John Ronald Reuel Tolkien John Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings, endured life in the front line trenches of the Somme throughout the summer and autumn of 1916. The impact of the Battle remained with him for the rest of his life and its influence can be clearly seen in his unique mythological world and stories. Tolkien was brought up in Birmingham. His father died in 1896 and his mother in 1904. From the age of 12, he and his brother were looked after by a local priest. Tolkien graduated from Oxford in June 1915 and soon obtained a commission in the army as a Second Lieutenant. In June 1916 Tolkien went to France and was posted to the 11th Battalion, The Lancashire Fusiliers. From July onwards his battalion went in and out of the line along the northern sector of the Somme. He occupied front line trenches in Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and the Leipzig Salient. On 28 September they undertook a successful raid against the Pope’s Nose opposite Thiepval and on 21 October helped to capture Regina Trench. For both of these actions, Tolkien served as Battalion Signalling Officer. At the end of October, weighed down by weeks of tension and wretched conditions, Tolkien contracted trench fever and was sent back to hospital in Birmingham. He remained unfit for the rest of the war.
Revolver belonging to Second Lieutenant J R R TolkeinJ R R Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, endured life in the front line trenches of the Somme. The impact of the battle remained with him for the rest of his life, and its influence can be clearly seen in his distinctive mythological world and stories. From July to October, he served in the front line as a signalling officer in the 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers before being evacuated due to trench fever. The best sources for the tale of Tolkien in the Great War are: Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth, and also The JRR Tolkien Companion and Guide, by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. But briefly: Tolkien was still at Exeter College Oxford at the outbreak of war in 1914. Lots of men - including many of his friends - joined up almost immediately; but Tolkien, being an orphan with little or no income of his own, decided it was best to stay on and take his degree in order to be sure of a good job after the war. So he was relieved to find there was a scheme where he could undertake officer training while still at Oxford. He took his finals in 1915 and in his words ’bolted into the army’. He wanted to join the same battalion as his friend G.B. Smith [ie the 19th Lancashire Fusiliers] but was instead put into the 13th battalion [ie the training battalion] and thence to the 11th. He applied for and got a commission; that is, he was appointed to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant - as CS Lewis described it, ’the lowest
form of officer life’. Tolkien was married in March 1916, just before embarking for France. He saw action in the Battle of the Somme, where over 19,000 British troops were killed and 40,000 wounded _on the first day_ including one of his closest friends, Rob Gilson. Rob had been killed while leading his men ’over the top’. Tolkien was not a combat officer; he’d been appointed Battalion Signalling Officer. But that did’nt keep him safe; he and his signallers had to be up in the front trenches, same as the other blokes in the battalion, where they came under fire daily. They all had three-day stints at the front; with time at the rear of the lines in between. But life was not safe there either; Smith died of wounds received from an artillery shell while directing a work party behind the British lines. Tolkien served through most of the battle - which went on from 1st July until November 1916 by the way! but fell ill with trench fever towards the end of October. He was put on a train to the coast; then a ship back to ’Blighty’ - that is, England. And to a reunion with Edith, his wife. He spent the rest of the war being shuttled around from camp to camp [and hospital to hospital]. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant during this time; and at one time was, I think, in command of some camp or other in the North of England. He was demobbed - that is, sent back to civvy street, at the end of the war in Nov. 1918. He did’nt get any medals. I suppose he’d have been entitled to campaign medals - ’Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ as the Tommies called them - but I’ve heard that he never collected them. But when I mentioned this to John Garth, and Hammond and Scull, thay all said nah - I guess I must have imagined it!
In 1916 Tolkien was sent to France, where he and his fellow soldiers faced the terrifying new mechanisms of modern warfare—machine guns, tanks, and poison gas—fighting in some of the bloodiest battles known to human history. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme, a vicious engagement in which over a million people were either killed or wounded. In the trenches of World War I, Tolkien began recording the horrors of war that would later surface in The Lord of the Rings. Later that year he caught trench fever, an illness carried by lice, and was sent back to England. During his convalescence, he began writing down the stories and mythology of Middle-earth, which would form the basis for The Silmarillion. "An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience," Tolkien acknowledged, but he strongly denied that his story was an allegory for World War I or II.* Although The Lord of the Rings was written during World War II and follows the rise of a great evil threatening to envelop the world, the ring was not meant to symbolize the atomic bomb. Likewise, the characters Sauron and Saruman, although both tyrants, are imaginary characters and are not meant to represent Hitler or Stalin. As professor Daniel Timmons notes, the beginnings, the processes, and the ends of The Lord of the Rings and World War II are wholly different. In the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote, "By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead." The reader cannot help but notice that the Dead Marshes of Mordor is eerily reminiscent of World War I's Western Front and its utter devastation of life. Although born well after the industrial revolution, Tolkien witnessed the lasting effects of industry on the environment, first as a child in Birmingham and later as an adult in Oxford. Tolkien's concern for nature echoes throughout The Lord of the Rings. Evil beings of Middle-earth dominate nature and abuse it to bolster their own power. For example, Saruman, the corrupt wizard, devastates an ancient forest as he builds his army.
