Author: The Shop Around the Corner

As I was reading through The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the post-colonialist aspects of the books constantly popped out at me. One scene in particular interested me the most throughout the whole three novels. That scene is from the third book, The Return of the King and is in chapter five, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”. In this chapter, the riders of the country of Rohan, the Rohirrim, are rushing to the country of Gondor as a troop of Orcs are about to attack Gondor’s main city, Minas Tirith. As they are riding, Merry hears drums in the distance and asks if that is the enemy. Elfhelm responds in the negative and tells Merry, as well as the readers, of the Wild Men (Tolkien 102).

Elfhelm describes the Wild Men and their history, stating “They still haunt Druadan Forest, it is said. Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as the beasts.” (102). The words Elfhelm uses to describe the Wild Men are strong and hold negative connotations. “Haunt” signifies a ghostly origin. A haunting is often unwanted, and something many try to get rid of. As well, if the Wild Men are supposedly “haunting” the forest, then that is not considered their home anymore. Think ghosts haunting the homes of where they once lived.

Continuing on, he claims that the Wild Men are “remnants of an older time…”, making it clear that they do not use modern technologies or languages and therefore do not fit into the modern world (102). They use drums to signify their presence, whereas most other people use a horn, a newer invention in the world of Middle-Earth. Lastly, and probably the most egregious thing that Elfhelm says is his comparison to beasts. He does not consider the Wild Men to be people, but rather another beastly race. It became clear to me through the way Elfhelm described the Wild Men and how the Wild Men spoke of their mistreatment by the Rohirrim (they ask to not be hunted “like beasts any more”), that the Wild Men were supposed to be a metaphor for Indigenous People (104). The Wild Men are only in the book for about 5 pages, 4 in “The Ride of the Rohirrim”, and on page 274.

Though they are barely in the trilogy, they play a pivotal role in the Rohirrim’s ride to Gondor, not only pointing them in the right and fastest direction, but also to a road that is not well known and therefore safe from the enemies. They are also mentioned in one of Aragorn’s first decree as the new king of Gondor, with him stating that “Behold, the King Elessar has come! The Forest of Drúadan he gives to Ghân-buri-ghân and to his folk, to be their own for ever; and hereafter let no man enter it without their leave!” (274). This all begs the question of, did Tolkien add the Wild Men in solely as a commentary on England’s colonization of indigenous land and subsequent murder of indigenous people?

When I first encountered The Lord of the Rings, I was about 7 or 8 and laying on my sofa while my brother and I were homesick. My mom started with reading to us The Hobbit and then eventually moved to The Lord of the Rings. We never finished the trilogy, but I remember the pure joy that I had when listening to the journey of the Fellowship. Because of how old I was, I did not understand or remember much of anything but those days where my brother and I were homesick were what sparked my love for the world Tolkein had created.

Since that time over a decade ago, my understanding of the trilogy has changed greatly. For starters, I actually fully understand what is going on. As well, I have learned through my time at Dickinson how to read the novel through different lenses. The story has become less of a fantastical world and more of a commentary on the real world in my mind. I am able to see connections to current events. I believe that allows me to enjoy the novel more as I now have a more well-rounded understanding of the world of Middle-Earth. 

One scene in particular in The Return of the King that has really stuck out to me is the scene where the riders of Rohan encounter the Wild People. The Wild People are men just like the Rohirrim, but they live in the woods rather than in large cities. After helping King Theoden, he asks the Wild People what he can give to them in return for their kindness. They respond by saying “But if you live after the Darkness, then leave Wild Men alone in the woods and do not hunt them [the Wild Men] like beasts any more” (Tolkien 104). I am able to understand now that the Wild People are a metaphor for indigenous people and the Rohirrim were colonizers. I now understand that not only did Tolkein create a new world, but he created one that was just as complicated as ours, something I never would have been able to understand at 8 years old.

Works Cited:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.

