The Structure of The Lord of the Rings

[littlemanpoet]

I continue to be puzzled by the concept of a story that is principally driven by milieu...

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that plot and character and idea can drive a story, but setting can't.....very well. Your verb, drive, however, may be pointing up a misconception. Perhaps an analogy may help: the structure of an automobile is that which houses the engine, which drives it. In the same sense, the structure of a story could be that which houses the engine that drives the story. Of course, being an analogy, it's sure to have its limits, but it helps (I hope) to get the idea across. The Milieu which is Middle Earth is the "house" of the plot, characters, and ideas. But of course a story is far more fluid than a car, and that's where the analogy breaks down. The characters and plot move through the setting, interacting with different aspects of it. I admit to thinking out loud here, but it's the best I can do here. At any rate, this is as least part of the sense in which the Milieu of LotR is that upon which plot, character, and idea, hang. By no means do I intend to imply that milieu overshadows plot and character in LotR! They interrelate, of course. Oh well, enough blather about this.

[Bêthberry]

I'm coming in late with a reply here, but I have a very interesting observation about Anglo-Saxon culture which I think might shed some light on this milieu/setting issue.

We seem to recognise fairly clearly the features, of, say, Beowulf which inspired Tolkien--the heroic ideal, the rings and fealty, the camaraderie of the mead hall, the wonderfully robust lines of alliterative verse. We tend not to talk about any influences from OE religious verse, or the riddles, or prose, but those exist also. The poem The Dream of the Rood, for instance, is written in the voice of the cross on which Christ was crucified, a talking tree, if you will. (The Cross, the Rood, that is, refers to itself as a tree.) Then there is the theme of exile and the sea. There are other aspects of Old English literature and Anglo-Saxon culture which also appealed to Tolkien besides the heroic ideal.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to copy a very interesting comment which Peter Ackroyd makes in his book Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. I won't quote passages from OE texts, but for the time being ask us to consider this idea.

We may identify here a sense of belonging which has more to do with location and with territory, therefore, than with any atavistic native impulses. There has been much speculation on the subject of location theory, in which the imperative of place is more significant than any linguistic or racial concerns. In The Spirit of the People: An Analysis of the English Mind, published in 1912, Ford Maddox Ford suggested that "it is absurd to use the almost obsolescent word 'race'." He noted in particular the descent of the English "from Romans, from Britons, from Anglo-Saxons, from Poitevins, from Scotch..." which is perhaps the best antidote to the nonsensical belief in some 'pure' Anglo-Saxon people. In its place he invoked the spirit of territory with his belief that "It is not--the whole of Anglo-Saxondom--a matter of race but one, quite simply, of place -- of place and of spirit, the spirit being born of the environment." In Ford Maddox Ford's account that tradition is in some sense transmitted or communicated by the territory. It is a theory which will also elucidate certain arguments within this book.

I would suggest it is this "imperative of place" which Tolkien draws upon from his Anglo-Saxon learning. It has much to do with the fullness of detail and specificity of site in LotR. And more: I think it is glorying in this sense of territory which holds all the disparate elements of the story together, the double stranded plot, the rambling, picaresque plotting, the symbolic unity of the Ring and the Shire, the paralleling of so much. Note that I am not saying the Scouring of the Shire is a mistake because we cannot predict it from the earlier anticipations of plot. I am saying that Tolkien's profound sense of the loss of the rural landscape to the machine is part of his lament for a value of this earlier tradition.

The runes from "The Dream of the Rood" are carved on the Ruthwell Cross, a stone cross dated to the late seventh centure, which creates, in Ackroyd's words, "a sacred topography of the nation." I felt some of this even this even late in the seventh age when I toured Great Britain last summer. At least, I felt it in England, but not in Glasgow. The sense of historical place I experience in North America is very different: In one city, the historical site of a great find of oil, which brought wealth and prosperity beyond imagining to the province, was in the way of a large, multi-lane highway which would connect the province. What was done? The oil derrick and the tourist site were moved a mile away, to a spot which never produced oil and never will. (Shades of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) So much for a tangible, spiritual sense of location. It's rather like saying grape juice will do instead of wine. (Lest I raise any hackles with that statement, let me say my family's religious inheritance is Protestant.)

