The Significance of the Shire - Community in LotR

[Carannillion]

Also, check out the Hope and Hopelessness topic. Some thoughts on the Hobbits and their culture and their influence on the way of the world... [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[littlemanpoet]

Seems rather late to admit that I think tangerine was right, but I do now see the Hobbits as being not only provincial, but childlike as well. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Tolkien created in the Hobbits a race that were quite comfortable with themselves as a mix of human (pipe smoking and beer drinking), animal (furry feet and always eating), childlike (bath-loving), and provincial. They even have a little teeny tiny bit of Elvish sensibility in them - or at least, some of them do, such as Frodo (a lot) and Sam (a wee bit).

[Child of the 7th Age]

Littlemanpoet,

It's fun dredging these old threads up and rereading them again, and seeing what new thoughts come popping out. I am surprized that I didn't respond to this one earlier, since I tend to post heavily on Hobbit and Frodo threads.

I found it interesting that you now see the Hobbits as "childlike". There are certainly elements of that in the story, especially since the race as a whole evolved out of a children's book. I'm not sure I would agree with you that the touch of "Elvish sensibility" was also indicative of a childlike nature. In fact, I would probably say the opposite. Those Hobbits like Sam and especially Frodo who acquire not only an appreciation of Elves, but a true understanding of their ways and nature, are the ones who've gone furthest from their roots. In effect, they have left a chunk of their childhood behind and are reaching towards adulthood.

I do think there is an element of that personal evolution in Bilbo's journey in The Hobbit: entire books have been written on how the quest was one of maturation. A similar argument could be made for all four of the Hobbits in LotR . Just as we have the greater journey taking place to destroy the Ring itself, we also have lesser, individual journeys whose end result will also be to break down and change the people involved: what we start out with and what we end up with are not the same, especially for the Hobbits. And all of this will eventually have an impact on the Shire community and its innocence.

Perhaps, this process of maturation is one of the underlying realities that makes Frodo's tale so poignant. In this regard, I am wondering if Tolkien was influenced, especially in regard to Frodo, by his experiences as a father and the fact that he himself had such a wrenching transition to adulthood through the intervention of WWI.

Of course, we'll never really know, and the author would probably look askance at any attempt to link up things in his writing with his personal bio. And yet, when a child reaches adolescence and begins to make their own choices, parents watch with bated breath to see what the outcome might be. Will life be kind or cruel? Will the choices offered be such that the young adult can navigate successfully through the storms and shoals to what every parent wants for his child: a meaningful and contented life. It is so hard to sit and watch a child be confronted with things to which there are no answer. Tolkien certainly knew that harsh reality, seeing his own close friends who had led a sheltered, childlike existence suddenly confronted by the intervention of war. And too often in real life, we see something happen on the road through adolescence that takes a promising child and turns him on his head, eventually destroying his life or his nature.

Frodo may have been "fifty" in chronological terms, but there is another sense in which he too was a child before he began his journey with the Ring: more inquisitive and reflective perhaps than most of his neighbors, yet still at heart someone who had never been asked to mature. A "child" may have been the only one who could carry the Ring with reasonable safety. Yet, the true irony is that once a child takes up the Ring he can no longer remain a child. There is a wrenching process of internal readjustment that is hinted at throughout the story. And while maturity came to all four of the Hobbits on their journey, Frodo's experience was markedly different. Three of the Hobbits successfully navigated their adolesence to a full and active adulthood and participation in the community. They each ended up with families and lives of their own. Yet one did not, and there is something terribly sad about that.

We've had a thousand threads which asked "why Frodo?" Wouldn't someone else have been a better choice? And then we go on to name the likely candidates: most often Samwise. We've identified all Frodo's numerous "flaws": his tendency to whine and see himself as a lone martyr, a certain underlying pessimism, even his procrastination. Yet, in the end, this is one case where I have to take the author at his word. In his Letters, UT, and LotR itself, we are told that Bilbo and Frodo were the only two that could have pulled this thing off. And if we consider the backdrop of the Silm, where time and time again the great Elvish and Mannish heroes fell flat on their faces, this is an amazing thing to say. How sad then to have the "best of the Shire" be lost to the Shire community.

