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WILLIS
B.
GLOVER*
Rings
cautions
of some
us against interpreting
ulterior
The
Lord
of the
motive:
It is not "about"
anything but itself. Certainly it has no
allegorical intentions general, particular or topical; moral,
The only criticism that annoyed me
religious or political.
"
"
"
was one that it contained no religion
no women,"
(and
but
that
does
not
and
matter,
is
not
true
It
anyway).
is
non-recurring.
would
not
make
sense
call
to
or
Frodo
Sam
or
under
"
to
name
any
the One
There
is,
"
through
the
whole
in the background
another
however,
three
volumes
explanation
sense
in
which
except
for
of Appendix
the
world
reference
A.
of
the
Third
Willis
B. Glover
Author's
versation
Note:
and
and Sally.
l"
Tolkien
is Professor
In
criticism
the
of History
at Mercer
University.
I have appreciated
of this paper
the con
Dan Metts and my daughters
Miriam
Anne
preparation
of my friend
on Tolkien,"
Diplomat
Magazine,
XVIII
(October,
39
1966),
39.
40
Willis
B.
GloveR
whole
the implications are clear and emphatic, is the God of Abraham, Issac,
and Jacob, not "the God of the philosophers."
The book presents
the
world
aware
as
of
the
Hebrews
themselves
as
came
existing
to
understand
under
it when
became
they
God.3
Tolkien's
a transcendent
up
the
Sam
mountains,
saw
white
twinkle
for
W.
D.
Eric
Rouge,
H.
Auden,
Isaacs
and
"
The
Rose
Israel
Voegelin,
126-33.
Quest
Hero,"
A.
Zimbardo.
and
Revelation.
in Tolkien
and the Critics, ed.
republished
(Notre
Dame,
Indiana,
1968),
p. 53.
I of Order
Volume
and History
(Baton
1956),
The
Christian
Character
of
even
his
master's,
ceased
Invented
Tolkien's
all
(Ill,
199)
fear
he
cast
himself
41
to trouble
him.
World
into
deep
He
crawled
back
untroubled
sleep.
Tolkien also reveals, and this, too, pervades the book, that the
proper
response to the good creation is to enjoy it. From the hobbits and
their beer to the wonders of Lothlorien, this is a major factor in the
novel's charm. Typical
of the group of Oxford literary Christians
of whom Tolkien was a member in the forties is the
following passage
describing Gandalf when Pippin was surprised at his gay and merry
laugh during a serious situation. Pippin turned quickly and looked
at Gandalf:
. . . in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and
sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that
under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth
enough
to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth. (Ill, 31)
One is reminded of Father Tyrrell's dictum that a Christian is a short
range pessimist and a long range optimist.
Some of the lighter episodes in the book become more than release
from tension by their contribution to this major theme of the novel.
Who could fail to delight in the bath
song of Frodo and Pippin as
a
hot
bath
after
the
they enjoyed
perilous flight to Bucklebury with
the Black Riders in pursuit?
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
#
at need
glad indeed;
lack,
the back.
(I, 111)
The Ring itself, with its intrinsic evil
power to corrupt whoever
had it, was a corruption of the
good magic of the elves who had
forged the other rings for the better ordering of the world. Sauron, a
42
B.
Willis
superhuman
so
being
far
gone
in
Glover
evil
that
he
was
no
able
longer
to
assume any attractive bodily form, had escaped back to Middle Earth,
"
a spirit of hatred borne upon a dark wind." Learning
by deceit the
secrets of the Elven smiths, he forged a ring that would give him
power
over
the
rings
for
forged
elves
and
dwarves
and
men.
power
was
growing,
but
he
struck
out
at
his
enemies
too
the
meantime
on Middle
Sauron
had
so
increased
his
completely.
strength
that
no
force
His only hope if he could not find the Ring himself was to strike
before its new possessor could realize its full power. The danger to
Sauron was real and he lived in a terrible fear. The story of how his
fear brought his downfall is a study in the ultimate weakness of evil.
