Nice work, Lauren! Obviously you will need to add internal citations and probably expand it a little (the assignment is 3500 words), but this is a great beginning. Lydia Fish October 30, 2008, at 11:57 AM
I’m well aware that we only had to write out an outline for our research papers for this week, but I felt that I really needed to get the entire rough draft completed before the final projects for my other classes officially begin. I am not sure if we’re adding comments to the outlines or only the rough drafts (or both?), but I would really appreciate any feedback on this. Also, I have not had any time to re-read this entire paper, so I am sure there are plenty of grammar and structuring errors. I am certainly aware of the fact that many “paragraphs” are entirely too long! I will adjust those later. I have also not taken the time to italicize any book or journal titles within the paper yet. I plan on making all final adjustments for when the official rough draft is due next Thursday.
Influences of War on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth
J.R.R. Tolkien’s experiences during World War I greatly impacted his thinking, writing, characters, and themes in his creation of Middle Earth. While he was also accused of being very allegorical in his writings, Tolkien made sure to emphasize the point that there wasn’t one subject that was meant to stress a direct connection to the two World Wars he was affected by. He was a phenomenal scholar and was diligent on creating a forgotten history, one which encompassed many actual languages and beings from the present and past histories of the real world. While Tolkien’s work was influenced by his many life changing experiences and scholarly intellect, he managed to demonstrate true emotion and difficulties displayed by his characters. One is able to easily see the influences within Tolkien history of Middle Earth through courage, friendships, mechanical industry, warfare, and psychological trauma.
Before one can truly understand the implications of war and the effects that it has on the psyche and friendships within Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien’s very similar history before, during, and after the two World Wars, must be rightly discussed. The first aspect that that one must consider is the fact that Tolkien had been intrigued by literature, languages, and history long before he had enlisted into the military. His group of friends, who were all avid learners, had enlisted into the military at the same time. This assemblage of friends were described as “The quartet invented languages, played rugby, put on Greek plays, and talked about how important they were to the future of the world. When the War began, they enlisted and shared nostalgic, sentimental correspondence…As it happened, they were of no significance to the world, nor was the future anything like what they had hoped it might be” (Russell 16). However, prior to this catastrophic warfare, Tolkien had already begun to see the ill change and deterioration of the land he had loved around his home. The destruction of nature around his home, which was brought upon by technology and industry, began when Tolkien was still in his teenage years. While Tolkien had a fond appreciation for the simplicity of nature, he found his dislike for complexities in what he believed to be the most evil invention of his time, the internal combustion engine.
Once Tolkien officially entered into the war with his friends, he had arrived in a completely different world. He had been thrown into the Somme, which was the major battle on the Western Front. Tolkien noted that gradual changes of rank among men came along quicker than had originally thought, due to 400,000 allies had been killed in the battle of the Somme alone. Many of these perished soldiers were gruesomely disfigured and released the horrid stench of death. New ranks were given out every day and Tolkien had seen the distinguished classes of men become less meaningful. All men out on the field soon saw each other as equals and friends. While the war waged on, Tolkien used the calmer moments in the trenches to write down his thoughts on Middle Earth. The book that he wrote in soon came to be known as “The Book of Lost Tales”. However, he had the pleasure of being taken out of the war two years before it officially ended due to illness. Unfortunately, part of those two years were spent in a hospital before he was discharged and could live at home with his wife. Contradictory to most post war victims, Tolkien did not dwell on the happenings of the war at that time, but resorted to writing poems and narratives that included themes similar to the simple life of Hobbits. Unfortunately, once Tolkien had been dismissed from the battle field, he had gathered his thoughts and came to the realization that all but one of his friends had died in the war. Feeling troubled over the fact that his friends would never write great literature, he took on their ambitions and delved into the realm of Middle Earth in their honor. However, Tolkien and his battle scarred friends would not want to remember the particular horrors about the war. Unfortunately, war ends up changing people, making it very difficult to go back to the way things used to be. The one thing that Tolkien’s group of friends would all have in common at that point, to unify them in memory, would be to input themes and symbols similar to the war.