I want to talk about J.R.R. Tolkien’s experience with war and loss and how those experiences have influenced The Lord of the Rings. At the age of 12, Tolkien was orphaned with his father dying in 1846 with rheumatic fever and his mother dying eight years later from complications due to her diabetes (Whitt). Twelve years after the death of his mother, Toklien joined the first world war fighting in the trenches on the front lines and simultaneously losing four of his five closest friends in the war (Whitt, Imperial War Museums). Reflected in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien creates “The Fellowship” consisting of nine members, four of which are hobbits, Frodo, the protagonist, Samwise (Sam), Peregrin (Pippin), and Meriadoc (Merry). 

The character of Frodo shares many similarities to Tolkien. Frodo lost both of his parents quite young and went on a quest that cost the lives of his friends and, if failed, would plunge the world into eternal darkness. Throughout the three novels, there is a constant question of sides. Whenever the fellowship, either together or broken up, encounters another person, they almost always begin their line of questioning with asking whose side they are on. This question mirrors Tolkien’s experience in the Great War, a heavily sided war with the side Tolkien was fighting against, the Central Powers, going down in history as the bad side. The long journey brought Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship to lands unknown to them, just as Tolkien was sent into battle in countries that he had never been in. 

The death of Boromir in the beginning of The Two Towers, the second novel in the trilogy, is what really drew me to looking into Tolkien’s history with war. Frodo was unaware of Boromir’s death when he runs from the group, but he runs knowing that death is on the horizon. He has seen a vision of death and does not want those around him to be hurt. Tolkien’s loss of his closest friends in the war deeply impacted him and his writing of Frodo of going on the journey to Mordor alone in order to save his friends lives could be what Tolkien wished he could have done. Of the Fellowship, only Gandalf and Boromir are killed, but Gandalf is later resurrected. Tolkien saving Frodo’s companions and friends are the complete opposite of what happened to Tolkien during the war, and most likely what he wished had actually occurred.

 

Sources:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. New York, Del Rey, 2018.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.

“Second Lieutenant J R R Tolkien.” Imperial War Museums, www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-lieutenant-j-r-r-tolkien. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024. 

Whitt, Jeremy. “Understanding J.R.R. Tolkien through a Christian Perspective.” Celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien – Library News | Pepperdine Libraries, Caruso School of Law – Pepperdine University, 18 Sept. 2023, library.pepperdine.edu/news/posts/2020-01-jrr-tolkien.htm#:~:text=After%20their%20return%20to%20England,Morgan%20of%20the%20Birmingham%20Oratory.

When I first started this class, I already knew that I wanted to talk about Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings but I did not know exactly what my question would be. The way that Tolkien created cultures in the trilogy was something that had always interested me but I knew that that would be too big of a topic to conquer within the confines of my thesis paper. I spoke with Professor Skalak and we talked about world-building and narratology and how Tolkien tended to diverge from the plot and speak on topics that seemed to hold either little or no relevance to the events that were occurring in the novel. While speaking on that topic with Professor Skalak, I came to realize that I wanted to look into that more. My main question at the moment is; why do these moments occur and why are they important?

This is no small task though. There are many of these diversions and they can be as small as a paragraph to as big as a whole entire character. Professor Skalak and I decided that my first goal would be to read through the trilogy and find and categorize each of these diversions and then choose a category of diversions to look into more. We also spoke on how I needed to find out if I wanted to focus more on Tolkien’s world-building or narratology. After reading more on narratology, I came to the conclusion that it seemed the most interesting to me and the most relevant to what I have chosen to look at. 

I started researching more and I first found The Complete Tolkien Companion by J.E.A. Tyler which goes through and lists every myth, name, language, etc within all of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and every subsequent text that Tolkien has written that exist within Middle Earth. My other sources are all articles that I found that either focus on narratology or on specific diversions that happen within the novel such as the character of Tom Bombadil and the languages that Tolkien created. 

