Lieutenant Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien may well be one of the most revered writers in the history of the English language. Tolkien is best known for his works surrounding the fantasy world of Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and Children of Hurin, along with several other books he has written illustrate the world of Middle Earth vividly. Creating a whole new world was not easy and in doing so he borrowed a great deal from his own personal experience. Tolkien’s life as a Catholic, a war veteran, and a student of Anglo-Saxon literature all had profound impacts on how he wrote and shaped the themes within Middle Earth. However, out of all of these influences on Tolkien’s writing, none was as pronounced as his war experience.

Tolkien’s service during World War I would alter his outlook on life forever. He said himself that “An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience” (qtd in www.nationalgeographic.com). In 1917, Tolkien was commissioned as a signal officer and sent to the front. He deeply appreciated this chance to associate with the common man. The military experience gave him a better sense of how the average citizen led his life and sharing in the same experience instilled in him a greater sense of equality with his fellow man. Many of Tolkien’s friends died in the trench warfare and he likely would have been killed himself had he not suffered repeatedly from trench foot and was removed from the front multiple times (Carpenter 72-87). Tolkien said later that “By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead” .

One of the themes within the Middle Earth legendarium is how nothing is left untouched by war. In every war within Middle-Earth, literally nothing is left as it was before. Tolkien experienced horrors while in the trenches of World War I and wanted people to feel the pain and recognize the devastation that it brings. He depicts machines of war wreaking havoc among picturesque landscapes. War is necessary in Tolkien’s books, but terrible nonetheless.

Tolkien wrote at the same time as many writers who were experiencing cultural disillusionment (www.tolkienlibrary.com). In America these authors are known as the “Lost Generation”. Tolkien’s cultural background was separated from this group by the Atlantic but his writing can express some of the same feelings of disillusionment. He was in France, during the war. His writing was a form of speaking out against the horrors of war. War is terrible in Middle Earth, just like in the real world. Tolkien’s writings didn’t focus on the actual gruesomeness in battles but more on the aftermath and the impact on the society, the culture, and the individuals involved. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien has many battles of epic scope with heroic deeds but you also get the heartbroken mothers and the empty halls. Every victory comes at a great price. The loss of life even among the victors is staggering which mirrors the casualties in WWI where both sides lost thousands of soldiers in a single assault.

Each character leaves home, loses friends, and must sacrifice something for the greater good of the world. Many of the characters are changed forever as a result of the hardships they’ve been through. Even though good wins out in the end, Gandalf and the Elven lords lose some of their greatest abilities when their rings of power cease to work. Frodo, Sam, and Bilbo all make journeys to Valinor in order to recover from their ordeals as ring-bearers , and Frodo never recovers from his wounds that he suffered from while fighting the Witch-King or from the loss of the ring. That is something Tolkien focused on, the not-so-obvious wounds that one suffers in war. These can be the most haunting for years to come and are the ones that are more than fatal.

The impact on the homes of the characters is another way Tolkien tried to convey the destruction of the battle between good and evil. The scouring of the Shire at the end of The Return of the King is perfect in giving the message that nothing is left untouched by war . The Shire’s pastoral landscape, which is very similar to Warwickshire, where Tolkien grew up, is ravaged by the takeover by Saruman. Only special soil from the elf land of Lothlórien can even spark a recovery for the Shire. The four Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings (Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin) are also loosely based on Tolkien and three of his closest friends from Oxford. These four were inseparable and started a group they called the ‘Tea Club, Barrovian Society’. They would remain close friends until two of them were killed during the fighting of World War I (www.tolkiensociety.org).

Another more obvious reference to his war experience is from an early draft of what would become The Fall of Gondolin in The Silmarillion (www.tolkienlibrary.com). The Elven city of Gondolin is assaulted by Morgoth’s army, which included iron machines with “internal fires” that powered them. These were used as a form of assault vehicles and personnel carriers for the orcs that operated them. These are Tolkien’s version of tanks that made their first appearance in World War I near the Sommes where he was stationed during the war. Tanks are similar in that they are armored personnel carriers with engines (internal fires) that shoot flame (artillery shells) at their enemies. These tanks were replaced by dragons in later versions of the story.

The enemies that are faced within the books are all corrupt and militaristic counterfeits of what they used to be. Elves are turned into orcs, Ents into trolls, wolves into wargs, and etc. Jane Chance wrote; “Orcs (as Morgoth’s parody of Elves) represent art gone wrong, warped to military service, its immortality translated into invasive multiplication” (Chance 66).