The few friends and fellow authors that had survived the war had all experienced trauma and other horrors. They were on their own for finding explanations for the evil of war. As Tolkien worked on the intricacies of the history of Middle Earth and the anti-quest that Frodo unluckily had to suffer through, he came across many individuals and critics who considered his work to be mere allegory to his inflictions from the World War. He was appalled at these analogies, especially to the ones pertaining to World War II. The reader was meant to make associations of the saga to their own experiences. Tolkien wrote of Middle Earth to provide a world for the languages, instead of providing languages for the world. One could possibly assume that Tolkien’s experience out in the field of war led to his disgust of such uniformity; each person simply being considered a soldier and not an individual. Having such diversity among his work creates a somewhat peaceful outlook on his view of the world. Tolkien wanted a world where every different race could come together as a whole, to live with one another peacefully, while maintaining their unique qualities and heritage.
At this particular period of time where authors were looking for a way to explain the injustice and violence in the world, there emerged two forms of literature. There was the group that Tolkien had become a part of, which included men who had been active soldiers in the war and whose writing remained rather conventional, seeking happier familiarity. The second group of writers pertained to the men who remained in the comfort of their homes during the war and relished the idea of developing literature that discussed the horrors of the war out right, without any true consideration or understanding for the men who had suffered in combat. It was men like this who believed in the war because they were not truly being affected by the constantly nagging question of how such chaos could actually come into being. Tolkien had a strong hatred for these men and didn’t believe they were given the privilege of speaking of war when they would not come and help fellow comrades fight the rigorous battles. He believed until the very end that fewer men would have died in the war if there had been more reinforcements.
While these two groups of novelists were distinctly different from one another, Tolkien specifically set his own way to view the effects from the war. Shippey had mentioned within Author of the Century, “…and by a theory of courage which is similarly ancient in its roots, and familiar in contemporary times (as Tolkien said himself) from one First World War memoir after another” (Shippey 157). Particularly, Tolkien chose to focus on the better influences from war, namely the characteristic of courage, which can clearly be seen throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This same act of courage can be seen within J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and aids in explaining some recurring themes within the Lord of the Rings. One quote from the series notes, “ Lord Voldemort, the evil force in the books, killed James and Lily Potter, Harry’s parents, but he was unable to kill Harry because of his mother’s love, and the effort broke his power and almost destroyed him”(Johnston 7). Love does not always conquer all in real life, and it’s this stereotypical sacrifice that every individual looks towards and hopes to achieve. The sense that sacrificing something to keep everyone happy, to do it for the good of the team, very rarely leads to this euphoric sense of accomplishment, of a job well done. An example of this in real history can be seen with war in Russia. At one point in time, any soldier who decided to retreat and betray his country would be shot on the spot by his own comrades. In a usual sense of war, especially during the two World Wars, men were expected to do the same thing more or less. The honor of fighting for one’s country and pushing forward to achieve the goal was all that should have mattered to a soldier. However, Tolkien clearly represents in his work that achieving the objective is not always the only thing that matters. Tolkien’s strong representations of friendship and truth constantly echo throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is apparent the most during the travels of Sam and Frodo.
