Tolkein partly rejected this idea in his foreword to the second edition in 1965 and partly let it run, but it is certainly true that the circumstances of Europe and the world during the early 1940s had strong echoes in the trials of Middle Earth. The Ring Trilogy was published in 1954, shortly after the end of the Second World War, and many people saw it as an allegory of the war, with the Hobbits representing the British and the enemy, Nazi Germany, as Sauron the monster. Alternatively, was Tolkein really pointing his finger at another kind of monster, one that was already seeking power at any cost in the Middle Earth of Europe? The Lord of the Rings is in many ways a retelling of the myths of pre Christian England. So, was Ancient Britain actually inhabited by monsters, elves, dwarves and demons? We sometimes forget – because of Christianity’s continued importance in society – that before Christianity came along people actually believed in most of these things.
#Lord of rings monster series
The struggle to contain the evil of Sauron and overcome the monster informs the spiritual quest of the trilogy, and the mythological beings that inhabit the story each have their part to play.Īs we have already seen in the first part of this blog series on myths and their monsters, myths tell stories about the early history of a people. Sauron seeks power, but only to abuse it.
Power creates tyrants, and tyranny is the real monster of Tolkein’s ring trilogy. Control and evil do not always go together, but power and abuse often do. When, for instance, the bearer of the ring puts the ring on his finger, he becomes vulnerable, easy prey for the Lord of the Rings. It relates to the fundamental desire for control that characterises most of humanity. This idea underpins the Tolkein ring ‘obsession’. Once locked in by the power of a ring you are, technically, bound to it. Rings symbolise the power of attraction, protection and retention.
Even the planet orbits in a ring (although in an elliptical orbit). We marry with them, sit in them, and seal bonds with them.
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