# Tolkiens Theme



## Konarmi (Nov 13, 2003)

Above all, what do you think is key theme in Tolkiens Writings and why?


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## Confusticated (Nov 13, 2003)

That being contect with things (all posessions... items, status, and not least mortality) rather than greedy, and having hope rather than despair, is the key to experiencing good, though these things are not possable in all cases, or forever among men.


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## Sarah (Nov 13, 2003)

Test of True Friendship
Nature vs. Industrialism
Even the little guy that seems most unimportant can do the greatest things.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 14, 2003)

I think it would be a mistake to tie Tolkien down to one key theme. . .or even several key themes. Tolkien wrote something that sprung from his heart and captured his core beliefs. 

Friendship, obviously.
Power corrupts, obviously.
The little guy can win and do great things, obviously.
Mercy is its own reward, obviously.

Etc.


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## Rhiannon (Nov 15, 2003)

Good vs. Evil is what I think is the strongest theme, but I agree with Elgee that part of the strength of the book is that it has so many.


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## Aglarthalion (Nov 15, 2003)

I agree with Elgee in that so many themes all relate to Tolkien's works, that doesn't do his works justice to simplify them to one theme (or even a few themes). However, I believe that if one theme must be given to Tolkien's works, it is of Good against Evil, because since that encompasses many other themes which are all within Tolkien's works (friendship, hope, love, freedom, and the capacity of individuals, to name a few).


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## Gandalf The Grey (Nov 15, 2003)

I love your answer and its eloquence, *Nóm!* 

Tremendously profound, simply put.  

* bows appreciation *


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 18, 2003)

In the "Foreword", Tolkien disavows the idea that LOTR has a central theme: the "meaning" of his work depends very greatly upon who, where, when, and how it is read. Therefore I am only too aware of the irony of repeating his famous dictum on this topic--"I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

Upon reading LOTR I'm continually struck by its ambiguous relationship to contemporary patriarchy. On the one hand, it does appear to reinforce traditional models of masculinity and feminity--even Eowyn must disguise herself as a man in order to fight for Rohan (and this trangression is itself co-opted by the fact that her actions fulfil an ancient prophecy). But whereas many (particularly Anglo-European) Western patriarchal cultures are suspicious of, or at least uncomfortable with close male friendships (because they seem to linger too close to border between hetero- and homosexuality); in LOTR, physical and emotional intimacy between men is counted a virtue--and valued more highly than heterosexual romance (compare the novel's treatment of the relationship with Frodo and Sam with the haphazard and stilted manner in which it deals with Faramir's courtship of Eowyn, for instance). For this reason I find LOTR, which has in many quarters been praised/lambasted as nostalgic and conservative, instead quite radical.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 18, 2003)

I'd have to disagree because I see similar elements in older writings. The Tales of King Arthur and such all seem to have a very similar element of male comradarie while women serve to start wars and break up the comradarie in a bad way. They're almost a curse.

Same with in the two Scott books I've read. A huge emphasis on male friendship or the bond between a master and servant. 

Same with a lot of war-story type books. 

Dealing with modern American culture, and perhaps other countries, I'd say you were right, but looking back on older literature, I think Tolkien was embracing friendship in the old fashion way. 

Male kissing male, for instance, can even be found in the Bible (greet one another with a holy kiss).

In the form of sentimentality it can be found in Shakespeare. (Good night, sweet prince, etc. In most ways Horatio's relationship with Hamlet is deeper than Hamlet with Ophelia.).

Etc, etc, etc.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 19, 2003)

*wrote this in my offline time. . .sad that I spend my offline time like this. . .*

Actually, I thought about it further and I decided even more againt your arguement.

The ideal of male friendships is not just in Tolkien's work. 

Think Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. 

In fact, in most literature male friendship was the emphasis. 

I think this has faded in part due to feminism. In part due to a fear that it will be attributed to homosexuality. With that now such an open option in literature, it now has to be clearly stated that it is not such. In the 1800's when two guys roomed together (Above reference to Dr. Watson and Holmes) and were seen together a lot, it was automatically assumed that they were just roomates and comrades. Now, while it is not automatically assumed they are lovers, the question remains, "Are they?" 

