Chapter II Sarah McNutt
First off I did not know that Tolkien had divided the Lord of the Rings into six parts, as Tom Shippey points out in Chapter II. I had originally thought The Lord of the Rings was just one book sold in three parts for the sake of paper. This is interesting to me because of where exactly Tolkien has placed the divides and how each section appears to have a similar format. I had observed such patterns in Jackson’s movies but unfortunatly not while I was reading the books.
Shippey points out “If a name exists it offers a kind of guarantee that what it labels must also exist” I find this point crucial to Tolkien and making his world believable. Tolkien even goes so far as to make the names of Dwarves and Hobbits related so that the reader may make the connection that at some point these two species were in close contact. In terms of other passive connections “Ttotter” and “strider” are words for different gaits used by Tolkien as names. It would seem like a small person would trot instead of walk because of their short legs and Aragorn would(of course) walk with confidence and purpose, taking long strides. Shippey in the second chapter discusses how time passes strangely at times in Middle Earth. The anomaly of the realm of elves in relation to the human is commented on by Sam and Legolas. Sam notices that the moon is not at the degree he thinks it should be when they exit the forest. Legolas provides an explanation that makes the reader and Sam really think. “the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow” I have concluded that how it appears to pass is more reliant on the type of character that perceives it.
Shippey also addresses the spans of time where the reader is with one set of characters and not the others. Tolkien intentionally leaves one set in the middle of an action and moves to a different event causing the reader to wonder what has happened with the first group. I had not considered Tolkien’s way of writing as a literary device to create more suspense in the story, but now thinking back it worked very well. I recall a point in which I was tempted to skip ahead to get back to a certain character to find out what happened. Originally I had believed the author used this type of framework in order to not be jumping back and forth frequently all the time to keep characters on pace. Also there are subtle keys that let us keep track of the time frame such as the moon and flying eagles, I was not observant to these clues but I had wondered where character were relative to each other. An interesting fact was that the fellowship was still assisting each other even though they were separated by a great distance. We see this when Aragorn looks into the plantir averting Sauron’s attention from finding Frodo and Sam with the ring, he does this again at the gates of Mordor allowing the ring bearers safe passage towards Mt. Doom.