Tolkien remained staunchly antiwar as World War II began while he wrote The Lord of the Rings. When his own son, Christopher, was in the Royal Air Force, he wrote this to him;

Nothing can amend my grief that you, my best beloved, have any connection with it. My sentiments are more or less those that Frodo would have had if he discovered some Hobbits learning to ride Nazgûl-birds, ‘for the liberation of the Shire’. (Letters 111)

It is with this mindset that he sent his son to war and his analogy to The Lord of the Rings betrays the antiwar sentiments within the books he was writing.

World War I was not the only war Tolkien lived through. Tolkien lived in England and wrote during World War II. In much of The Lord of the Rings parallels can be drawn to World War II. The experience of living in England while being attacked by Germany can be compared to the sieges and attacks on Helms Deep and Minas Tirith. In Helms Deep the people of Rohan retreat to a place of ancient strength that has saved them time and time again from defeat but instead this time the wall is breached and the fortress nearly falls to the onslaught of Uruk-Hai . The Island of Great Britain had long been a safe haven for the British people as the English Channel protected them from invasion but the German Luftwaffe penetrated that defense so that everyone in England felt the fear of a possible attack. Although there never was an invasion, the fear was there. This is also similar to the Gondorians and Minas Tirith . Their ancient city had long been protected but when Sauron’s armies laid siege to it, it became terrible. Fear pervaded the city as orc catapults shot flaming stones into the homes of the Gondorians and Nazgûl attacked from the skies. In England, cities were under constant bombing attacks which spread fire throughout the cities and caused citizens to look at the skies with fear.

The set ups of the War of the Ring and World War II are also similar. In The Lord of the Rings, the world is limping along for many generations, never quite able to recover from the first war with Sauron that nearly destroyed the world. In the time between that war and this one, there was never complete peace. The old alliances broke up and the rumor of a far away evil grew. The enemy secretly grew in power until finally he began to strike out with new allies and his opposition divided. Europe was far from recovering from World War I when World War II broke out. The world was in economic depression and as the allies licked their wounds, Germany secretly grew in power led by an evil man who in the end had to be stopped.

Tolkien was raised in the Warwickshire countryside by his mother, a devout Catholic who was estranged from both sides of her family when she abandoned Anglicanism. Tolkien would regard her sacrifice very highly after she passed away from diabetes, which was fatal at the time. He and his brother were left in the guardianship of a priest named Father Xavier. These two were inspired by him and their mother to remain Catholics their entire lives. This manifests itself primarily in The Silmarillion which reads a lot like the Bible. It is an ancient history containing various stories during which the world is created, evil develops and the ensuing battle against it.

The initial creation mirrors the creation of the Earth in Genesis and after a while definite parallels in the theology are apparent . Tolkien’s focus for his legendarium was not the religion but the battle between good and evil and the evils of war, but he drew heavily on his own Christianity. In Middle Earth there is one all-powerful god, Eru Ilúvatar who creates all life and the Earth, Arda; angels below him carry out specific deeds, Valar. One of these angels becomes corrupted and becomes jealous of the god’s power and desires it for himself, Melkor (like Satan), and is cast out. The angels or Valar have saints or Maiar (Wizards) who serve them on the Earth while Melkor has his own corrupted demons, Maiar (Balrogs). Tolkien himself called the Lord of the Rings a “fundamentally religious and Catholic book” (qtd in Sejdinaj). Many people have argued that this was the main influence on Tolkien’s writing. However Tolkien started writing what would eventually become The Silmarillion from an army hospital bed in 1917. Both World Wars proved to be catalysts for his writing (The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954) which leads one to conclude that his writings are in response to these horrific wars.

One of the first parts of The Silmarillion to be written was the story of Beren and Lúthien. This story chronicles the love story between Beren, a mortal man, and Lúthien, an Elven princess . Beren first came upon Lúthien singing and dancing in a forest and fell in love with her and she soon after fell in love with him. Lúthien’s father disapproved of Beren since he was human and therefore mortal. He gave Beren a seemingly impossible task in order to win his daughter’s hand in marriage. To his great surprise Beren nearly completed the task and Lúthien’s father gave his blessing to the union. However Beren was killed soon afterward and Lúthien died of grief (the only way other than battle for an elf to die). Lúthien’s spirit cried to the Lord of the Dead about her inability to see Beren again and both Lúthien and Beren were restored to life as mortals to live out their lives together.