My first point is murkier even to myself and I'm not sure I can explain it well:

The additude in society used to be very much the boys with the boys and the girls with the girls. Women were not in the workplace. Schools were often boarding-type and not co-ed and also women did not school as often or as much as men. A man and a woman did not remain alone in a room unless they were courting. There was a series of steps you could go through before you called one of the opposite sex by their first name which was shorter than before you could be familiar with one of your own sex. Women often kissed other women as a greeting. (again, no one would bring up sex into it. It was assumed to be just friendship.)

Now things have changed. Sex is more prevalent in literature. Men and women are supposed to behave on the same level and men are supposed to treat men the same way as they treat women (is this possible?)

Really, I don't understand what goes on between you men in your little groups. . .It amuses me and I like to watch you (I think men are wonderful creatures), but I don't understand it.


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 19, 2003)

> In fact, in most literature male friendship was the emphasis.



Indeed there is a tradition of what American scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls "male homosocial desire" in English literature--no argument there. But it seems to me that in much of the scholarship I've encountered on Tolkien there is a great reluctance--perhaps due in no small part to the (contemporary) cultural fear of homosexuality you referred to--to deal seriously with the topic of male intimacy, and particularly male homoeroticism (which is _not_ the same thing as homosexuality), without taking great pains to explain it away as "something else". For example, Jane Chance, in _Tolkien's Art_, reads homoeroticism in LOTR as Christian fellowship; while in an essay on sexuality in LOTR Brenda Partridge links representations of male intimacy in Tolkien's works to his allegedly ambiguous friendship with C. S. Lewis--in both cases, the importance of male friendship in LOTR is both affirmed and denied.

But this projects a much larger and weightier discussion which perhaps merits a thread of its own someplace else, so as a TTF newbie I should perhaps "cut the say short" on that issue for now. 



> Really, I don't understand what goes on between you men in your little groups. . .



We'd tell you, but then alas! we'd have to kill you . . .


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## HLGStrider (Nov 20, 2003)

I think that we desire to see sex where it isn't there and see it where it isn't there. 

I think Tolkien believed homosexuality was immoral. I think he valued male friendship above even romance. I think that friendship is not based on sex. Perhaps sex is based on friendship in some cases, but not all and definitely not the other way around.


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 20, 2003)

> I think that we desire to see sex where it isn't there and see it where it isn't there.



No act of reading, of course, can entirely be divorced from desire--but that doesn't mean that desire has to be sexual. It is possible, for instance, to desire a "pure", non-sexual Tolkien--and to find it there because you have brought it with you.



> I think Tolkien believed homosexuality was immoral. I think he valued male friendship above even romance.



Tolkien would have been absolutely horrified at the suggestion of homosexuality in his work. And it would be drawing quite a long bow, given that no male character in LOTR expresses sexual (or romantic) desire for a member of his own sex. The intense physical and emotional intimacy between Frodo and Sam, and to a lesser extent between Frodo and Bilbo, or Legolas and Gimli, is homoerotic--not homosexual.

But we do, at least, agree on something--male friendships are valued more highly than romantic (hetero) relationships in LOTR.


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## Lantarion (Nov 20, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Shaky_the_Mohel_
> But we do, at least, agree on something--male friendships are valued more highly than romantic (hetero) relationships in LOTR.


Hey that's a very good point; just look at how emotional the descriptions of Frodo and Sam's intimate moments are, and look at the so-called 'intimacy' between Arwen and Aragorn!! Does anybody else have the word "ice cold" flashing across their brain?


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## Húrin Thalion (Nov 20, 2003)

I would highly doubt the existence fo a general theme through all of LotR ro the Silmarillion. It is life, in all it's aspects. J.R.R. T. wanted to write a history, applyable to our own world and he did. Of course,none of the ethemes above mentioned is wrong, since they are all a part of life.

