefore, The Lord of the Rings is a “representation” of this trauma which was brought on by transformative events in Tolkien’s career as a soldier. How Lowenstein talks about the images put forward in Deathdream; a living corpse of a veteran, haunted by the horrors of his past, unable to move on. From the outside a living breathing man, on the inside a corpse; Deathdream gives this living corpse a tangible image the viewer can latch onto and find meaning in.
Similarly, I would like to assume that LOTR brings back imagery and feelings from Tolkien’s past such as the bodies in the Dead Marches; “’There are dead things, dead faces in the water,’ he said with horror. ‘Dead faces!’”[8]. To me this is a visually powerful image, my interpretation of the text leads me to believe that this is an image that Tolkien himself saw on the battlefield - the faces of dead men, young and old, some he knew, many he didn’t “grim faces and evil, and noble and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair.”[8] To me this is so striking that it cannot be purely fiction. Of course, in the scene that plays out in the text, the bodies are not really there, they are illusions, ghosts; “’but the dead can’t be really there! Is it some devilry hatched up in the dark land?”’ [8] Sam asks of Gollum (Smeagol). However, Gollum says that he does not know but “you cannot touch them… Only shapes to see perhaps, not to touch.” Though bodies in the water may not be real, I believe the image is very much so. After some research I found that, unfortunately, I was right. In The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien (Letter 226)[9] (and summed up on the website the “Tolkien Gateway”[10]) Tolkien speculates that the description of said marches may have been inspired by what he saw at The Battle of Somme. Craters in the mud of no-man’s land would be transformed into a series of pools and lakes and floating in them, dead bodies belonging to each of the opposing forces. Tolkien draws attention to the fact that he saw bodies from both sides, not only in his letter about the traumatising event but also in his text; “’All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs.”[8] It draws attention to the fact that it could be anyone in the water, anyone can be a victim of war; friend or foe but it does not matter anymore because they died in the name of war. He draws so much attention to the sobering image of enemy lying by enemy in lands ravaged by war, that it almost makes you forget that the text is “neither allegorical nor topical” [1] and “as for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none.”[1]
How does this link into Lowenstein’s observations of trauma in horror cinema, which I extend to literature? Tolkien does not sperate himself from the “object” or in this case the traumatic events of The Battle of Somme. He does however use what he saw and what affected him so much to make a political point that he believed in. A point that his readers could latch onto and find meaning if they wish to. This links back to Christopher Tolkien’s words on allegory; that readers may find the allegory if they wish to but sometimes people may find links however tenuous that may or may not be there at all, which of course moves away from the intention of the author as a “tale-teller”. As a reader, who admires and finds inspiration in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, I see a strong allegorical link between the bodies in the Dead Marches and what Tolkien saw at The Somme. Does this show a dislike, on Tolkien’s part, for allegory in all of its manifestations? Perhaps not. That being said there is something I have neglected to mention, as of yet, about Letter 226 [9]. In the letter to L.W. Forster, Tolkien talked about his influences for the Dead Marches. He owed them in some part to what he saw in the battle yes, but he also mentions that it owed more to William Morris’ The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains. I am reminded of Lowenstein’s observations on Signum Freud’s ideas of trauma. I believe that Tolkien’s work, specifically the Dead Marches as his “allegorical moment”, cannot be categorised into any of the binary oppositions laid out by Freud, in the same ways Deathdream cannot. Tolkien shows an “unhealthy” dwelling over the trauma of his past, subjecting himself to those memories time and time again to describe it for his readers. But also, a “healthy” separation between himself and the events to take inspiration from Morris as well as reflect upon his writings and where the inspiration comes from. And I believe that Tolkien’s work fits Lowenstein’s words. The traumas of his past are “wounds that bleed through the conventional confines of space and time.” As the traumatising images of the Dead Marches seen by Frodo and Sam in Middle Earth on 1st March of the 3019th year of the Third Age come to represent the fallen soldiers seen by John Tolkien during The Battle of The Somme between 1st July and 18th November 1916.
Time and time again I am drawn back to the letters J.R.R. Tolkien received and sent during his life as reflections upon his writing and his larger Legendarium. Especially those to Fr. Robert Murray, as they give us an insight into the religious roots of the text that may or may not exist, depending on whether LOTR is topical or allegorical. Letter 156[10] from 4th November 1954 (months after the publication of LOTR as a complete assembly of three volumes) sheds light on many religious connections and parallels within the text. Father Murray (and other critics of the time) criticised Gandalf’s return from the “dead” as “cheating”, obviously a joke with some truth to it. Tolkien explained why he made this narrative decision in his reply; he says that Gandalf “died”, the only cheating here is in the word “death”. Gandalf, in Tolkien’s mythology, is one of the five Istari (wizards), beings who possess physical bodies capable of feeling pain, fear, fatigue and indeed “death” but they are not like mortal men or hobbits. Gandalf is an incarnate “angel”. Again, I am left to question Tolkien’s anti-allegorical words in the foreword. According to his letters, Gandalf intentionally bears resemblance to angels and deities in the Bible. M.D. Harmon, in his article “Is Tolkien's masterpiece an allegory? Only if real life is one, too - A new film is a triumph, but that's not even half of the story.” [11], when he says; “Middle Earth bears that name because it lies, as our own world does, squarely fixed between Heaven and Hell.” He argues that Tolkien created a world that is an allegory whether he desired to or not. Harmon points out that LOTR reflects the internal struggle between good and evil that all of us live with every day. “The film’[1]s battle scenes […] are Merely external reflections of the vastly more significant internal struggle that occurs when the good characters are offered custody of the ring”.
