11-19-2002, 02:16 AM | #1 | |
Fowl Administrator
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Calgary or Edmonton, Canada
Posts: 53,420
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Putting Applicability to the ultimate test
Although LOTR was not allegorical in the sense that it was not intentionally modeled as a manifestation of something else, Tolkien admitted that it was certainly a very applicable work... i.e. readers can interpret it any way they want.
Now, we've all heard the wild ones about the One Ring representing nuclear weapons, and Saruman being the Emperor Hirohito or whatever, and Rohan riding to Gondor's aid like America and Britain or something. But World War II is old hat when it comes to interpreting LOTR. So I want to see you do better. Let's see how ridiculous you can be - but don't be ridiculous for the sake of being silly; the trick is to be able to seriously defend your position using evidence from the novel. I'll offer a brief example: Quote:
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11-19-2002, 02:46 AM | #2 | |
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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Ooh! Fun!
A few excerpts before I, too, go to bed. Quote:
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned Last edited by Wayfarer : 11-19-2002 at 02:49 AM. |
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11-19-2002, 10:17 PM | #3 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: america junior
Posts: 320
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Wayfarer, at least the first part of that was not totally off the ball imo. I saw a bio of Tolkien on the telly and it talked about how he used to live in the countryside and it was slowly absorbed into suburbs and city, which really made him angry. . . There were even quotes of him talking about it!
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peace never hurt anyone "Be not so bigoted to any custom as to worship it at the expense of Truth." Johann Georg von Zimmermann |
11-20-2002, 01:19 AM | #4 | |
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Quote:
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11-21-2002, 12:59 AM | #5 |
Viggoholic
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,749
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The dwarves clearly represent scientists who are ever delving deeper into nature, unlocking her secrets, which perhaps should not be laid bare. The dwarves, digging deeper into the dark depths of Moria, unlocked a terrible demon of evil: a balrog. The balrog is a metaphor of the discoveries science may make: terrifying, yet great. The balrog slain some dwarves and the others fled. This is clearly a reference to scientists fleeing from the technology that will be unleashed from their discoveries.
The dwarves fled from Moria, leaving orcs to take up residence. These orcs are meant to represent the money-grabbing business people who will sell this technology to the rich, while the poor suffer greatly and are in more desperate need. Yet the orcs are terrified of Durin's Bane and thus this represents the business people being uncertain as to how this technology will affect the world at large. In the end, the balrog is slain, this being a metaphor of mans harnessing and controlling the technology and science he has created.
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Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. |
11-21-2002, 06:38 AM | #6 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Dorset
Posts: 608
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Heres one:
Quote:
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I would wish, were it to any avail, that the LORD OF THE RINGS FILMS had never been wrought. ROLLING STOCK, WE'RE ROLLING STOCK!! |
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11-21-2002, 10:39 AM | #7 | |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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Quote:
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11-21-2002, 11:55 AM | #8 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Durham, England
Posts: 694
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In Tolkien’s magnum opus, “Lord of the Rings”, we see what is evidently a description of the author’s views on the position of the British academic in the middle part of the 20th century. Minas Tirith is quite plainly Tolkien’s own beloved Oxford. Just as Gondor’s capital is the guardian of a long and noble heritage of all that is good in Mankind, so Oxford was the repository of centuries of learning. Tolkien plainly identifies with the men of Gondor, investing in them his own sense of standing against a rising tide of barbarians at the gate. For Mordor one can read Birmingham, the descriptions of Sauron’s land of volcanoes and black towers fitting perfectly with the foundries and factory chimneys of what was then an increasingly industrial city. The orcs, it can then be seen, are the poorly educated masses working in those factories. Just as Sauron’s rise threatens to engulf Middle Earth, so Birmingham’s burgeoning working class are making the city grow apace, eating up the countryside that Tolkien held so dear. When Tolkien writes of orcs swarming from their lairs aback wargs, one can well imagine him shuddering at a vision of the great unwashed driving down from Birmingham for a day trip to Oxford in their Austin 7s. Many people have seen Middle Earth as being culled from Saxon mythology, but a plausible synonym for Middle Earth might be Mid-Land – Tolkien was writing about a battle for his own English midlands. The forces of the dark are identified as the captains of industry and their workforce; against them is ranged the traditional bucolic lifestyle with its deference to the existing social order.
Of course Tolkien knew better than to make an aloof Gondorean his hero; instead he invents the hobbits, in every sense the little people whose rural idyll needs defending from the encroaching urbanisation, and makes one of their number a hero we can all sympathise with. And let us also consider the elves – what are they if not a personification of the ancient Classical learning so esteemed by the British intelligentsia of the time? Their diminishment and departure from Middle Earth can be seen as resignation to the fact that the genteel world of privileged academia was about to be swept away by the tide of progress.
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11-23-2002, 11:23 PM | #9 | |
Fowl Administrator
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Quote:
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