I cannot imagine this ever happening 'in Middle-earth'. The sense of place is palpable in LotR, in the sanctuaries of the Bombadil household, Rivendell, Lothlorien, in the experience of forest in the Old Forest and Fangorn, in the way Rohan is connected with wide open prairie and plains, or Minas Tirith with the walled city. Every place is a measure of continuity and identity. And even the landscapes of darkness have discriminating topologies which in the very absence of this continuity ironically reconfirms it. Place and space reflect the measure of being connected to Arda. This furnishes not just the characters but readers also with "a communal memory of place".

This might not 'drive' the story, but to me it holds it together like the crisscrossing stone walls which roll up and down over the English countryside.

[davem]

|Bethberry's mention of The Dream of the Rood reminded me of the medieval legend that the wood from which the cross was made was cut from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil in Eden. The tree which lead to Man's fall is the same one on which it's salvation was achieved, so that Christ becomes the 'fruit' hanging from that tree - a fruit that brings life rather than death.

So we have Trees & tree- symbolism running through the Legendarium - which begins with the Two Trees of Valinor & ends with the Two Trees of Middle earth - the White Tree in Gondor & the Mallorn in the Shire. Middle earth becomes an 'echo' of the Blessed realm, & Heaven has come down to earth. It is a kind of 'incarnation'. The world is made 'divine' in a small way because the divine has entered into the world. As Above, so Below. As Then, so Now.

So with all the repetitions of name - 'Minas Tirith' is a name which echoes down out of the First Age - names of people echo down in the same way. Some individuals live on through each age - Elrond, Galadriel, Glorfindel, Sauron & prvide a living link to the past. Connections through time - constant references to heroes of the past, & their stories abound to strengthen this meaning, this link, that people have with the past.

The past is alive in the present, rather than being simply 'memory' - & that's principally because of the Elves (& to an extent to the Ents). When they have passed into the West, or into the Land, that link will be gone, & there will be only memory - which is 'not what the heart desires'. And perhaps that's it - what we have now is not what our hearts desire. They desire a living connection with the past, so that it is not truly 'past'. They desire 'Elves'. Which, I think, is FMF's point. Its also, perhaps, the reason of our dislike of change - if it involves the loss of the old. Perhaps it also explains the desire for destruction that some individuals have. To break free of the past & begin anew is also part of what we desire. We have inherited (within the mythology, at least) an Elvish 'strain'. The Elvish side of us wants that living link, wants to preserve our connection with what we were & where we came from. The 'Mannish' side wants to move forward & explore, & has to break those links. We are pulled in both directions - towards past & future. LotR is a book about endings & loss of what was, but its also one that looks forward to a new future. It is a kind of frozen moment, an eternal 'present' - which perhaps explains why we can continually go back to it - it will never become 'stale', because it's always right at the point we are at as individuals - caught between past & present.

[Lalwendë]

The sense of place is palpable in LotR

I too have to defend the importance of setting in LotR. Without it, the book may not have gripped me in quite the same way. Each place travelled through or visited is very real due in no small part to the description of the setting. I have been to Rivendell, and I have been not only to The Shire, but right into a hobbit hole, and this was done by reading about them. This world is, to put it simply, vivid.

Each place emphasises the characteristics of those who live in those places. Think of how Lothlorien is constructed of tall and beautiful trees, echoing the characteristics of those who reside there, or how The Shire is simple, comfortable and homely, rather like the Hobbits themselves. This sense of place also tells us the history of the peoples of Arda. There are ancient barrows, which tell us that a great people once lived near the Downs, and we have Moria, to tell us of how strong and powerful the Dwarves once were. Yes, it may indeed not drive the story, but the sense of place not only takes us right into the picture of Arda that Tolkien had, but it also tells us what characteristics its people possess, and it tells us their history, and it adds that all important depth which we value so much. Even after the 'race' of men who inhabited the Barrow-Downs have long since departed, we still know they existed because of what they left behind, and we only know that because Tolkien shows us what they left behind.