Tolkien’s primary influence here is his own love for his wife. Edith Tolkien was the love of J.R.R. Tolkien’s life, with their falling in love as teenagers and then renewing their love and becoming engaged at age 21(Carpenter 44 & 61-62). Throughout their lives Tolkien would refer to Edith as his Lúthien (Carpenter 97). The meeting of Beren and Lúthien was actually inspired by an event between Edith and Tolkien. Once on leave she took him into the woods and danced among the trees, just as Lúthien was when Beren first saw her. Tolkien and Edith’s love is rare and Tolkien put a similar love into his stories. The love transcending death or separation can even be drawn from the time when the two of them were forbidden to correspond with each other and their renewal of their love afterwards. The analogy of the love the Tolkiens shared for each other is evident in their burial. The two are interred in a single grave with a headstone that reads; Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889-1971; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973 (Carpenter 260).

Even here though, the war has serious influence on the story. Some parts of the story are similar to events where Tolkien’s military service separated the two, when Beren is captured by the evil Morgoth. In the story Lúthien goes to rescue Beren and finds him imprisoned with his dead friend beside him . This is similar to Tolkien’s war experience when he was ‘imprisoned’ in the hospital by the evil power ‘war’ after his friends had died. The war separated the two after they had been married for only two months but strengthened their relationship even more. It was another effect of the war on his life.
The last major source of inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth came from his interest in Anglo-Saxon languages. The languages within Middle Earth have startling resemblances to the Anglo-Saxon languages such as those from which he translated Beowulf into English. The foundation of the Elven language Quenya is easy to see as based upon Anglo-Saxon. One example is this poem he discovered as a young man in an Old English class:

Eálá Earendel engla beorhtast
Ofer middangeard monnum sended
“Hail Earendel brightest of angels, over Middle Earth sent to men.” (Carpenter 64)

This poem holds not only the inspiration for the name of Middle Earth, but Eärendil is the name of both the morning star in Middle Earth but a mythological seafarer of great strength in that world. Such examples as the language and names are relatively insignificant influences however when so much of the story and message can be derived from Tolkien’s war experience.

When reviewed, one must acknowledge the very many influences on J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing. There is of course obvious influence of his wife on the Lúthien and Beren story, some influence on the mythology of creation by his Catholic beliefs, and the language from his studies of Anglo-Saxon; however significant this may be, Tolkien’s history with war shapes the experiences of the books. This is what drove him in writing about Middle-Earth. The wars are what influenced the actual happenings. His feelings on conflict are what he depicted in the horrendous outcomes of the battles that are fought throughout the books. These are the feelings he conveys most strongly because these are the feelings he wants the reader to understand. War is sometimes necessary but when it is, sacrifices must be made and once touched by such battles an individual will never again be the same.



Works Cited:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955. Print.

Harvey, Greg. The Origins of Tolkien's Middle-Earth for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003. Print.

Johnson, Judith A. J. R. R. Tolkien: Six Decades of Criticism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986. Questia. Web. 22 Mar. 2010.

Chance, Jane, ed. Tolkien the Medievalist. London: Routledge, 2002. Questia. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. Print

Carpenter, Humphrey. J.R.R. Tolkien A Biography. Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Print.

Tolkien, John, Humphrey Carpenter, and Christopher Tolkien. The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), 1981. Print.

Clark, George, and Daniel Timmons, eds. J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-Earth. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Questia. Web. 3 May 2010.

Sejdinaj, Jeny. "The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth." Catholic Education 10.1 (2006): 110+. Questia. Web. 3 May 2010.

Watson, George. "The High Road to Narnia: C. S. Lewis and His Friend J. R. R. Tolkien Believed That Truths Are Universal and That Stories Reveal Them." American Scholar Wntr 2009: 89+. Questia. Web. 3 May 2010.

Wood, Ralph C. "Conflict and Convergence on Fundamental Matters in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 55.4 (2003): 315+.Questia. Web. 3 May 2010.

Wood, Ralph. "J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century." The Christian Century 21 Nov. 2001: 24+. Questia. Web. 3 May 2010.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html. Web. 4 May 2010

http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/booksabouttolkien/tandthegreatwar/description.htm. Web. 4 May 2010
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html#2. Web. 4 May 2010

http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/879-John_Garth_interview.php. Web. 4 May 2010