Bilbo's life was bent out of shape far enough that he had to leave the Shire and go to Rivendell to be with Elves: a clear admission both of his growth and the healing that he needed as well as a foreshadowing of what will happen to his nephew. Frodo's own experience was far more wrenching. This will be no gentle transition such as Bilbo had, but a far more painful process. Of all the Hobbits in the Shire, it is Frodo who reaches out the furthest and experiences the greatest degree of change. He is the one who becomes the Elven friend, most fully articulates the meaning of mercy, and eventually reaches a profound understanding of the destructive nature of violence and war. Yet, because of the experience he's been through, each of these changes comes at a terrible price. There is an infinite sense of sadness to see the child Frodo systematically destroyed and replaced by an adult who is so deeply hurt.

Perhaps I've come a long way from community....but perhaps not. We need to understand not only what makes up the community but what breaks it down, what causes it to dminish. And in this case, the Shire lost its very best. Could Frodo have contributed to the community, or was he simply so far ahead of it that his lessons would have fallen on deaf ears?

The Hobbits and the Shire itself did mature beyond childhood at the end of the book, largely through the mechanism of the Scouring. (In that sense PJ really blew it, since we see a Shire unchanged.) Yet, even that reconstituted community will not be the answer for Frodo. All the community and good will in the world sometimes can not make up for the tough realities of life. And it is that sense of underlying fragility that makes the Hobbit community "precious": despite all the bumps and abrasions, despite the loss of the "best" Hobbit of all, the community still manages to find itself and blossom again at the end of the book.

[davem]

The Lord of the Rings is not so much a novel of character as it is an evocation - almost musical, an opera or a symphony - of a mood & a time of life. The time of life is early adolescence, & the mood is sehnsucht, fernweh, nostalgia, Sweet Desire. the experience of reading the book is the experience of those spring days when one is thirteen or fourteen, when the wind seems to be blowing from somewhere beyond the end of the world, when life seems almost unbearably full of possibilities of romance & adventure, & yet also of a sense of loss: the sense that one;s conscious personality is taking shape & acting as a filter to the immediacy of experience - life is actually, & inevitably, growing more ordinary. Yet in this pre-sex stage one's inner world still seems limitless...
There is no going back. Accordingly, the magical world of the Lord of the Rings is one person's inner world, with no real, clashing, messy relationships between different selves; &, when couples wed at the end of teh story, this world ends too: childhood & its magic have to pass into memory...
It is no longer good for people to live in the bosom of nature or within mythical systems, or even pretend to. But it is good for them to remember how it may have felt, & that is one service that Tolkien provides....
What if there's a whole bright, elvish world out there, where pleasure & wonder come with no price attatched? And this is the point of The Lord of the Rings: an invitation to experience joy, the 'koy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief'....Yes, joy is 'infantile', & no, you can't feel it & look clever at the same time. Joy is not The Lord of the Rings 'answer to evil, nor does it make up for suffering - if defenders of Tolkien claim this, they play right into the detractor's hands. But it stands alongside them, undiminished by them, as a fact in this world.
Tolkien haters refuse joy for fear of being decieved. Their predicament was precisely rendered by that smarter-than-they-think writer CS Lewis: they are the dwarfs who Refused to be Taken in. Sitting in a huddle in their imaginary dark prison while the sun shines & the green grass grows all around.

Caroline Galwey,'Reasons for not liking Tolkien', Mallorn 42

So, is LotR a novel about childhood? And if it is, is that really a bad thing. Of course, we grow up, & have to put aside childish things, & terrible things happen to us when wew have grown up - or in the process of growing up, yet I wonder whether that's what draws us back, & whether Galwey isn't right. Why do we go back to LotR? To experience the traumas of growing up, & the inevitable suffering that results, or to experience again the wonder of being a child. Aren't we invalidating childhood if we focus on how terrible are the possibilities of being grown up?