While Frodo is the “soldier” who has to deliver the ring to Mount Doom to destroy the enemy, he feels that the deliverance is solely his burden to bear. A particular connection that this has to war in the real world are the ever unanswered questions of what one is fighting for and wondering what the point of going on is for. The important thing that Frodo is constantly reminded of by Sam is that friendship and love are worth fighting for, and that these themes are not merely standing in the way of accomplishing a mission. Sam and Frodo are the perfect example for a Lieutenant looking after his General. Whether Tolkien wanted to express this idea or not, the camaraderie shown among soldiers during the World Wars was astounding. While lower ranked soldiers did have an overwhelming sense of love, admiration, and need to protect one’s superiors, men of all ranks soon became equal in most respects. Men of higher ranks would be dying every day out on the field, and Tolkien understood from first hand experience, that other men with the same amount of knowledge that he had, would be promoted on the spot because they needed someone to fill that empty rank. While friends became superiors, the underlying friendship would still remain the same, which helped strengthen the ideals of sacrifice out on the battlefield. Tolkien clearly wanted to incorporate this motif into the relationship between Sam and Frodo. The formation of the fellowship might have led the audience to believe that Sam, Merry, and Pippin, were merely servants, more or less, for Frodo along his journey. However, Tolkien finely developed the relationship between Sam and Frodo along their journey and trials, and it became quite clear that the two friends were equals on all levels, and that each one made up for the other’s faults. Not only are equality of friendship and courage important features that Tolkien introduced into the narrative due to his experiences during the war, but self-sacrifice is another principle theme that is reflected throughout war centered novels as well. While most individuals out on an actual battlefield would do anything to save their friends, the unifying theme of war still rested on doing what was best for winning the war. The author of Christian Theology as Depicted in The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter Books introduces a statement regarding J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. However, this statement discusses the aspect of self-sacrifice that can be seen within the Lord of the Rings. Johnston denotes, “The last theme I want to mention is that of Harry as a wounded healer. Over and over again, in numerous places in each book, the reader comes to see Harry as someone who suffers himself, even as he works to ease the sufferings of others”(Johnston 7). This would appear to be a lasting trait with comrades in real war. If one friend had been wounded in the war, you would risk your own life to help save him or her. The only thing worth fighting for during war is for the ones that you love. It’s even tougher when those loved ones are fighting in the war with you. Surprisingly, throughout Tolkien’s own work, there are several moments where he enacts the exact opposite effects. “Soldiers” who have gained wisdom and experience from past battles, automatically know when to retreat, keep fighting, or to help others out. One particular scene, where Gandalf is fighting off the Balrog in Moria, leads to the more experienced fighters ushering the hobbits away from Gandalf. This lengthy band of friendship between the hobbits and Gandalf results in this classic emotion of needing to help out a fellow comrade when he is in trouble. However, the other members of the fellowship, while saddened by the loss of a member of the group, are not nearly as affected since they did not have as quite as close of a friendship with Gandalf or with each other.
Tolkien knew that while he could not completely escape the experiences he had gone through he could use that personal oppression of the war to his advantage. While Tolkien must have wanted his literature to be completely unique and uninspired from other authors of that time, many post-war writers turned to the same genre of story-telling. The author of Fantasies Conjured from War mentions, “[Tom Shippey] further asserts that various writers who experienced the new horrors of total war and genocide sought to describe their feelings in the terms of fantasy” (Russell 15). Fantasy writers were exceptionally common after the war, including authors such as Tolkien and Lewis. They used this fantasy medium to discover plausible meanings for the destruction of war. At the same time, these similar authors would not directly speak of the terror they had witnessed. Many of these ideas had a connection to Christianity, especially when discussing the Manichean dichotomy between good and evil. This struggle between powers shows its influence on Tolkien through the constant push and pull of the war. The good is apparent through the happy memories from England when he was young, while the bad included the enemies he had encountered during the war, such as Germany and Russia. Tolkien clearly displays these opposites within the Lord of the Rings by introducing a community with geography that he had been familiar with and pleased with as a child; the Shire being compared to the town of Sarehole where Tolkien spent most of his childhood. The opposite view of evil is displayed through the mechanical industry and war that Tolkien loathed since it destroyed the purity around him, which is similar to the weapons, the ring, and soldiers within the trilogy.
There are several instances of influence from war within Tolkien’s literature that scholars have specifically noted. Within the Shell-Shocked Hobbit Livingston notes, “Barton Friedman, for instance, points out the similarity of the faces in the bogs of the Dead Marshes to specific descriptions of the Somme, of the Noman’s Lands of northern France to the ‘Noman-lands’…between the Dead Marshes and Morannon, of the shrieking of the Nazgűl to incoming mortar rounds and their respective effects on men” (Livingston 81). While one needs to keep in mind that Tolkien did not want to have allegory between the war he experienced and his literature, there is still significant information to show that Tolkien did in fact use his personal experiences to understand particular aspects while he was writing. Friedman’s thinking over the faces within the Dead Marshes is a fine example of the influence of experience. To be able to properly portray the subject matter one needs to experience it first hand, which Tolkien had witnessed on the Somme. Someone who had never read or heard of Tolkien’s background would be able to make the inference of him being a troubled war veteran from such a passage.
