In Stephen Donaldson's essay
Epic Fantasy in the Modern World, there's an interesting passage about LotR which I'd like to discuss.
Donaldson begins with giving his own definition of fantasy:
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Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events. Crudely stated, this means that in fantasy the characters meet themselves - or parts of themselves, their own needs/problems/exigencies - as actors on the stage of the story, and so the internal struggle to deal with those needs/problems/exigencies is played out as an external struggle in the action of the story.
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This is obviously a generalization of Donaldson's approach in his Covenant books, which his definition fits perfectly: a character from the 'real' world is transported into a secondary fantasy world, where he confronts his own self-despite in personified form. So far, so good. It gets debatable, in my opinion, when Mr. D. applies this theory to LotR:
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Tolkien argued passionately that Lord of the Rings isn't allegorical. Well, his passion is understandable: using the narrative tools of allegory, he was actually writing fiction far more complex than allegory. The essence of allegory is its one-to-one relationship between the metaphor and the meaning. This means that. But in Lord of the Rings the importance of Sauron, personified evil, resides in the fact that he is an expression of Frodo. Seduced by power, Frodo spends the novel in the process of becoming Sauron - and that is only possible because part of him was Sauron to begin with [emphasis mine, Pw.]. Perhaps the most profound perception in the entire story is Tolkien's realization that darkness can come from even the most innocent, simplest, cutest characters.
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So let's debate: does Donaldson's definition of fantasy fit LotR or no? In what sense can Sauron (or any other character, for that matter) be said to express, personify, correspond to any part or aspect of Frodo? Did Frodo have a little Dark Lord in a hidden corner of his soul - a potential Sauron which the Ring fed? I have my own thoughts about the matter, of course, but I'd like to hear some of yours first.