Dragons from the Viewpoints of a Literary Giant and a Noob

They sweep down from the sky, spewing flame over the town below, scattering its defenders; they are dragons. Or are dragons different from that? A dragon and its rider serenely gaze at a sunset sharing a silent moment in a tumultuous world. Well which is it? Each of these can be accurate descriptions of dragons from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, respectively. But why are they so different? The difference is simple when you examine the experiences of the two authors leading up to when they each began to write.
First we’ll examine the dragon as described by Christopher Paolini in his Inheritance Cycle (the books: Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and an as-yet unnamed fourth book). These books have gathered a sizeable following since Eragon’s publishing in 2003 and there was even a film adaptation; it however did not prove to be successful (rottentomatoes.com).
First of all, the Dragons are an equal race with humans, elves, and dwarves in Alagaesia. They are sentient creatures with an amazing amount of magic within them. This equality was not always the case. While they were powerful and magical beings, this put them into direct conflict with the Elves, also very magical. After a five-year war
which shattered both races, a truce was made and the Dragon-Riders were introduced to keep the peace (Paolini Eldest).
Dragon-Riders are either Elves or Humans for whom a dragon hatches. While in their eggs, dragons are fully ready to hatch but wait for the best conditions or the person to be their rider to come into contact with their egg. Once an egg hatches and touches their rider the rider receives a gedwey insignia, a mark through which a rider channels their magic (Paolini Eragon). The rider is then changed, typically receiving extra strength and endurance, speed, heightened senses, and the ability to use magic to an extreme degree. Dragon-riders are telepathic with their dragons and the bond is stronger than any other bond in Alagaesia. Dragons don’t actually speak to anyone in the basic sense of the word; their magic enables them to use telepathic communication with Riders, dragons, and occasionally elves or magicians. A Dragon does not succumb to old age and may live forever if it is not mortally wounded or killed. Despite the longevity of Dragons however, the Dragon Riders and the wild dragons were nearly exterminated by the evil Galbatorix and his own dragon-riders. At this point in the Inheritance Cycle there are only three dragons alive and only one dragon egg in existence (Paolini Brisingr).
Dragons are physically impressive and imposing beings. With large wings and spikes on their backs, small fangs and large, powerful legs, they are a force to be reckoned with. Dragons never stop growing either, so even when it seems that they couldn’t possibly get any larger, they can still grow. Small dragons can have wingspans over a hundred feet while the some of the oldest ones could pass as large hills. As dragons grow they also develop their fire breathing ability. Dragons cannot breathe fire until they are at around five to six months (also the time when the dragon can mate). This ability gets stronger over time so the duration and intensity of the flames can grow to extraordinary levels, making the dragon an even more dangerous opponent.
The most unique aspect of the dragons of Alagaesia is their Eldunari or heart of hearts. A dragon’s heart of heart is a gem-like organ in which a dragon can place its soul. This can then be coughed up by a dragon and gifted to some one. This does not cause any distress or discomfort to the dragon however, it is actually sometimes done out of convenience. If a Dragon Rider is carrying the Eldunari of a dragon, he can communicate over any distance with the dragon and also draw on the dragon’s massive store of magical energy. After a dragon dies, if their Eldunari has been removed the dragon can still live on in the Eldunari and still supply the carrier with a massive amount of energy, which can grow over time. This can be used for good or evil purposes; the ex-Dragon Rider Galbatorix broke the minds of dragons still in their Eldunari and was able to enhance his power and the one he trained to an immense level that outmatched any of their opponents.
The magic that dragons can perform is extravagant. In addition to their ability to communicate telepathically, share their energy, and the Eldunari, there are some amazing things that dragons have done through magic that not even dragons can explain. In Eldest, two dragons use magic to effectively remake Eragon’s physical body (a human); he is healed of a cursed injury, gains extreme strength and agility, even keener senses, and a fairer image which is much more elf-like than before (Paolini Eldest).
The dragons of the Inheritance Cycle center on their magical powers and their relationship with the dragon riders. In Tolkien’s Middle Earth the dragons are typically tools of a more powerful evildoer and the dragons themselves are exclusively evil.
Dragons in Middle-Earth come in several varieties. The first are the worms or land-bound dragons who could breathe fire, then there are the winged Uruloki (fire-breathers), and lastly the cold-drakes (dragons who couldn’t breathe fire). We’ll take a look at their history and a quick glance at each the separate breeds before viewing their common characteristics (Day Encyclopedia 196-198).
The first dragon to appear in Middle-Earth was Glaurung, the first of the fire-drakes of Angband, having been bred by Morgoth (an evil valar or fallen angel) from some unknown creatures and then shaped by his sorcery (Tolkien Children of Hurin). Glaurung took several centuries to mature fully, but once he had matured his scales were hard enough to resist the spears and arrows of his attackers. It took at least 400 years to reach this level of strength. Glaurung is known as the “Father of Dragons”, since he sired all of the rest of his race. In the First Age only flightless dragons appeared in Middle Earth.