Not only does Tolkien’s writing leave its audience contemplating particular influences from war, but Tolkien’s close friend C.S. Lewis also confirmed the influences that he had read within the War of the Ring. Lewis mentions that the Lord of the Rings, “has the very quality of the war my generation knew…the endless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of the front…the flying civilians, the lively, vivid friendships, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and such heaven-sent windfalls as a cache of choice tobacco ‘salvaged’ from a ruin” (Livingston 77). More than anyone else, Lewis as one of Tolkien’s best friends, would know when particular war instances were brought up within Tolkien’s work. Keeping watch every night out on the battlefield and listening for any obscure noises, as well as the simplicity of friendship and pipe weed, are all examples within the Lord of the Rings that Tolkien had become well acquainted with in his own endeavors. The particular note that Lewis makes about discovering tobacco from a ruin, was heaven to soldiers out on the battlefield. Tobacco was a way for soldiers to take their minds off of the death and destruction they had seen from the day’s affairs. It was a means for soldiers to remember better times, similar to when Merry and Pippin discover the pipe weed at Isengard and are instantly reminded of their home life. For a short while, the two hobbits forget about the battle that had taken place on the land and take a break to relax.
Aside from courage, friendship, and the lasting images of the death and destruction on the battle grounds, Tolkien introduces a subject that embodies the war hardened soldier. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of the most common side effects of war veterans. While Tolkien had not shown any severe symptoms of trauma, he still remained a changed man. It is difficult to understand what these individuals are forced to live through every day of their lives unless one has been in a similar situation. This psychological experience created one of the best additions to the storyline in the Lord of the Rings. The character that shows the biggest change and an excessive amount of psychological and physical damage is that of Frodo Baggins. One quote that encompasses such mental trauma upon Tolkien is brought up by “Gandalf and Bilbo’s exchange is doubly appropriate, then, since the journey to Middle-earth was, for Tolkien, a journey into the Undying Lands, where he might eventually find healing for the wounds of war that would not heal” (Livingston 90). One of the main reasons for Tolkien writing his history of Middle Earth, besides sheer hobby, was the fact that he wanted to come up with an answer for pain and evil. While he tediously worked on the major body of his trilogy, which entailed Frodo’s anti-quest to destroy the one ring, Tolkien had to come up with the conclusion for the main hero’s arrival home.
After the section on the Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien had to search deep within himself to figure out whether a traumatized war hero could finally find peace at home, or whether it was necessary for Frodo to finally come to rest in another way. Tolkien introduces Frodo’s final thoughts on the subject of his mental and physical well being, “There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?” (Livingston 85). Frodo readily admits that he experienced far too many horrors and received too many injuries along the journey to be able to continue pretending that everything is fine. For Frodo, as well as Tolkien himself, peace is finally achieved by traveling to the undying lands, where one can only travel to by elven ship. Not only did Tolkien end the trilogy in this fashion to bring Frodo’s life to a happy conclusion, but Tolkien wrote about the undying lands to have a sort of conclusion for himself as well. While he could not find true peace and harmony within the real world, Tolkien turned to Fantasy to give a meaning and an answer to the murderous warfare he encountered in his own life. The trilogy allowed Tolkien to experience his own form of closure from the war.