The Council of Elrond (the good guys) understood Sauron's motives
and how he would analyze the situation; but Sauron was unable to
conceive of any motives strong enough to withstand the desire for
The good can understand evil, but evil cannot understand
good. That was the fatal weakness of Sauron. (The same deficiency
is seen in the fallen wizard Saruman.
[II, 187])
power.
The
Christian
Character
of
Tolkien's
World
Invented
43
enough
complete
to
enough
remove
doubt
of
the
outcome
in
any
muster.
which
The
task
was
entrusted
a dwarf,
Tolkien's
two
valiant
tale
may
men,
be
to
that
Fellowship
of
the
Ring
after
a wizard.
as
parable
of
the
need
to
adapt
means
The possibilities
of parable
are always
of the
present in a fairy story because
between
the real world
necessary
and the secondary
world
relationship
of the
Cf. J. R. R. Tolkien,
Tree and Leaf (Boston,
story.
1965), pp. 57, 59, 70-71.
44
Willis
B.
Glover
reducing
whose
it was
intention
that
so
far
outreached
indicating
the
ken
explicitly
of
the
actors
in the novel.
The
creating
Creator.
created
contingent,
world
without
reference
direct
to
in
the
than
has
been
recognized.5
commonly
In the modern world faith in the transcendent God has waned, but
the world has remained desacralized.
Modern atheism finds the world
"
without
or
dead,"
profane,
meaning
purpose.6 The response of modern
humanism
to
this
has
development
been
to
see
man
himself,
either
Historians
tionship
of the
esting discussion
here is Francis
of science
doctrine
since
Pierre
of creation
Duhem
have
made
us
aware
of the
rela
of an aspect
of
"
Christian
and the Newtonian
Science:
The
Oakley,
Theology
Rise of the
of the Laws of Nature,"
Church
XXX
433-57.
(1961),
Concept
History,
A convenient
treatise on the Christian
doctrine
of creation
and its relationship
to both science
and
is Langdon
Maker
and Earth
of Heaven
philosophy
Gilkey,
(Garden
work
from
a
lack
of
City, N. Y., 1959);
suffers,
however,
Gilkey's
awareness
of the importance
of late medieval
to his subject.
theology
"
Mircea
The Sacred
and the Profane,
Eliade,
tr. Willard
R. Trask
(New
York,
1961), 178-79, 203-13, and passim.
The
Christian
Character
of
Tolkien's
45
World
Invented
achievement.
It
is not
hard
to
in
talk
poetry
or
novels
about
enough in the book to set the whole background of action. Use of the
passive voice in teleological passages gives a sense of depth and mystery
and creates the kind of qualitative difference between the immediate
and
the
transcendent
that
the
devout
believer
between
experiences
his
mutual
responses
of the
purpose
behind
events
and
crea
tures who are making real decisions and acting with significant effect.
The historical dimension of the Third
Age contrasts strikingly with
the ahistorical nature of some other invented worlds:
Brave New
World, for example, or 1984 or Walden II. The difference
may be
attributed to the
stronger influence of the Biblical tradition on Tolkien.
Karl Barth is
right to call the creation stories in the Bible "saga"
and not
matter from their own
myth. Mythological
past or from
other cultures is used
the
Biblical
but
use
it to make
writers,
by
they
a very different
Western
culture
has
so
and
so basic a
point.
strong
46
B.
Willis
Glover
the
culture,
our own
Professor
narrative
form
makes
it
sense
easy
for
us
to
read
religion
into
them
and
moves
on
to
an
unknown
future
that
no
myth
can
describe. The defeat of Sauron did not restore Middle Earth to some
kind of Third Age
normalcy. It heralded the end of the Third Age
and the beginning of the Age of Men.
Tolkien
makes frequent references to previous
history, even to
events of the First and Second Ages. These
give historical depth to
the narrative and are one of the
ways he makes his imaginary world
believablenot, of course, as literal history, but as the kind of secondary
reality that is the matter of fairy tales. Tolkien is very skillful in this.