This is true of our own landscapes. The places where we live or where we grow up really can define our characters. I grew up in a village where people naturally knew each others' business which has made me nosey; those who grow up amongst people of many other cultures often become very open to other ideas. Look at Aragorn, raised in Rivendell, and hence much more amenable to Elven ways than most Men.

This imperative of place is not unique to Tolkien. Two other writers who appreciated the importance of place were Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. In Wuthering Heights, we see the contrast between the more elemental and much older house of the title with the genteel elegance of the house belonging to the more socially acceptable Linton family. If the situations were reversed and the Lintons lived at the Heights then the story would not be the same. In Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native the nature of Egdon Heath almost becomes a character in the novel itself; it is brooding and temperamental, it hides people, it even kills.

The essence of place, the resonance it brings for us, is a deep seated sensation, one which is being hurt in this modern world of globalisation and the fragmentation of community. No longer do we linger in the places where our families have lived time immemorial, and we instead have 'progress'. Perhaps the loss of features of our landscape, the demolition of old buildings, cutting down of familiar trees, the building of roads through what to others might look to be ordinary fields, perhaps these losses have resonance to us because we are all clinging to any sign of the past, in a world which is always threatening to take us along with it whether we like it or not. I think Tolkien felt this too, the need to feel 'rooted' in a place, to have a 'connection' to somewhere. One of the great sorrows is that while our world is changing so fast about us, it is in a book that we find a place which is always familiar to us, and it is to a book that we have to go to find that comfort of place which we all seek.

I don't think its so surprising that there is such an interest in genealogy these days as many of us seek to find our roots in something; it is interesting that despite where we eventually end up on the planet, we always carry our names with us, words that give away our history; this too is echoed in Arda. I also think that one reason behind interests in ancient history is that we seek to find meaning within our landscape, to know what might have happened there in the past, and to know who lived there and what they might have shared with us. It is a natural need, at least for many of us, and this need is echoed by Tolkien's work.

[littlemanpoet]

One of the great sorrows is that while our world is changing so fast about us, it is in a book that we find a place which is always familiar to us, and it is to a book that we have to go to find that comfort of place which we all seek.

Lalwendë, this is the only thing you said that I disagree with. Tolkien addressed this in On Fairy Stories, in his section on Escape, Recovery, and Consolation. A good fairy story helps us to "recover a clear view", as Tolkien put it, so that we see trees and clouds and even our neighborhood, with fresh eyes. Come to think of it, it's not only fairy stories that achieve this. Anyway, LotR sends us back into our own world with a fresh appreciation and hunger for those things the story revealed to us as beautiful and worthwhile. And we go and look for them in our own world. I find myself, for example, with an unstoppable hunger to go north, where there are fewer people and more trees and cleaner air. And so I go. I think that it's a good thing that I mourn the loss of a small forest that just got leveled to make room for a parking lot near my home. So rather than this being a sorrow, I consider it a gift that I have these books in my life to help me recover a clear view.

[Lalwendë]

LotR sends us back into our own world with a fresh appreciation and hunger for those things the story revealed to us as beautiful and worthwhile

lmp - I do agree with you there. Thinking back to when I first read LotR one of the profoundest effects on me was that I viewed the world around me with new eyes. I don't think I was alone as many environmentalists and outdoors enthusiasts seem to have derived their interest from reading LotR. I did already have a keen interest in history before reading LotR but I also gained a deeper interest in archaeology and ancient history - and a thirst to know about how the past affected us, and still affects us.

What I mean when I say we have to resort to literature to find the comfort of place is that LotR is familiar. It is a book and hence the setting does not alter (unless it is affected by new input to our own imaginations from visiting new places), unlike the world about us which is ever changing and being lost.

[littlemanpoet]

Lalwendë, thanks for your clarification. It is very much in the spirit of Tolkien ... which comes as no surprise, eh? The older I get, the more I understand - on a feeling level - this aspect of Tolkien's themes. Fighting the long defeat, as it were.