Måns


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 20, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Húrin Thalion _
> *I would highly doubt the existence fo a general theme through all of LotR ro the Silmarillion. It is life, in all it's aspects. J.R.R. T. wanted to write a history, applyable to our own world and he did. Of course,none of the ethemes above mentioned is wrong, since they are all a part of life.
> *



Even "life" has the ring of a general theme about it--there are a whole range of experiences and ways of being-in-the-world which are not represented in LOTR. I take your point, however.

I've always found the notion that Tolkien's work has "universal" appeal or meaning to be highly presumptious.


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## Hadhafang (Nov 21, 2003)

There are several themes in LOTR as mentioned several times earlier.


However (correct me if I am wrong) I think that noone has mentioned the following theme: Through forgiveness is redemption. Were it not for Bilbo's and Frodo's ability to show forgiveness, mercy, and empathy for gollum the world would have been lost.

Another minor theme not mentioned:

The role of women is not as second class citizens. This one can be seen through the valor of Eowyn.


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 22, 2003)

> The role of women is not as second class citizens. This one can be seen through the valor of Eowyn.



The prominence of Eowyn and Galadriel doesn't really alter the fact that, overall, femininity has a marginal/problematic status in LOTR. 

I'm often amused by the loquacious Aragorn's remark to Ioreth: "Run as quick as your tongue . . ."

Also--*She*lob: active female sexuality connected with images of horror and disgust (in Freudian terms, the "castrating mother").
Contrast with the virginal, passive, non-threatening sexuality of *Rose* Cotton--the embodiment of fertility


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## Rhiannon (Nov 22, 2003)

> The prominence of Eowyn and Galadriel doesn't really alter the fact that, overall, femininity has a marginal/problematic status in LOTR.



Marginal yes, but I hardly think problematic. This isn't a sign of neglect or prejudice on Tolkien's part- simply, _The Lord of the Rings_ tells a story that deals very little with women. The medieval-esque societies are, of course, male dominated, and women don't appear in the story because the events that are happening are in the world of men. There are no women in _Beowulf_, for instance.

I think it's necassary to keep in mind that you can find symbolism for practically _anything_, if you're looking for it, and to ask the question _what was the author's intent_?


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 22, 2003)

> This isn't a sign of neglect or prejudice on Tolkien's part- simply, The Lord of the Rings tells a story that deals very little with women. The medieval-esque societies are, of course, male dominated, and women don't appear in the story because the events that are happening are in the world of men. There are no women in Beowulf, for instance.



I wasn't arguing that the marginal status of women in LOTR is a reflection upon what Tolkien might have thought of women (how, after all, can we possibly know this?). What it does reflect or point to are the dominant ideologies about women that circulated at the time Tolkien was producing these works--because they weren't written in a vacuum. And it is a sign of the dominant ideologies about gender in our time that we are able to recognise something like the marginal status of women in Tolkien's work _as_ problematic (although I think this depends greatly upon your own ideas about how women should be treated or represented). 

Tolkien's prejudices or otherwise are, frankly, irrelevant: in the context of this thread, I'm interested in what the _text_ is doing.



> I think it's necassary to keep in mind that you can find symbolism for practically anything, if you're looking for it, and to ask the question what was the author's intent?



On the contrary, I think its high time we stepped out of the shadow of the Author's Intention (after all, what does the man himself say in the "Foreword" about the "purposed domination of the author?")--we don't need to read Tolkien as if Tolkien were looking over our shoulders. We're reading, enjoying, and engaging with Tolkien's work in 2003, not 1943.

Words, unfortunately, are a site of struggle--no two people will interpret them in exactly the same way (this is why it is indeed--at least potentially--possible to, as you put it, "find symbolism for practically everything"). For example, Tolkien's prose paints a vivid picture of Lothlorien--but we can be pretty certain that the image of Lorien I have in my head does not match the image you have in yours, nor would it have matched the image Tolkien formed in his head as he was writing. And I'm sure we've all sat through the Peter Jackson films and thought to ourselves, at various points, "that's not how I imagined x." (There must be people out there who don't believe Middle-earth looks exactly like New Zealand!!) The impressions we have of Middle-earth and its denizens are partly shaped by our own experiences--and that's something we can't get away from.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 23, 2003)

From your last para. I'm getting that you feel that it is there for you but not there for Rhi, this interpetation of yours?