His references to the past,
except for one or two of the longer poems
about it that the general reader is
likely to find tedious, are clear and
brief; yet one gets the impression, not of a single "past heroic age,"
but of real depth
perspective in time. These glimpses of bygone events
can hardly be called
so
digressions because they are introduced
naturally
to
explain
the
present
situation.
And
the
principle
of
explana
Rowan
and
Gondor
are
explained
in
terms
of
events
that
were,
The
our
but
Christian
own
enough
Character
in
history
to
the
a
suggest
of
primary
continuous
Tolkien's
World
Invented
world:
fragmentary,
out
development
of
very
a
47
partial,
that
past
sense of
not
is
its
awareness
of
the
but
its
history
past
open-endedness toward
the future; and this too is unequivocal
in the novel. There is never
the suggestion of a return to the past. The future is unknown, at least
"
"
in detail, but it will not be like the
past. Tolkien's novel is a history
not only in that its form is a narrative based on documents
(e.g., The
Red Book) that indicate a
with
our
own
but
also in
time,
continuity
that
the
it
presents
actions
of
Biblical
that
events
creatures.
it assumes
and
which
through
rational
also
acts
in the
implies
creative
future
novel
is
created
being
more
is
in
process
order
and
an
unnamed
that
remain
West
in
Authority
positively or negatively
ways
by
and
Christian
The
and which
inscrutable
to
the
out
that
the
unique
Hebrews
scendent
of
development
historical
consciousness
among
the
is free
because
God
does
and because
between
God
and
his
free
and
a sub-creator.
creatures.
transcends
History
history is fundamentally
In
contrast
to
the
nature
a dialectic
classical
effort
to understand
'Edmund
8
Voegelin,
Western
Fuller,
op.
"The
Lord
cit., 126-33
and
a Biblical
of the Hobbits,"
Tolkien
insistence
and
passim.
on a radical
the Critics,
p.
35.
48
Willis
and trancendent
freedom
in
freedom
context
of
B.
of man;
Glover
natural
order
has
human
contradiction.
produced
The Biblical idea is of Augustinian size and was much more influential
in the late Middle Ages and
early modern times than it has been
since
the
seventeenth
century.
Its
neglect
in
modern
has
times
con
C. Crombie,
have called
of creation
of scientific
for
that Pascal
Once
refining
created
iron
it has
become
part
of
part
of
that
"
second
the
context
of
subsequent
nature
"
culture.
historical
part of its demonic power was like that of the institution of slavery
or that present in a morally more ambiguous historical creation like
nationalism. Whether for good or evil, historical creation has conse
quences for subsequent history; it is thus that past and present are
linked together in historical continuity, and evil, or sin, as well as
justice achieves a corporate existence. A sense of every age's depend
ence on the past and responsibility for the future is very
strong in the
author of the Ring books. Sam found it easy to think of the
great
adventures he and Frodo were involved in as a story like the stories
of past adventures he had delighted in; and with a sudden
insight he
The
Christian
Character
of
World
Invented
Tolkien's
49
recognized that all the stories were a part of one big story and that
he was taking part in the same story as his heroes from the past.
(II, 321)
Another interesting thing about the Ring is that it had no interest
for and no power over Tom Bombadil.
There is no more enigmatic
character in the novel than Tom. When Frodo asked him, "Who
are
"
Master?
the
answer
he
was
what
that's
"Eldest,
(in
you,
got
part):
I am.
...
Tom
was
here
before
the
river
and
the
Tom
trees;
remembers
the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big
(I, 142) Clearly he
People, and saw the little People arriving. . .
is to be identified in some way with nature; was he a personification
of nature or merely a kind of nature spirit? The former seems to
fit better, but the spatial limitation of his power argues against it. Does
he
perhaps
knowledge
ever
such
are
questions
Tolkien
represent
state
previous
human
of
innocence
before
in
some
way
he
the
How
nature,
represents
and
Sauron
things
have
would
no
soon
hold
on
discover
his
where
mind."
the
Other
Ring
elves
was
out
pointed
and
expressed
that
the
"
Power
opinion that Bombadil would not be able to stand against him.
to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth
itself.