I wonder whether what really draws us back is not the 'facts' of the story, the suffering, the pain, the inevitability of loss, but rather the 'possibilities' - the wonder, the mystery, the awe, the possibility of the happy ending. When we read & re-read LotR, & especially The Hobbit, we want the possible to be made real - to believe ' there's a whole bright, elvish world out there, where pleasure & wonder come with no price attatched'.

Of course, Tolkien seems reluctant (incapable?) of ever quite giving us that - but is that why we love his works so much? Isn't it what he offers us that draws us - in spite of the fact that in the end he takes it away, & tells us we must now grow up & leave it behind, do without it, that its all gone, none left now. At almost every moment in the story there's a glimpse of what we really wish for, always just out of reach, but at the same time, even though its never quite possible to take it in our hands, we can't shake the feeling that that's what our hands were shaped to hold, so we keep reaching out for it.

So, I think maybe LittlemanPoet is right, & the hobbits are 'children', & the child in us, who has never really gone away, identifies with them, with their hopes & dreams & desires.

Oh, to be 'only quite a little fellow in a wide world' again!

[Mithalwen]

I have read the previous posts fairly quickly, so I hope I don't repeat what has already been said more eloquently by someone else....

For me, although it was the strangeness (as in difference) of Middle Earth that formed a major part of the appeal of LOTR when I read it first,as a young adolescent, and used it as a method of escape from my own reality; now as an adult it is, in part, the ability to relate LOTR to my own world that maintains interest.

Although there is much to praise in the films ( I grieve for omissions and diversions as much as most other "book" people but that ground is all ready well trodden), and I understand the "filmic" reasons for it's omission, I feel that without " the scouring of the Shire" the whole story lost its point - at least has far as the Hobbits are concerned. I think that most moving speech of Frodo's "I wanted to save the Shire..." is hugely significant. He didn't set out to save the world. He never intended to be a hero. He just wanted to save he place he loved. Similarly the other hobbits went out of friendship primarily. You cannot stay at home and expect theworld to leave you alone - or go away and find all unchanged.

Without "community" - the quest would have failed. Aragorn's decision not to "sacrifice" Merry and Pippin, by going after the "principal" was key to the success of the quest - without all the events that unfurled consequent to this, Frodo and Sam could not have finished their task. And it is by ralling the community that the Shire is rid of it's invaders.

The Shire, is England, the hobbits are English ... when I read the gaffer's words, I find them so similar to "passed down" quotes of my great grandfather, who would have been about a generation older than Tolkien .... Hobbits may be physically different from men .. but they aren't "foreign" at least not to someone old enough to have had contact with those of a pre-car age. I think the characterisation of the shire folk is affectionate, and a reminder among high ideals that little things and ordinary people are worth fighting for too - freedom is being able to go to the pub for a pint and to "put the world to rights" without fearing that your words will land you in gaol or worse. Sometimes, in the face of overwhelming loss the little things seem most important. I feel there is something very poignant in Sam mourning his saucepans when the world is about to end. We can relate to the gaffer and Lobelia because we know them, in a way we do not know the mighty lords of Gondor.

Despite the urbanisation and spread of Birmingham, Warwickshire is still amazingly rural .... parts I am sure have changed very little since Tolkien's youth - and it is insanely beautiful. So beautiful that it reminds you that your much maligned country is worth caring about, worth fighting for. I know Tolkien hated allegory, but I think it is likely he was at least subconsciously affected by the situation of England and the world around the time he wrote. It should not be forgotten how precarious Britain's state was between the fall of France and the entry of the US into the war. Like the Shire it was so nearly lost.


Englishness is not a topic which most of us who are English are comfortable addressing. There is a feeling that any pride in our heritage condones the "shame" of the country's imperial past. However - if we fear to look beyond our borders for fear of accusations of Empire building, we risk the other accusation - that we are "Little Englanders" , insular, smug, complacent, thinking ourselves safe on our island.

At the start of the story, the Shire folk are "Little Englanders" (sorry if that seems an awful pun on their stature - for once I am trying to be serious!) - I feel the Breelanders are English too but their location, like the gives them a more "outward look". If the shire is protected by an expanse of uninhabited land as Britain is protected by the Sea, then Bree is a port town, more linked to the outside world.