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 26, 2003)

> From your last para. I'm getting that you feel that it is there for you but not there for Rhi, this interpetation of yours?



Diversity of opinion is what makes this forum great


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## HLGStrider (Nov 26, 2003)

Is that a yes or a no?









You know, I'm getting a feeling we're going to be friendly adversaries on this forum for a long while to come. Shake before the battle begins?


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 26, 2003)

> Is that a yes or a no?



Yes, Rhiannon and I interpret the representation of women in LOTR differently, if that's what you're asking.



> You know, I'm getting a feeling we're going to be friendly adversaries on this forum for a long while to come. Shake before the battle begins?



I don't think of you as an adversary, because this isn't a battle--it's a robust exchange of ideas--something we need a lot more of in this day and age. But I'll shake anyhow


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## Rhiannon (Nov 27, 2003)

Different interpretation is not only fine, but great fun- but I misread your comments above to mean that you thought your interpretation was more 'sound', which of course can't be really true of any reader's interpretation, which is why I brought up 'author's intent' (which is the only standard of what something 'really' means). 

I disagree rather radically with your interpretation, but I'm all right with that if you are. I'm not a particularly deep person, I prefer to stick with the basics, and if it's not in the text I don't go looking for it. The story and the characters are enough for me, symbolism seems like gilding the lily.


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## Shaky_the_Mohel (Nov 27, 2003)

> Different interpretation is not only fine, but great fun- but I misread your comments above to mean that you thought your interpretation was more 'sound', which of course can't be really true of any reader's interpretation, which is why I brought up 'author's intent' (which is the only standard of what something 'really' means).



I'm not comfortable with the authority of the author's intention myself, for reasons I've been debating with Jallan in another thread.


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## Rhiannon (Nov 27, 2003)

I simply think: The author wrote it. If they meant for the pebble that the heroine picks up in the fifteenth paragraph of chapter fifty-five to represent her as yet unrealized tragic past, then the pebble must represent her as yet unrealized tragic past.

If the author does not state that the pebble represents her as yet unrealized tragic past, and some reader comes traipsing along and declares that it _obviously_ represents her as yet unrealized tragic past, then the pebble may represent her as yet unrealized tragic past to that reader, but does not necessarily represent her as yet unrealized tragic past to the next reader to come traipsing along.

And, of course, either one of these readers may choose to completely ignore the author and do what they like, which is their business, although the author may get uncomfortable what with all that spinning around in their narrow coffin.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 27, 2003)

> Yes, Rhiannon and I interpret the representation of women in LOTR differently, if that's what you're asking.



What I meant was, "Do you mean you take out of the LotR's what you take into it?" (like Lothorian. . .a comparison I made in the historic first post I ever made on this forum in a now achived thread)

Meaning that it is there if you want it to be there and not there if you choose for it not to be there. 

Or something more realitivistic. . .Is that a word? Realitivistic? Oh well, it's a word now.



> I don't think of you as an adversary, because this isn't a battle--it's a robust exchange of ideas--something we need a lot more of in this day and age.



At the very least it is a debate. I think the word for someone on the other side of you in a debate is opponent. . .which is a synonym for adversary. If you don't see it as a debate it is easier to get ruffled in it, I've learned. 



> traipsing



I adore this word.


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## jallan (Nov 30, 2003)

Shakey_the_Mohel posted:


> But whereas many (particularly Anglo-European) Western patriarchal cultures are suspicious of, or at least uncomfortable with close male friendships (because they seem to linger too close to border between hetero- and homosexuality); in LOTR, physical and emotional intimacy between men is counted a virtue--and valued more highly than heterosexual romance (compare the novel's treatment of the relationship with Frodo and Sam with the haphazard and stilted manner in which it deals with Faramir's courtship of Eowyn, for instance). For this reason I find LOTR, which has in many quarters been praised/lambasted as nostalgic and conservative, instead quite radical.