And
yet
we
see
nature
that
Sauron
can
Christian, Western
itself
and
even
torture
and
destroy
understanding
exercising
control
the
very
of history as
over
it.
Glor
"
findel said, I think that in the end, if all else is
conquered, Bombadil
will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come." (I, 279)
Glorfindel, it should be noted, did not predict such an outcome; the
Council did not despair. But historical decision is
ultimately what
determines nature and not the other way round. In Tolkien's "mono
theistic
world"
history is One
50
Willis
B.
Glover
but without God the transcendent action must be by man alone. There
are serious problems in this attitude that it would be inappropriate
to discuss here; but the attitude is observable on all sidesnowhere,
perhaps more obviously than in scientific humanism. The problem
how
matter
will
almost overwhelming
text
of one's
one's
strong
dialectic
Marxian
faith
that
God
or
science
or
there remains
finally prevail,
threat of proximate
existence.
the
Despite
overtones
of
or
goodness
the sometimes
transcendent
con
purpose,
and
Shelob,
shed
is successful
on
light
great
decision
other
many
the nature
Tolkien
skill
by
limited
pointed
the
out
are
handled
the
the
so
tension
sense
that
as
convincingly
decisions.
personal
own
reader's
preserves
creatures
and
instances
of
between
"
there
the
are
to
With
hazards
other
of
powers
(I, 420)
to
Sam
that
in
the
old
stories
one
would
not
want the characters to know the outcome. (II, 321) Not knowing
the outcome is what made decisions real and gave them moral serious
ness. The gigantic struggle between good and evil is presented as
transcending the events of this novel, but the actions of each character
acquire a depth of meaning by relation to it. Repeatedly, however,
the uncertainty of the immediate situation leaves little basis for decision
except a sense of what is ethically right. (II, 41)
As is proper to a fairy story, good and evil are more
clearly dis
common
in
recent
than
is
literature.
With
a
few
tinguished
exceptions
The
the
Christian
reader
is
not
Character
in
doubt
as
to
of
Tolkien's
who
are
the
good
the
evil
have
a chance
to
go
World
Invented
and
guys
51
who
are
straight,
at
least
one
of
the
do
not
you
have
here
a matter
possess:
been
chosen,
not
and
for
you
or
power
must
at
wisdom,
therefore
use
rate.
But
strength
and
any
such
of self-fulfillment,
not
even
the
realization
of
"
our
better
that
occur
in our
historical
existence,
and
to which
some
response
to
Tolkien
on
Tolkien,"
loc.
cit.,
39.
52
Willis
B.
Glover
Saruman
Saruman
never joined the forces of evil. But his pride led him to
undertake a contest of will with Sauron which only the king and not
his steward was capable of. Sauron thus gained a
power over his mind
and will. Sauron could not turn him
to
evil but succeeded
wholly
in making him despair of good. The old man in his
despair committed
suicide.
All of these cases are treated with
sympathy and a subtle under
of
and
the
standing
temptation
experience of moral decision. Tolkien
does not have to preach or even resort to ethical and
psychological
explanation; subtlety and depth are achieved in the story itself without
reliance upon comments about it. The
experiences of the characters
are evoked in the mind of the reader whether he chooses to
analyse and
think about them or not.
The themes of forgiveness and
redemption in The Lord of the Rings
are other aspects of ethics that are even more
obviously Christian;
and
they,
narrative.
too,
are
introduced
unobstrusively
as
integral
parts
of
the
The
Character
Christian
of
Invented
Tolkien's
World
53
malaise
of
our
contemporary
age
must
be,
in
part
at
least,
due
to
understanding;
but
it is not
a treatise,
and
readers
of
it
ought
not