The hobbits go out into the world and influence it's events but they do not Empire build. They return, and though they undo the "industrialisation", they do not quite return to the status quo. The materials are used to improve the homes of ordinary hobbits, the food stores are distributed for the benefit of all. While I wouldn't quite say that it is a form of communism, I feel that there is a shift in power away from aristocracy to meritocracy. It isn't that the hereditary authority figures, the Thain and Master, are overthrown, just that the elected mayor, the lowborn Sam, increases in stature.

Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England, but maybe, unwittingly, he also created a pattern for England's involvement in the modern world.

Despite some editing, I feel I am reaching for something I cannot quite clasp here, I cannot find words to express I feel quite viscerally. I hope it makes some sense - otherwise forgive the ramblings of a madwoman.

PS I would add that I started writing befor Davem posted so that is why it doesn't quite follow on!

[littlemanpoet]

Wow! It looks as if there's been latent interest in this thread. That's fun!

Sorry to have miscommunicated, Sharon, but I didn't mean to imply that an elvish sensibility as indicative of a childlikeness in Hobbits. Rather, I saw it as yet another quality in some elves, and I mentioned it as an afterthought, actually, not having any proof in mind other than Frodo himself. I agree that an Elvish sensibility does pull Frodo away from other Hobbits, although I'm not sure it pulls him away from his own Hobbitishness, any more than Elvish sensibility pulls Aragorn away from being human.

Sharon, you write poignantly of Frodo's maturation and loss, both his of the Shire, and the Shire's loss of him. Could it be no other way? All that we read suggests that the answer is 'no'. But one thing you said, or perhaps implied, toward the end of your post, was that the Shire itself matured. What matured it? I would say that it was not only the scouring, but the occupation - that is - the subsequent War of the Ring that came home to roost in the Shire. It was on a very small scale compared to the War that ravaged all the rest of Middle Earth, but it served as a microcosm.

The Hobbits did mature. The Gaffer, Old Cotton, and Lobelia are singled out in the scouring.

The Gaffer doesn't look much older, but is deafer; as hardy as ever, and put out over his taters. Frodo reassures him that Sam has done more than well by him, and that things would be put to rights. The Gaffer's completely oblivious to the real goings on, even though Sam has tried to tell him what they've been up to, "chasing Black Men up mountains" and all; and Frodo would have it no other way.

Tom Cotton comes across as a really sensible ally, respectable, and uses that reputation for the good of all. Here's a hobbit of hobbits, and itching to make trouble for the ruffians. You love him for what he is, loyal, smart in a local way, cagey after his fashion, not to mention courageous, willing to face off with the ruffians one on many. Great stuff, that!

Lobelia's moment is the most poignant. She has been a thorn in Frodo's and Bilbo's side, but being a prisoner and the word having got around that she had stood up to the ruffians in hobbity subbornness, made her popular. In reading over the little passage, I was astounded to see that there was no dialogue - the story was simply related in a brief and touching way - and it's not even in the scouring chapter!

Each character makes up part of the community. Each one relates to Frodo directly in his or her way. He has an immediate impact on all three; in fact, he has an impact on the entire community, right away. Sure, Sam, Pippin and Merry are the heroic acting ones, but Frodo is the leader. The Shire hobbits all must notice it, since Merry, Pippin, and Sam all look to him for final word. Most importantly, he kept needless violence from occurring, thereby in a very subtle way allowing we don't know how many hobbits to remain good instead of having done something they would be sorry to remember.

davem, I don't think LotR is all about "being grown up versus being a child". It's way too simplistic. I would say LotR has aspects of childhood, but that's not what it's about. It's about death and deathlessness; remember that thread? I go back to LotR for the same reason I go back to other works of fiction (and I'll be going back to Orson Scott Card novels now for the same reason), which is that the story has touched me deeply, in ways that one cannot pick apart with the finest analytical tools.