Sometime in the Second Age the first flying dragons were seen outside of Morgoth’s lair, Angband. They were quite large, had four legs and wings, and could breathe fire. The largest known dragon was Ancalagon the Black who was recorded as being able to block out the sun while approaching his victims, even from afar. Ancalagon was finally defeated in an unknown manner by Earendil (half-elven king) in the Second Age. A large number of these flying Uruloki were bred by Morgoth; however most of them were killed off by the time of the Third Age with Smaug being the last of the great Uruloki. The Hobbit gives the most detailed description of a Uruloki. Smaug had red-gold scales that were impervious to the arrows that were shot at him by the citizens of Elbaroth. He had a keen sense of smell and was, like other dragons of Tolkien’s, very intelligent and clever, often speaking to Bilbo Baggins in riddles.
The third kind of dragon in Middle-Earth is just referenced, but never seen, the cold-drake. Cold-drakes were also bred by Morgoth but could not breathe fire; there is also no definitive record on whether or not they could fly (Tyler 108). There are only references to cold-drakes and how they were not of the dragon nobility like the Uruloki and the occasional report of how a dwarf was killed by a cold-drake. Not much else is known about them except that they were organized and powerful enough to cause the dwarves to abandon their settlements in the Grey Mountains and relocate to Erebor and the Iron Hills.
Tolkien’s dragons also have some very similar characteristics to the dragons from Anglo-Saxon mythology. The dragons are very greedy and often amass vast hordes of treasure and do nothing but admire it and lust for more; this is referred to as ‘Dragon Sickness’ (Harvey). They are very intelligent, capable of leading armies, devising elaborate plans, and solving problems effectively. These characteristics are evident in the dragons Glaurung and Smaug specifically. Glaurung led the army of Morgoth to victory many times over his foes and was able to use trickery and deceit to defeat the armies of the Elves and the defenders of Gondolin. Another important characteristic the more powerful dragons had was their flames. These flames were destructive enough to torch towns and cities in minutes. Their fires were even hot enough to melt or consume rings of power; the Dwarves lost four of their rings to dragons
Tolkien is, as mentioned earlier, heavily influenced by the Anglo-Saxon and European views of dragons. These dragons of myth are great hoarders of treasure and follow a similar description physically. Tolkien was a professor of English literature and helped translate works such as Beowulf and other ancient writings. Yet this is still not the primary influence on the Tolkien dragon. It is much more personal; it is World War I (Humphrey).
Tolkien as a 2nd Lieutenant was sent to France during World War I, there he lived and fought in the trenches until he was sent back to England due to illness. Three of his four best friends died in the fighting, something he would never forget. While recovering in England, Tolkien began to write the first of the poems that would become part of the Middle-Earth legendarium. These stories showed a clear-cut good vs. evil situation and emphasized the long-reaching effects of war on people, cultures, and the world. Therefore he recreated some of the elements of World War I in his stories. In a poem about the fall of Gondolin, the earlier drafts replaced dragons with iron machines that were fueled by internal fires and that shot flame. It isn’t hard to recognize that these are tanks that Tolkien saw in WWI only altered to be in Middle-Earth. These tanks eventually became dragons. Dragons are the tanks of Morgoth in the poems of early Middle-Earth; they are little more than tools, sometimes they lead armies, but they often overwhelm defenses by emphasizing power, strength, and flame to annihilate the enemy, just like tanks.
Paolini has a much different influence for his dragons. He is young and has never experienced the pain in Tolkien’s life. He instead has been privileged and educated differently (i.e. home schooling). In Paolini’s studies he would have encountered more environmental and animal rights ideas being presented as well as more delving into the causes behind behaviors. Paolini has a much more centrist view point on whether something is pure good or pure evil; dragons, humans, dragon riders, and even urgals (bloodthirsty goblin-like creatures) all have good and bad sides. His dragons also share more in common with the Eastern ideas of dragons as being very wise creatures and other similar, noble traits. He was more motivated to write for himself since his work began as a personal hobby which was then self-published by his family and he began actively marketing it at schools and libraries.
These psychological differences are what make the difference in the portrayals of the dragons. Tolkien is the scarred man depicting the dragon as a tool for destruction similar to what the world had seen while Paolini is the privileged child trying to see the good in everything. Tolkien’s dragon comes from a personal wound and his writings are meant to convey a message about war and suffering. Paolini wrote a book based on the “daydreams of a teen” (http://www.alagaesia.com/christopherpaolini.htm). His result was a book that draws significantly from Tolkien, Star Wars, and Anne McCaffrey’s books among others (commonsensemedia.org). Both interpretations have proven to be popular with drastically different roots from within the author’s minds and experiences. Time will tell whether Paolini’s dragon-as-a-partner interpretation will have the longevity of Tolkien’s dark phantoms of World War I.