How do you perceive Tom Bombadil?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Readers with a romanticised view of the natural elements, and the simplicity of it all, would see a benevolent fellow peacefully removed from the materialism of the other world. But, for people like myself, raised on dark stories of ghosts and Witches and evil spirits, he could be perceived as a malignant entity - representative of nature's bitterness at the world of humanity, and its careless whimsy in the face of human order and structure.

I think this is definitely evident in the case of Willow-Man, but Bombadil has never struck me as a bitter character, or careless. Certainly he seems to have not acted to prevent the ruination of Eriador which has gone on around him, but it was not necessarily in his power to do so; he is Master of his own domain, and no other.

I think it's worth noting that Bombadil wears clothes and lives in a house. He is not presented as a wholly "natural" figure, in my view, but rather as one, as Professor Tolkien seemed fond of representing, who lives in a "civilised" fashion but in harmony with nature, which is seen to varying degrees with Bombadil, different Elvish societies and even among Men.