Think of Tolkien's closing comments in On Fairy-Stories: he points to the Christian gospel as the one fairy-story that turns out to be true. That is his belief.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be "primarily" true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. ... The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the "turn" [eucatastrophe] in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth.

I think primary truth means the same thing as Reality.

So the joy that Tolkien and Lewis (and all the Inklings) speak of is not the nostalgic joy of childhood, but the joy in recogonizing that that which is real, is good, and not merely good, but the best good. Any parent would want this for her child. Any human wants this for himself. Every community that is a real community, wants this for itself.

... little things and ordinary people are worth fighting for...

Mithalwen, that was an excellent statement. I agree with your take on the Shire as insular (pardon the pun to Britain!) and Bree as a kind of port town. I think it's important to note that an overthrow of the Thain and Master are not even remotely considered. The Mayor, Thain, and Master become equals during the reigns of the three friends, each having authority in their own spheres. It really is a strange system of government, very like the organic growth of government in Europe during the middle ages, toward one thing in one place, another in another place. The difference is that the three realms of the Shire were healthy and well-functioning and not feeling threatened in the least by the other two. Just an afterthought, that, and deserving of its own thread!

[Lalwendë]

What I want to say, I have already said before in another thread which was about 'reality', but I want to say it again anyway - put into the context of this thread of course.

The Shire, to me, is redolent of 'home'. It is a small, intimate place, very much a community, and it is full of familiar touchstones. There are pubs, people smoke, there are gossips and self-important mayors and proto-policemen. It reminds me of growing up in rural England, so it is very much a real place to me, and no doubt to many other readers, whether urban, English, American or anything else. It does symbolise a place which is familiar even if we have not been there. It is also the most fully drawn place in Middle Earth, and by that I mean it is described the most vividly; perhaps this is to be expected as the chief protagonist, Frodo, comes from there.

The Shire is not the only beautiful place in Middle Earth, but it is presented to us as the most real, the most recognisable place. I think the significance of this is that as we recognise it so much, we are also determined that The Shire will be 'saved'. I think this is one area where Tolkien's own particular personal politics come through strongly. He felt a deep emotional attachment to the concept of the English countryside and to the idyllic sense of rural life and this is very clearly mirrored in his writing about The Shire. It is presented as a place to be cherished and preserved.

An interesting aspect of this is that the rural idyll is not quite so perfect. Poverty is and always has been a very real spectre haunting England's rural areas. The countryside is also brutal at times - the animals are destined to become meat, the people are often suspicious of 'outsiders' and all manner of crimes (from pub stay-behinds to badger baiting) can go undetected. Tolkien has chosen to reflect the idealised vision of the countryside - and I don't condemn him for this, as in portraying something perfect, it makes it all the more powerful a symbol of something which we know we want to be saved and protected.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Mithalwen, I think it's important to note that an overthrow of the Thain and Master are not even remotely considered. The Mayor, Thain, and Master become equals during the reigns of the three friends, each having authority in their own spheres. !

Yes I agree with this...and that is why I tried to emphasise the rise of Sam rather thatn a diminishing of Merry / Sam - however I do think it is a reflection of a slow change in British society post war ...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

In rereading the FotR for the Chapter-by-Chapter discussion, I was reminded of something I'd forgotten about the saving of the community of the Shire - Elrond originally wanted to send Merry and Pippin back to warn their fellow Hobbits of impending danger. Aside from the fact that their presence in the Fellowship was vital to the success of the quest, I started thinking about what might have happened had they gone back.

Was their own understanding of the danger great enough to convey it to the others? I'm not sure - they experienced the Black Riders, but aside from that, they only heard of deeper matters, and they weren't even present at the Council of Elrond. Even if they had warned, would the Hobbits have taken them seriously enough? Without actually having experienced anything negative at that time, I doubt that they would have understood the danger. The taking over by Sharkey and his ruffians was necessary to arouse them, and even after that, they fell back into complacency, for the most part.

Insular communities tend to stay aloof from the events of the greater world surrounding them until they are actually invaded...

As I see it, Elrond's good intentions would not have brought the results he hoped for, and the events preceding the Scouring would not have been prevented.