As others have pointed out, Shakey, your conclusions are objectively wrong. An enormous amount of literature of Tolkien’s own time and earlier has paid a great deal of attention to male friendship with no uneasiness whatsoever. Accordingly this part of Tolkien’s work cannot be radical, whatever else it is. To call the treatment of friendship in the text radical is a gross misreading of the text.

Now it may be radical to an individual reader who has never read stories by Hermann Melville, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Homer, Rudyard Kipling or even the Bible.

There is nothing wrong with the strong emphasis on male friendship being radical to reader who had never encountered this before it one can be found. But it is wrong to claim that the radicalism such a reader might see is part of the text.

Also, it is not clear to me that _The Lord of the Rings_ claims same-gender friendship is necessarily superior to heterosexual romance. What is clear is that _The Lord of the Rings_ is mostly not about heterosexual romance and accordingly doesn’t get into that issue at all. You try to take something from the text that just isn’t there.


> But it seems to me that in much of the scholarship I've encountered on Tolkien there is a great reluctance--perhaps due in no small part to the (contemporary) cultural fear of homosexuality you referred to--to deal seriously with the topic of male intimacy, and particularly male homoeroticism (which is not the same thing as homosexuality), without taking great pains to explain it away as "something else". For example, Jane Chance, in Tolkien's Art, reads homoeroticism in LOTR as Christian fellowship; while in an essay on sexuality in LOTR Brenda Partridge links representations of male intimacy in Tolkien's works to his allegedly ambiguous friendship with C. S. Lewis--in both cases, the importance of male friendship in LOTR is both affirmed and denied.


When a father or mother tossles lovingly the hair of one of their children of either sex or hugs that child, is that homoeuroticism? If so, why make anything of something so natural? People also pet their dogs and love their dogs physically with great hugs without any erotic feelings. They do the same with other animals.

Or do you mean that there are objective sexual feelings between Frodo and Sam in the text as it stands without it being read into the text? Point it out then.

What certain critics say is another issue altogether. Jane Chance’s carelessly written books would be torn apart if published on the web for comment. Chance can’t even figure out who the shining figure seen by Frodo at the Ford was though the text is quite plain. She’s too busy interpreting the text to read it with her interminable repetitions of _Mordor_ meaning ‘murder’ (which it doesn’t) and Shelob being Sauron’s cat (which she isn’t) to bother about reading the text carefully.

I’ve not read Partrige, but your summary makes it sound like a typical attempt to fit something that someone knows about an author about whom one really knows very little into a story that person wrote: the usual presumptious, biographical connections that too many put forth as scholarship.


> And it is a sign of the dominant ideologies about gender in our time that we are able to recognise something like the marginal status of women in Tolkien's work as problematic (although I think this depends greatly upon your own ideas about how women should be treated or represented).


The entire society Tolkien treats is problemical. _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ are not political utopian fiction. There is no pretence that the Shire, Lothlórien, Rohan or Gondor are perfect societies or will be perfect societies, whatever a perfect society might be.

In all his writings Tolkien never gets into discussing the laws and customs behind the governments of Gondor, Rohan and Númenor. Who knows what precise powers a king has and what powers particular classes of people have and how disputes are reconciled or not and how much or how little women might have a say in governing? I suspect women mostly have very little power, because I recognize the kinds of socities that Tolkien is protraying, the kinds of societies one would expect in a cultures based on those of early medieval Europe more than anything else where women would not have much power other than individual power over individual men.

We have such bits of politics and information about the society as gives those societies sufficient appearance of reality to serve as background to the tale. But centralizing those areas would be out of a scope for an heroic romance unless that romance also had strong political intensions.

There is recognition that none of these societies will last, that they are all long gone in our time.


> I'm often amused by the loquacious Aragorn's remark to Ioreth: "Run as quick as your tongue . . ."


Why mention this in the middle of a discussion of Tolkien’s treatment of women without also mentioning Aragorn’s strong remarks to the loremaster in the Houses of Healing or to Butterbur?

