lord of the rings= Allegory

[Sheeana]

Well, I guess I *could* be implementing my deep seated fear of wetas onto the dear, dear old man, but not spiders. Me loves spiders! (--except for that time when I was on the toilet, but we won't talk about that.) *anxious look*

[Gwaimir Windgem]

-thinly veiled snicker-

[GrayMouser]

I'm not sure if I've posted on this on this forum, but it's a pet subject of mine, (it also ties into that whole "Tolkien and racism" thing) so here goes again:

There is a strong resemblance between Middle-Earth at the end of the Third Age and Europe in the "Dark Ages".

Arnor is the fallen Western half of the Roman Empire; civilisation and order have been destroyed, depopulation has occurred, the forests have come back and all that's left are a few isolated outposts of culture and light- Rivendell, Lorien in LoTR; the monasteries in Western Europe.

The Orcs don't represent "coloured" races as has sometimes been claimed, but are the basic outlaw/tribal/wild men that could come sweeping out of the forests at any time.

Okay, here we have to indulge the good Professor in a little bit of old-fashioned English (NOT British) schizophrenia: the same peoples whose culture and languages he devoted his life to ( Germanic/Scandinavian ) were also the peoples crushing the Empire and Christianity.

Gondor represents Byzantium; after the split, it expanded to great heights but is currently under threat from the Power of the East and South; it has become decadent, looking only to the past.

The Wain-riders are the Huns/Magyars/Mongols; nomadic invaders from the East;

the new foes, stocky, bearded and hairy, bearing axes like Dwarves, could be the Slavs.

The Southrons, swarthy scimitar-wielding men, are obviously the Arabs.

And of course in this period all of Christendom was threatened by a foe from the South and East which was regarded as a blasphemous heretical sect, whose power constantly threatened to overwhelm the West- Islam.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

"The Orcs don't represent "coloured" races as has sometimes been claimed, but are the basic outlaw/tribal/wild men that could come sweeping out of the forests at any time."

Tolkien said that that a certain type of individual was from what his Orcs were developed, individuals he saw everyday in modern (1950's) life.

He also said that the restoration of Aragorn as King would be similar to a rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire, thus making Gondor more like the "western" empire. Also, as I noticed you use a lot of directional comparisons, I would point out that Arnor is to the north of Gondor, not the West (or East, for that matter).

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
"The Orcs don't represent "coloured" races as has sometimes been claimed, but are the basic outlaw/tribal/wild men that could come sweeping out of the forests at any time."

Tolkien said that that a certain type of individual was from what his Orcs were developed, individuals he saw everyday in modern (1950's) life.

Really? Tolkien looked around at 1950s Britain and saw scimitar wielding eaters of human flesh ready to sweep out of the mountains and wreak havoc and destruction on every settled habitat? That would explain a lot....

Unless you are saying the Orcs are an allegory of the Teddy Boys?

And I thought they were supposed to be based on 'ruffians' he had observed while in the trenches back in 1915.

Obviously the Orcs draw from a number of sources, certainly among them the outlaws/ marauding tribes that existed in the deep forests beyond the small clusters of houses that led a precarious existence after the fall of the Empire; the wicked creatures who, according to the Hobbits, "had never heard of the King"

As for the directional thing, roughly and close enough.

North, West = Good
East, South= Bad

Given that Tolkien's professional life was devoted to this time period and that his professional publications were all about this time period, it doesn't seem all that outrageous of an assumption to make that this period may have influenced his book.

I think one of the reasons that LoTR is so great is that works on more levels than one. It's also about the corrupting effects of power; it's also rife with Christian symbolism; it's also about the opposition between the natural and the mechanical/industrial; it's also about the folly of pursuing stasis; it's also about WWII; it's also about the grim worldview of the North; and IMHO it's also based to some extent on Dark Age Europe.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I must say, I disagree about North = Good. As Tolkien said when someone referred to the North as a sacred direction for him, the North was in olden days the seat of the Devil, from which the harsh, cold winds blew, not sacred, or good, I think.

[Sheeana]

I haven't got any of my books in front of me, but wasn't Morgoth working evil things in the North at one stage? Or am I recalling from BoLT?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Indeed. He was referring to the Devil in his mythology, hence, Morgoth.

[GrayMouser]

Yeah, and of course in Norse mythology the Far North was the home of the Frost Giants- the Scandinavians certainly knew from which directions the chilly winds blew.

The North, as well as being the source of the Nordic mythology that Tolkien loved, was also the source of those Viking raiders that were trying their best to wipe out Culture and Christianity.

As the old Anglo-Saxon prayer goes 'From the fury of the Northmen, Dear Lord deliver us".