Even though characters such as Gaffer Gamgee had psychological unpreparedness, similar to men not expecting certain horrors within the war, Frodo still remains the main attraction of depression and anxiety. The slow pace that Frodo acquires his many nightmares is enhanced by the multitude of these stress filled excursions that he undeservingly suffers through. The first instance of a bending of his mind and will power is shown when Gandalf returns to Hobbiton and asks Frodo for the ring that had been left in Frodo’s care. As Frodo goes to hand the ring over it is described as, “suddenly very heavy, as if either it or Frodo himself was in some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it”(Johnston 5). Not only does this show the mental aspect inflicted upon the hobbit, but the scenario with the ring is very similar to war in real life. Frodo has not yet become addicted to any power, but the mere notion that the ring is something powerful and is inherently his to always own, automatically weighs on his mind. Power is very difficult to give up, no matter who wields it.
But through several passages from the book, the audience can truly see the torment from the psychological effects that gradually weigh on Frodo’s mind over time. The trauma of the journey and of the war piles up as each day quickly passes by. Once Frodo is back at home in the Shire, the anxiety becomes more severe on significant dates that represent more traumatic experiences in Frodo’s life. As stated in the Shell-Shocked Hobbit, “While none of these events substantially sets him apart from other members of the Fellowship, they are, taken as a whole, indicative of a clear history of trauma” (Livingston 83). This trauma, also known as shell-shock, is more noticeable with Frodo because he had the hardest burden to bear. The ring that Frodo constantly wears along his journey affects the minds of several of his companions, but they are only affected every once in awhile, where as Frodo is forced to live with the ring for an extended period of time. Along the journey that every war hardened soldier goes through, family and friends back home who have not experienced these terrors still expect the soldiers to return home as exactly the same as when they had left. However, many soldiers who return home are completely different than the men they had originally developed into. The reader is allowed to witness this change in behavior and personality through Frodo as he travels to Mordor and specifically to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. While one is able to see the effects that the ring constantly brings upon Frodo, the true realization of his permanent change is not fully acknowledged until after the ring is destroyed. It is easy to consider Frodo being weary and full of anxiety as he travels along the long and difficult path to achieve his goal of destroying the ring. In the end, with any similar situation of men in war, once Frodo returns home to the Shire and there is peace in the world once again, people expect him to make a full recovery because there is nothing to worry about anymore. However, the scars that Frodo bears, physically and mentally, are a bigger burden than most of his friends and family are able to understand.
Once the war ceases and the ring is destroyed, there are several instances where Frodo chooses to have nothing to do with war or fighting any longer. This is similar to Tolkien averting any direct connections to the war he fought in within his history of Middle Earth. Soon after the destruction of the ring in Mount Doom, Tolkien describes a ceremony where Frodo is being honored for courage and achievements, which is briefly discussed by Livingston, “Removing his old raiment and preparing to dress for a feast in his honor, Frodo is very reluctant to wear a sword, even an ornamental one…Such behavior would be familiar to Tolkien from his war experiences, as an aversion to violence is a common post-traumatic symptom of combat veterans in particular” (Livingston 84). When someone becomes very connected to a certain event or person, such as Frodo becoming much attuned to everything that had occurred to him during his journey, that person happens to associate that familiarity with other similar objects or ideas. Clearly wearing a sword inhibits Frodo’s ability to heal his injuries, considering the many events where he had to defend himself, such as fighting against Shelob and having to threaten Gollum with the sword as well. Not only would Frodo have concerns over battle that he had encountered himself, but the fighting that he had witnessed among his friends, companions, orcs, and other beings greatly affected Frodo as well.
Returning home to the Shire to realize that it had been over run by ruffians also contained an example of Frodo having been affected by shell-shock. His hobbit friend, Merry, tells Frodo at one point, “But if there are many of these ruffians…it will certainly mean fighting. You won’t rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo” (Livingston 87). Certainly this event of destruction that took place in Frodo’s home town added to his prolonged shell-shock as well. The one place that Frodo would have imagined to be untouchable by evil and to bring him peace within himself had become over run by evil. Similar to what had been mentioned with Frodo feeling uncomfortable with a weapon after battle, shows that his unwillingness to fight the ruffians already introduces the immediate results of Frodo wanting to forgot about the evil that he had partaken in. One can make a similar comparison to the home life that Tolkien had once been used to in his youth. He was often inspired by the landscape, which is clear to see within the descriptions of the Shire, and he was fairly upset about the mechanizations that began to destroy the ecosystem. More or less, this quote can be related to Tolkien’s situation because he was shocked and sad over these revelations but he hadn’t taken any actions to change the things that he didn’t want in his life.
