The Scouring of the Shire

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

As an aside, everybody's political definitions vary; but I think 'state control of the means of production' is a decent working definition of Socialism, which thereby would certainly include Atlee's nationalisation of mining, steel, autos etc, and a health system where the State actually owns and operates the hospitals, rather than just paying the bills. Besides, Atlee used to close his letters "Workers of the world unite!"

Many of these things had been taken under state control before Attlee! WWII saw to that necessity, so there was really nothing new in the post war situation to critique!

Originally Posted by lmp

The "gathering and sharing" in the chapter was used by the corrupt weilders of power as an excuse that the hobbits couldn't very well disagree with on the face of it; which is why they didn't have a ready answer for it until it was too late. The Hobbits are all about community and "gathering and sharing" is a great community ideal. That the weilders of power cheated the ruled by selling to a foreign entity and making a huge profit at the expense of the local ruled, resulting in shabby living conditions, does not in itself undermine the ideal of "gathering and sharing".

Indeed. Nothing wrong in and of itself with 'sharing' amongst the community, but Tolkien does show how an ideal can easily be corrupted. I'm reminded of how multi-national companies will set up shop in some distant corner of the world, promising great riches but in reality enslaving good but poor people to a 'machine' for profit.

Of course, The Shire was already a wonderful, utopian place to begin with - we don't see starving Hobbits - and the real world is quite different.

[Meriadoc1961]

I like this chapter, and I remember my brother (now deceased) who introduced me to Tolkien back in 1974 telling me that it was his favorite chapter in the series when I specifically asked him what was his favorite chapter? He did not go into much detail as to why, probably because he was 7 years older than I.

My favorite portion back then, and still to this day, is the first book in which the four hobbits begin their journey by themselves. My favorite cahpter has always been At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony, but my all time favorite scene is when Gandalf is confronting the Captain of the Nazgul with Pippin cowering in terror as the horns of Rohan blow in the distance.

Merry

[Meriadoc1961]

I have also felt that Tolkien was influenced by Charles Dickens, especially with the Pickwick Papers. Has anyone else noticed any similarities between LotR and Pickwick Papers?

Merry

[littlemanpoet]

No, but I always felt that I ought to read The Pickwick Papers, and given this encouragement, I think I shall.

[Meriadoc1961]

The Pickwick Papers, altough it is not a work of fantasy, influenced LotR somewhat in the servant/master relationship between Frodo and Samwise. I see the very same type of relationship between Pickwick and his servant, Samivel. Samivel reminds me in many ways of Samwise Gamgee.

By the way, be prepared to laugh out loud through parts of The Pickwick Papers.

[littlemanpoet]

I'm drawn to this thread again because I'm reading "The Scouring of the Shire" for the 6th time.

I'm struck by the modern feel of it compared to the rest of the book. It has a similar feel, to my mind, as "The Grapes of Wrath," "Animal Farm," and other works of the period. Something in the air, I suppose...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I'm drawn to this thread again because I'm reading "The Scouring of the Shire" for the 6th time.

I'm struck by the modern feel of it compared to the rest of the book. It has a similar feel, to my mind, as "The Grapes of Wrath," "Animal Farm," and other works of the period. Something in the air, I suppose...

Well, "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Animal Farm" both deal with social upheaval and change for the worse, rather than progress - although there was a small coterie led by the Sackville-Bagginses who viewed what they were doing as "progress' in a sense, the same sort of horrid sense that probably drove Tolkien to rage after WWII when old cottages and farms were torn down and pre-fab suburbs of half-arsed housing were slapped up (probably much the same in Britain as in the States after the war), with highways running over what was once fertile fields and forest. It is easy to see the dismay of the returning Hobbits as one and the same as Tolkien's.