To look at the one and not look at the others misinterprets the text badly.


> Also--Shelob: active female sexuality connected with images of horror and disgust (in Freudian terms, the "castrating mother").
> Contrast with the virginal, passive, non-threatening sexuality of Rose Cotton--the embodiment of fertility.


How is this problemical? Do you think Shelob isn’t disgusting or that Shelob shouldn’t be disgusting? There are monstrous devouring mother figures and monstrous devouring father figures throughout mythology and legend (and i in more modern literature). Should sex among humans be threatening and devouring?

Tolkien does, through Éowyn, express the feelings of many women trapped in a male-dominated society. The text doesn’t resolve the problem outside of a very conventional solution for Éowyn’s own situation: find the right man (who fortunately is equal to her in status and prestige in terms of their society). This can be seen as a problem if you want it to be. But it’s not an unusual solution in much contemporary fiction where marriage is seen conventionally as a happy ending (as it normally is in heroic romances. (Other fiction, of course, looks at things differently.)


> The impressions we have of Middle-earth and its denizens are partly shaped by our own experiences--and that's something we can't get away from.


Of course not. But some impressions may be more correct than others, in that they accord more with a text as read in its context. Not all readings of a text are equal. One should try not to overwrite a text with one’s own projections.

You seem to me to too much deny the communicative center of text, to deny the intent in creating text, interested more in what some might see in a text. But texts exist to communicate and there are often (though not always) better and worse ways of understanding the pieces of a text and the text as a whole.

At a different level one can discuss whether one agrees with a text or disagrees with a text or likes a text or dislikes it and so forth. But it is wrong to confuse those levels. Better understanding of a text itself may change one’s opinion at a higher level.

It is certainly wrong to claim that what one reads into a text from one’s own experience is necessarily in that text as though the images seen by people in ink blots are objectively in those ink blots. Rorshach ink blots were not created to communicate (though some of the shapes in them were placed there to be seen). Random ink blots or clouds have no intent to communicate. Texts mostly are created with intent to communicate.


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## Goro Shimura (Dec 1, 2003)

There is a certain essayist that has done much to promote an ugly interpretation of the Shelob scenes... and I must say that she may have done more to interfere with the reading of Tolkien than even Peter Jackson.

Her interpretation is being bandied about here in some posts, and I must say that though such things can be supported by various twistings of the text, they cannot be accepted as valid interpretations unless we are willing to abolish all absolutes. (And if we are willing to do that, what basis have we to argue over anything to begin with!?)

<Gollum-like hairball sound>

Okay... back to reality.

Here's what Tolkien said about the primary theme of his work. 

"I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly a 'setting' for characters to show themselves. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly loose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete." (Tolkien, Letter #186)

Just read the chapter about Faramir last week.... It was astounding. LotR "is mainly a 'setting' for characters to show themselves." Wow! Did Faramir ever show his quality. And not only Faramir, but all of the major characters.

Isn't it wonderful to be able to spend time with such "quality" people... even if it's only fiction? (sigh!) It makes one wonder what kind of person can read this and then go on and on about homo-eroticism. 

<More Gollum sounds>

Oops. Sorry. I'm trying not to rant here, really!!

Ahem.

Anyway... the bad guys show their quality, too... even though they are given every opportunity to repent. Much sadder it is that Saruman would not come down-- even compared to his fall and his evil deeds against Rohan. What pride!!

With each rereading, though, I puzzle over Tolkien's remark about Death and Immortality. How can it be that that was the "Real" theme to Tolkien...?


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## jallan (Dec 4, 2003)

Goro Shimura posted J.R.R. Tolkien’s comment:


> The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.


I think Tolkien is here circling close to the general idea that literature should illuminate the human condition as well as plunging more into some of the philosophy he had developed in the legendarium behind the story.

I think the phrase “the real theme for me” indicates in part that Tolkien is here expressing something that was very important to him, not what might seem to be the main themes in the story as seen by most readers.