There are many academic journals that focus on Tolkien studies but the one that I found the most useful so far has been Mythlore as it focuses not only on Tolkien but on the genre of fantasy as a whole. Lastly, my three keywords are mythopoeia which means the creation of myth, narratology, and diversion as those are the two main things that I intend to focus on when writing my thesis paper.

Update:

As I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, my main interest zoned in on how Tolkien wrote about race and looking through the trilogy through a post-colonialist lens. Many times throughout the novels, the Hobbits have to define themselves to other as they are not a race that is well known throughout Middle-Earth even though they are one of the races of elder days. I was also interested in Tolkien’s depictions of Orcs and his use of color within the series such as how black represents evil and white represents good and purity. Once such scene that comes to mind is when Saruman used to be Saruman the white but once he introduced color into his life, he became evil and lost his higher status.

I have since learned that the world of Tolkien studies is a bit behind when it comes to what is being researched and talked about so they are currently catching up with adding to the conversation on race and ethnicity within the world of Middle-Earth. As such, due to my change in interest and current scholarship, I had to readjust most of my secondary sources to fit into the new ideas that I am researching.

My primary texts are all three of The Lord of the Rings books which follow Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship as they make the trek to Mordor to destroy the one ring. I have decided to not use The Hobbit or The Silmarillion as they tell of two very different stories and I believe that using all three would become way too much to analyze within the page restraints of our senior thesis.

Primary Sources:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. New York, Del Rey, 2018.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New York City, New York, Del Rey, 2018.

 

Secondary Sources:

Bowman, Mary R. “The Story Was Already Written: Narrative Theory in ‘The Lord of the Rings.’” Narrative (Columbus, Ohio), vol. 14, no. 3, 2006, pp. 272–93, https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2006.0010.

Emanuel, Tom. “It Is ‘about’ Nothing but Itself: Tolkienian Theology Beyond the Domination of the Author.” Mythlore, vol. 42, no. 1(143), 2023, pp. 29–54.

Jacobs, Suzanne. “Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil: An Enigma ‘(Intentionally)’.” Mythlore, vol. 39, no. 1, fall-winter 2020, pp. 79+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A639544043/AONE?u=carl22017&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=b63e703a. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Juan Coste Delvecchio, et al. “Building an Artificial Language from Scratch.” The Owl (Tallahassee, Fla. Print), vol. 10, no. 1, 2020.

Chance, Jane. “Tolkien and the Other: Race and Gender in Middle-Earth.” Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages, edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 171-186.

Dawson, Deirdre. “Language, Culture, Environment, and Diversity in The Lord of the Rings.” Approaches to Teaching Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and Other Works, edited by Leslie A. Donovan, The Modern Language Association of America, 2015, pp. 157-164

Fimi, Dimitra. “Teaching Tolkien and Race: In Inconvenient Combination?” Approaches to Teaching Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and Other Works, edited by Leslie A. Donovan, The Modern Language Association of America, 2015, pp. 144-149.

Flieger, Verlyn. “The Orcs and the Others: Familiarity and Estrangement in The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien and Alterity, edited by Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 205-222.

McFadden, Brian. “Fear of Difference, Fear of Death: The Sigelwara, Tolkien’s Swertings, and Racial Difference.” Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages, edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 155-170.

Tyler, J.E.A. The Complete Tolkien Companion. New York, St Martin’s Press, 2003.

 

Journal:

Mythlore: https://www.jstor.org/journal/mythlore

Far reaching keywords:

• Mythopoeia
• Narratology 
• Post-Colonialism
• Diversion

I want to talk about the motif of shadows that are used in Beloved. The main chapter where shadows are seen is when Paul D, Sethe, and Denver all go to the fair and Sethe sees all three of their shadows “holding hands” (56-58). I found this interesting because Sethe viewed the shadows as a good omen for the future even though shadows are often seen as something from the past and usually something dark. The two times Sethe noticed their shadows, they are not situated behind them but rather to the left of them and in front of them (56, 58).

