DIRECT Symbolism in LOTR

[King of the North]

First off, the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory. Tolkien himself wrote it in the foreward to the Fellowship of the Ring. It is much more complex than that. It is simple minded to think that isengard represented Germany, that Rivendell represented Britian, or that the One Ring represented man's lust for power. I have read much about Professor Tolkien and his writing. He was a very very complex and brilliant man, he would not have made simple-minded allegories for each and every location, object, and person. In World War I, 2 close friends and members of the Tea Club and Barovian Society (TCBS) died, but only after writing him letters saying that if they die he has to carry on the torch and publish the first work, forged from the ideas and poetry of the Club. He now had a job to, and an important one at that. He wrote the LotR series with the utmost care to not make it simple, but to make a worthwhile read that sustained the ideas of the TCBS.

[Kitanna]

A friend of mine brought up an interesting thing about the Eagles. She thought they could represent the US in both World Wars because the US only entered near the end of the wars. I know that's not what Tolkien intended, but I still think it's an interesting connection, whether anyone agrees or not.

BTW I like the connection made between FDR and Theoden. Very clever. And Faramir as Churchill.

[davem]

I think its easy to find these similarities - too easy - & that's the problem. Take Frodo - we can see in his withdrawal from the world after his return an echo of what happened to servicemen returning from WW1, many of whom became 'tramps', or 'Gentlemen of the Roads'. Was Tolkien deliberately allegorizing their experiences? Perhaps he was just drawing on that experience that some of his comrades had had.

Yet we can jump 'forward' to 'vets' returning from Vietnam - there are stories of some of them being unable to re-integrate themselves into 'society' & going to live in the wilderness.

Or we can jump 'back' to the story of Merlin in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini. Merlin fought in the Battle of Arfderydd, where two of his close kin were killed. He went mad with grief as a result & went to live in the Caledonian Forest.

What I'm saying is that you can find all kinds of 'echoes', specific & general, if you look for them. That doesn't make LotR an 'allegory' of anything, Its what makes the work timeless & 'applicable': its why we keep going back to it...

[Essex]

Yes, Davem, and this is exactly what Tolkien meant when he said "That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is."

But, also note that Tolkien says

There is no 'symbolism' or conscious allegory in my story.

I think what he's saying here is that no matter how hard you try to write a story, especially fantasy, events in your world will always have an affect on what you write, even if you try not to the let them affect you. Just imagine if Tolkien had not been in the War and had not seen the death of many of his friends. Do you think we would have had the same Lord of the Rings, or even have the story at all?

So in this way, we might have some 'unconcious' allegory to events unfolding in the World at this time.