_The Lord of the Rings_ just isn’t a one-theme book as most reponses on this thread indicate. Tolkien himself in other places seems to agree.

I think _themes_ are sometimes given too much importance by critics.


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## aragil (Dec 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jallan _
> *I think themes are sometimes given too much importance by critics. *


 That's kind of a shocking statement. What beyond theme is important? Narrative style? Characters? Plot? Of these four I'd definitely go with theme. Are you just saying that some critics go overboard, or that in general 'theme' is over-rated?


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## jallan (Dec 5, 2003)

If critics mostly agree that a book is a “great book” but can’t agree on what the main theme or the most important themes are in the book, then something is skewed in the judgement system.

I’m not talking about _The Lord of the Rings_ here especially.

What is “the theme” of _Hamlet_, _Moby ****_, _Huckleberry Finn_ and so forth? 

What good is a story with a great theme (if there is such a thing) without plot of some kind, character of some kind, style of some kind, atmosphere of some kind?

Indeed, a story may succeed mostly through one of these alone. Edgar Alan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft concentrated on atmosphere. Ibsen concentrated extremely tight plotting. 

Too many recognized great books break the general theories of critics. 

As to _The Lord of the Rings_, I would say it is a work in which atmosphere is more important than themes: Elvish names, armed horsemen of the plains, Gollum’s talking, Gandalf’s characterization, evocation of lost Dwarvish grandeur ....

There is a plot in _The Lord of the Rings_. But the _The Lord of the Rings_ approaches being one of those formless books that one can dip into anywhere on rereading because Tolkien was quite willing to follow his inspiration wherever it went and to concentrate on the individual parts without overmuch concern that all fits together as a whole.

Themes come into it ... but there are too many for any to be considered _the theme_. That is one reason for the book’s success: its variety.

James Herriot’s veterinary books, _Huckleberry Finn_, Alexander Dumas’s best works and so forth open into other worlds (ones that may have almost existed or that my be mostly fantastic) and it is to visit that world as protrayed by the author that people reread such works. These are not single-theme books.

Themes (like plots) are easily come by. It is what the writer does with the theme or themes. There are many imitation Tolkien books out there with mostly the same themes as found in _The Lord of the Rings_.

But a tale or a particular telling of a tale cannot be simply reduced to theme, plot, character, narrative style, atmosphere, message and so forth. A look at remakes of films or filmatic remakes of television shows indicates how little the theme sometimes matters.

What often matters more is how one plays the theme and how accessible one’s playing of a theme is to particular people who chance to hear one’s playing.


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## Lantarion (Dec 5, 2003)

Excellent post jallan. I especially agre with


> As to The Lord of the Rings, I would say it is a work in which atmosphere is more important than themes: Elvish names, armed horsemen of the plains, Gollum’s talking, Gandalf’s characterization, evocation of lost Dwarvish grandeur ....
> 
> There is a plot in The Lord of the Rings. But the The Lord of the Rings approaches being one of those formless books that one can dip into anywhere on rereading because Tolkien was quite willing to follow his inspiration wherever it went and to concentrate on the individual parts without overmuch concern that all fits together as a whole.


Really good points.


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## HLGStrider (Dec 5, 2003)

I think there are many reasons someone writes a book and many things that make books great. 

Some write to tell a story. Some write to try and stimulate social change or vent on a society they don't like. I think Tolkien was very far from the second. I think he was very close to the first. I think themes came out of the story sort of as a bi-product. . .Bi-product doesn't sound right. . .it down plays it. . .perhaps result. 

Theme is more important if you want in envoke. . .invoke? Envoke? invoke. . .blah. . .social change. I think nothing could be farther from Tolkien's mind. 

If you're writing a book to write a book, you may pay more attention to theme, if you're writing a book to formula with everything planned out to a general end where everything bends around the writing.

If you're writing a book to tell a story, you let those things come, and they will come if your story is good, if you're writing a book where the printed page is only a way to convey a tale that had to be told that gets away with you, where the writing bends around everything.










I think I tried too hard to be a writer in this post and ended up sounding . . .I don't know. . .blah. ..


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