"Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages"

[Zigûr]

Elmo posted this in the "Who are the 'wild men'?" thread.

Originally Posted by Elmo

The Dunlendings were the indigenous population of the area and the rightful owners of Calenardhon, they were there long before the Numenorians fell out of the sea onto the land. The Rohirrim were a colonial, interloping, land thieving population 'planted' by Gondor on Dunlending territory for military reasons, similar to what the British Empire did in various times and places in history. The Dunlendings were definitely right to be a bit annoyed about this and can hardly be blamed for their hatred of the horse folk, especially as countless of them were cruelly slain by the Rohan's kings like Helm Hammerhand who brutally murdered many of them like Freca.

This reminded me of another remark from Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages:

In the essay "Fear of Difference, Fear of Death: The Sigelwara, Tolkien's Swertings and Racial Difference", Brian McFadden states that "Tolkien was a human being and would have admitted himself to be fallible; his society, also, had not yet become as self-aware or as self-critical with respect to colonialism and racism as it is today. However, one can perceive an awareness of the artificiality of dividing humans into races in Tolkien's work."

This perhaps raises another point for me, as I stated in my original post, that a lot of critical material is "typically heavily The Lord of the Rings-centric". A study of The Silmarillion, the narrative of "Tal-Elmar" published in The Peoples of Middle-earth, The Lost Road and other narratives would open up more definite angles for considering colonial and postcolonial discourse in relation to Professor Tolkien's work. I particularly think that the image of the Númenóreans as island-based seafaring conquerors with increasingly rapacious designs upon the lands they colonise, and whose actions cause lasting damage for centuries to come - as seen in the feuds between Gondor and Umbar, the displacement of the Dunlendings and the like - are quite suggestive for exploring Professor Tolkien's concerns about colonialism.

I note that the Shire itself is described as having been "colonized" and that Buckland is described as "a sort of colony from the Shire." Balin's expedition to Moria is also described as a "colony". The presentation appears to vary, with some "colonies" being more positively portrayed than others.

There may be different kinds of "colonies" in the narrative, however: the settling of unsettled land, like the Shire, and the building of colonial empires, like that of the Númenóreans as well as the Men of Gondor after them. It may be that the word "colony" itself is not used in this negative way, and does not appear to be used in The Silmarillion or in Professor Tolkien's letters, but what we would understand to be "colonialism" from a modern perspective (ie empire-building) is portrayed negatively.