The Elves, in contrast, live in harmony with nature, appreciating its beauty and power, and reflecting a sense of enchantment and wonder in their artful songs.
Supporting the idea of Mordor being Germany: 1) Its location 2) Being the center of evil; of beings of an inhumane nature which desires to kill. In my opinion, this is a distortion of Nazi Germany. Gondor is France for several reasons: 1) Its location lies directly to the west of Mordor. 2) Contains the White City, the city of Kings. France is very proud of their 40 Kings. They are the center of modern and prehistoric history. 3) In the main hall of the King in the White City there is a distinct dĂŠcor. Over the doors there is a Romanesque design of black and white interchanging bricks. This is the same as VĂŠzlay, a famous roman cathedral in the middle of France. And finally, the Shire as England: 1) Its location 2) It being a land of freedom and simple life. Interestingly enough these books were written by an Englishman, and therefore, like anyone else writing from their perspective, their culture will be the perfect culture. Above all, this story has taken pieces of the Great Wars and applied Tolkien's real life experiences into a story that is as worldly real as it is spiritually real. There is symbolism in this book that stretches beyond that of a good war story and into the spirituality and truth of Christianity.
Allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the verbal. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: briefly, an allegory is a device used to present an idea, principle or meaning, which can be presented in literary form, such as a poem or novel, or in visual form, such as in painting or drawing. As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. As an artistic device, an allegory is a visual symbolic representation. An example of a simple visual allegory is the image of the grim reaper. Viewers understand that the image of the grim reaper is a symbolic representation of death. Not every fiction with general application is an allegory.
in spite of J. R. R. Tolkien's emphatic statement in the introduction to the second edition, "It is neither allegorical nor topical.... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." He maintained that The Lord of the Rings was conceived with “no allegorical intentions …, moral, religious, or political,” but he also denied that the trilogy is a work of escapism: “Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. … The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live.” 'The Lord Of The Rings' is also seen as an allegory for war. With the ring once again representing industry or technology, but in this case, military technology. As the warring side with the better technology inevitably represents the side with the greater power. With Sauron and the people of Rohan acting as the opposing sides in a war for ultimate power. However, whereas Sauron desires the ring for the power that it offers. The people of Rohan simply seek to keep the power from those who would use it unwisely (I.e. Sauron).
Questions to Ponder for a Thesis Consider the following questions as you read. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
How does Frodo change during his journey? What are the causes of his change? What is the significance of the natural world in The Lord of the Rings? What is Tolkien saying about the corruption of power specifically with reference to the characters of Aragorn, Saruman and Boromir? In what ways are Samwise and Gollum essential characters in the novel? Frodo's is not the only quest of the novel. Which other characters are searching and for what? What importance is to be found in the songs and myths revealed in The Lord of the Rings? What purpose do the female characters of Eowyn, Arwen and Galadriel serve?
Possible First Sentences 1. 2.
The Lord of the Rings is an allegorical novel illustrating the evils of WWI and WWII. One of the most significant themes in The Lord of the Rings is the conflict between Nature and Industry. 3. Courage is a trait defined not by physical size or prowess but by the strength of one's character. 4. Even the most vile creatures are deserving of pity.
Surely WWI would be a better scenario. The US would then be the Rohirrim arriving late to the war as usual. That Tolkien strongly resisted the idea that LOTR had been influenced by his experiences of WW1 and WW2 has been well rehearsed in may Plaza threads. That landscape in LOTR might have had some WW1 influence was conceded- to an extent , by him. In Letter # 226 (1960) he wrote:
Personally I do not htink that either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding. Perhaps in landscape. The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme.
None of which is to deny that Tolkien was affected by his wartime experiences, of course, but at the same time I don't believe anything is in there purely because he had experienced something similar during WWI. In fact, I'd argue that if Tolkien was directly influenced by his wartime experiences then his work would be less 'romantic' when it comes to dealing with the brutal realities of death in battle - very few of the soldiers who died on the Somme would have had the chance of a beautiful & profound death speech as Boromir is granted, most tommies dying screaming in agony, & choking on mud & their own blood or with their lungs disolving as a result of mustard gas (& real death on the end of a medieval weapon being probably even less 'pleasant' than being hit with a bullet). Personally, I suspect that Tolkien avoided drawing too much on his own wartime experiences for that very reason - but I digress.....