Utopian Shire

[Lalwendë]

What's that saying about the perfect society always being the one that was fifty years ago? That's the impression I get from what Tolkien was trying to paint for The Shire - it was the rural past of England that was just, but only just, out of his reach.

Of course we can find plenty of reasons why the Real World at that time might not have been so perfect, and we could probably find some reasons why The Shire was not so perfect. I mean, why did Bilbo have to teach Sam his 'letters'? Was there no schooling for working class Hobbit children? If I was to write a Marxist analysis of Tolkien's work then that would certainly figure highly...

But anyway, yes, The Shire approaches something Utopian in that there is a general air of happiness about the place and we do not see any obvious examples of suffering or oppression. There is no need for much 'policing' which suggests a lack of crime, and the classes (Sackville-Bagginses aside) seem to rub up nicely, certainly the upper crust Merry and Pippin treat Sam very well. Of course, I could just see The Shire that way as the world I lived in as a small child wasn't too different from The Shire, being rural and cosy and populated by Gaffer types.

There are plenty of readings of The Shire as being a bit 'anarcho-syndicalist' in that there are few 'rules' and little Authority yet people seem to work co-operatively and happily together. There have also been parallels drawn between The Shire (and Tolkien in general) with William Morris and his own idealised views of how the world ought to be. And still more, people have 'read' it as symbolising England in the age of Empire when people 'knew their place' and life was bountiful.

I suppose you can almost read whatever 'sort' of Utopia into it that you wish, really...and the biggest tragedy about what Saruman does is that he destroys this idyll and even though it can be 'repaired', the memory of it won't ever go, and it's very much Innocence Lost.