The Concept of the Ring:
Shippey tries to reach out to his audience and helps them understand how the medieval idea about the origins of evil in all human societies begins. Shippey does this using modern works of literature and extracts on the topic of evil from medieval times. He helps the reader to understand that it is through man’s own actions and their course of events that the evil in our world created. This very true since Shippey explains that medieval times had it records of heroes, saints and great acts of goodness and so could not decipher the gradation of evil. It was either you were all evil or all good. What Tolkien and his contemporaries help readers to understand is that there are many shades of evil and even with the best of intensions for one’s nieghbour could turn bad if they use the wrong means. Shippey sites modern political systems and individuals with intensions to better humanity as examples of this phenomenon of evil. All of this is summed up in Gandalf speech which is spoken to Frodo about how evil the Ring is.
Wraiths and shadows: Tolkien’s images of evil
Shippey explains how Tolkien and his contemporaries all tried to explain the unfathomable evil that they had experienced in their life. In doing this, they all explained in their own unique ways what evil is and it corrupts the individual. Tolkien tries to explain the evil that does not exist in all people buy rather affects the individual from the outside. Tolkien uses the idea of the Wraith and shadows to explain his theme of evil expressed in his works. According to Tolkien evil can only penetrate the heart and mind of an individual if they open themselves to it. Shippey explains this by saying, “People make themselves into wraiths” (p125). That is, people with good intentions accept evil means to a way of performing great virtues. These individuals mostly forget that they can be corrupted by the evil they try to manipulate and as is always the case, they are always consumed by it. What is interesting about this description of evil is that it holds true till today. In the modern world ideology of evil is summed up in the in the adage: “The end justifies the means” and not the other way round.
Trudy AntwiOctober 28, 2008, at 10:37 PM