Tolkien never even breaks the change in Frodo’s personality in behavior once the Return of the King comes to a close. Frodo is given an offer to sail to the undying lands to live out the rest of his life in peace and to finally forget the suffering had had been through. While Frodo, more or less makes the journey to the undying lands alone because he is without his closest hobbit friends, he understands that his friends will be able to heal their wounds in time, where as Frodo understands he will never be able to. This is recognized when Frodo tells Sam, “…you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be” (Livingston 91). Sam, who had accompanied Frodo directly along his side through the majority of the journey, is a perfect example of how Frodo has deeper scars than other individuals within the fellowship. Since Sam had followed Frodo everywhere, Sam also viewed and more or less experienced the same fear and emotions that Frodo had experienced. The difference as to why Frodo had bigger difficulties than Sam was because of the power of the ring. The influence of the ring on Frodo’s mind strained his will power to the very edge. The reader is able to see how far Frodo was able to go before he could no longer resist the trickery from the ring, which was the point in Mount Doom where Frodo could not part with it. Unfortunately for Tolkien, this companionship and strong similarity between Frodo and Sam had been stripped apart from the effects of the ring. Frodo was a war victim who could not cope with the trauma he had witnessed, while Sam, appearing to be the stronger and more courageous of the two hobbits towards the end, maintained that strength and courage to go back and to live a normal life once again. Tolkien himself could have taken either of these two roads and it appears that Tolkien can relate closer to Frodo because of the mental and physical scars that he had encountered out on the Somme.
The one major difference that one should recognize between the author and Frodo is the fact that Tolkien wrote a narrative that had no direct connotation to the war he had experienced, where as Frodo wrote the entire legendary journey that he had been through. This very instance of Frodo, being so traumatized from war, and yet being able to write down an entirely accurate narrative of his endeavors, seems somewhat contradictory to what most scholars see within shell-shocked victims. As stated earlier in this essay, war veterans who are severely affected by things they had witnessed tended to takes routes in the future that took them away from the memories of war, while individuals who did not personally encounter the war could not help but find multiple ways to discuss what had happened within the war. Perhaps Tolkien sees himself within Frodo and would want to understand every detail and emotion as to why the war had occurred and the ways in which the war had progressed. Yet at the same time, Tolkien does not see the strength inside of himself to acknowledge the horrors from his own past. However, the character of Frodo could not end on the happy note of being able to get over the terrors in his mind and happily live out the rest of his long life. Tolkien may have been interested by fairy tales, but there is a reason as to why the Lord of the Rings is a Fantasy and not the prior. It is very rare for someone to live happily ever after, especially after having gone through the difficulties expressed through war. Tolkien knew that even though the World War had been won by the countries he was fighting for, he could never pretend that the evil had never happened or that it could never happen again. This is perhaps the reason as to why Tolkien looks up to many other war veterans. They have been able to find their reasons for moving on with their lives and accepting what had been seen within the war.
Throughout Tolkien’s childhood, the rest of his youth, and the before and after effects of war on his adulthood, he has still managed to create a historical phenomenon that became enhanced by his experiences during the World Wars, especially World War II. He managed to encompass courage and friendships among individuals of different ethnicities and backgrounds. The death and destruction that Tolkien witnessed from the war helped introduce many different reactions from characters when their comrades fell under an enemy weapon. This same theme allowed Tolkien to describe the enemy orcs, architecture, and battle grounds, with a precise portrayal for the audience to feel as if they were actually experiencing the same dilemmas. However, he is able to fully intertwine his narrative by structuring the growth, development, and decline of certain characters through the psychological shocks of their journeys. Overall, J.R.R. Tolkien has shown the world that battle worn veteran still has the ability to retain his sanity and to enthrall and shock readers of all ages.
Lauren Brych? October 29, 2008, at 05:35 PM