The struggle around desire for the ring and the power it represents (as an extension the war and struggle it causes) is the central crux of the story’s themes and allegorical significance – the allegorical moments surrounding visual scenes like the dead marches and character details are supplementary results of what Tolkien is trying to say with his story. Gollum (or Smeagol) is overtaken, destroyed by his desire for the ring. He hates it and loves at the same time; “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!”[12]– it echoes what we see with drug addicts. Boromir dies after trying to take the ring from Frodo, tempted by its power; “’It is by our own folly that the enemy will defeat us,' cried Boromir. ‘How it angers me! Fool! Obstinate Fool! Running wilfully to death and ruining our cause. If any mortals have claim to the ring it is the men of Númenor, and not Halflings. It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me!’”[13]
The Elven Princess, Galadriel is offered the ring and resists the urge to take it – she knows that the power that resides within it will transform her in to a dark and beautiful Queen that will make the world bend before her; “And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”[14]. Even Gandalf, the father figure, the guiding light, the advisor and the friend, reaches for it, trembles for it, almost succumbs to its power; “’No!’ Cried Gandalf… ‘With that power I have the power to do great and terrible… Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself.”[15] Time and time again we are warned about the power of the ring and what it does to those that desire its power so much that even Frodo succumbs to it, teetering on the edge of the Cracks of Doom Frodo decides to keep the ring and if it weren’t for Gollum’s insatiable addiction to his precious, the War of the Ring would have been lost, that however, is another essay for another time.
To conclude, I turn back to Christopher Tolkien’s words on allegory; “people may find the allegory if they wish to”. Upon reflection I find that statement rather telling about J.R.R. Tolkien’s intention as a “tale-teller”. I point to Tolkien’s own essay “On Fairy Stories” [16] where he talks about something he calls “secondary belief”. When someone tells you a story that is and you know that it really happened, i.e. non-fiction, it inspires something he calls “primary belief”. Secondary belief is where someone tells you a story that you know is fiction, but it is so well told that it commands this secondary belief. It draws you in, it inspires emotional responses – you feel sacred; you feel excited; you feel longing; you feel exhaustion – you feel for the characters, that is secondary belief.
Tolkien says that there are kinds of stories that human beings crave. Stories that depict a supernatural world, where we can cheat death, escape death. Stories that show us an eternal love that overcomes death. Stories where good triumphs over evil. Stories with sacrificial heroism. He points to the Gospel and the stories of Jesus Christ. These are stories that move us, teach us, they show us a love that conquers death. To some people these stories are more real than the world we live in. This is what J.R.R. Tolkien means when he says, “the text is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work”. Yes, it is allegorical, but it does not speak for Catholicism, it speaks for the values it teaches. Tolkien shows us the power of fiction within in fiction itself.
References:
[1] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers, pp.7-10.
[2] Jenkyns, Richard (28 January 2002). "Bored of the Rings". The New Republic. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
[3] Tolkien, J. and Tolkien, C., 2006. The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien. London: HarperCollins Publishers, p.191.
[4] Tolkien, J. and Tolkien, C., 2006. The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien. London: HarperCollins Publishers, p.263.
[5] Jonathan Fruoco “JRR Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien on allegory.” Online Video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 31 Mar 2009. Web. 4 Apr 2020.
[6] MiddleOfMiddleEarth “JRR TOLKIEN '1892-1973' - A Study Of The Maker Of Middle-earth.” Online Video Clip. YouTube, 13 Feb 2013. Web. 4 Apr 2020.
[7] Lowenstein, A., 2008. Shocking Representation. New York: Columbia University Press, pp.1-16.
[8] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers, pp.645-661.
[9] Tolkien, J. and Tolkien, C., 2006. The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien. London: HarperCollins Publishers, p.263.
[10] Tolkiengateway.net. 2020. Letter 226 - Tolkien Gateway. [online] Available at: <http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_226> [Accessed 8 May 2020].
[11] Harmon, M 2001, 'Is Tolkien's masterpiece an allegory? Only if real life is one, too - A new film is a triumph, but that's not even half of the story.', Portland Press Herald (ME), 31 Dec, p. 9A, (online NewsBank). 10 May 2020
[12] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers.
[13] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers, pp.415-432.
[14] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers, pp.372-386.
[15] Tolkien, J., 1968. The Lord Of The Rings. 13th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers, pp.55-77.
[16] Tolkien, J., 2008. Tolkien On Fairy-Stories. Flieger, v., & Anderson, D. A
[1] This article was written in 2001 around the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
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