 

The shadows also call back to the time when Sethe was an enslaved woman running away from not only her enslavers but the people who had raped her. As a runaway slave, she was forced to be like a shadow; silent and creeping in the night. Her position as a shadow was what helped lead her to her freedom. Her own shadow though had to be hidden during the day because if it was seen, it would mean that she either would be forced back into enslavement or, even worse, killed. 

 

Sethe being able to not only look at her shadow and the shadows of her daughter and her partner as a good omen and to also be able to have it out in the open during the day is significant because it signifies her freedom from enslavement and the joy and the family that she is finally allowed to have. She is able to see her shadow as a positive sign and not as a threat to her possible capture and she is allowed to be a person and not a shadow, seen and heard, rather than hidden and silent. Their shadows also only are seen to their side and in front of them which means that they are not just seen by the people around them, but also the creators of those shadows.

Light in the movie Rear Window is used in a very interesting way. The film starts and ends when it is light outside, but a majority of the action takes place at night. Mrs. Thorwald’s murder, the discovery of the death of the dog, Lisa breaking into Mr. Thorwald’s apartment, and the fight between Jefferies and Thorwald leading to Thorwald’s arrest all happen while it is dark outside. There are also instances where unnatural lighting is used to either punctuate scenes, or to even save the protagonist’s life.

When Lisa is first introduced in the movie, she states her full name and punctuates each separate name by turning on one of Jefferies’ lights (16:58). In general, Jefferies keeps his lights off so that he cannot be seen through the window but it also means he cannot see as much within his own apartment. The light acts as a way for Lisa to either be seen or be ignored. Her turning on the lights in the beginning of the movie forces Jefferies to see her. If the lights are on, she is much harder to ignore. When he tells her to turn the lights off, she becomes essentially invisible to him because the people on the other side of his window are more important to him than the woman who feeds him and takes care of him. In Jefferies’ point of view, Lisa’s light is a distraction from the more interesting goings ons of the people outside.

Jefferies also uses light as a way to distract and temporarily blind Thorwald. He uses the light bulb flashes from his camera as a sort of flash bang to try to buy him time before Thorwald can attack him (01:48:20). In this moment, Jefferies recognizes the importance of light and uses it to save his own life.

Music plays a huge part in Rear Window. Not only is one of the neighbors a pianist, there is almost always some form of background music occurring even if the pianist is not playing. In the beginning of the movie, a more upbeat version of Dean Martin’s That’s Amore is heard playing from the street. The song plays on as the camera pans around to all the windows around Jefferies’ apartment, giving the audience a peek into their lives and then eventually panning to Jefferies as he romanticizes his neighbors lives through the tidbits he sees through their windows. The song That’s Amore is the epitome of romanticizing life. The title means “That’s Love” and the lyrics portray a person who is so enamored with their lover that everything around them proves how beautiful life is. 

The pianist and his music also comes into play later on in the movie. The first scene where the audience meets Lisa, the piano player is practicing a song. Lisa points out how beautiful the song sounds but Jefferies only notices the pianist’s struggle with playing the piece. The pianist’s inability to perfect playing the song is a direct connection to Lisa and Jefferies’ failing relationship. Lisa is seen to try with a lot of failure to try to keep the relationship moving forward, just like the pianist trying to play his song. Jefferies shows to be giving little to no effort on making the relationship work, boiling it down to they are from and belong to two different worlds. 

The same song played by the pianist is heard again during the investigation. The piano player is throwing a party and is playing the song perfectly. At the same time, Lisa is once again in Jefferies’ apartment but this time, they are working together trying to find out if Mr. Thorwald truly did murder his wife. Neither of them have realized it, but their relationship, which once was failing, was now doing very well and they both seemed to really enjoy each other’s company, just like the pianist and his song. The music in Rear Window does an excellent job of mirroring the protagonist’s feelings and lives, while simultaneously moving the plot forward in the movie.