by Gary Watson

Created on: July 28, 2010   Last Updated: July 29, 2010

J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is by no means an allegory. The book has been written with such a complexity that it contains many strong themes and meanings but it never has a direct or specific substitution. Tolkien maintained fervently in his Foreword to the story and in many interviews and letters that it was NOT an allegory, he detested allegory, he thought that it drew the focus of the story away from the story itself. Tolkien as a philologist preferred history, he found the words, their histories and their changes of meaning and he used this knowledge particularly of the languages of Northern Europe to inspire ideas for his story. He knew that language produced mythology and that words developed story, and he thus began to develop his own languages and from this to create Middle Earth and his mythology.

There was no allegorical matter for the basis of the story; it was purely a re-enactment of what happened in many histories of language. This was the development of mythology as a history to explain the languages. This was to him what was at the heart of the story and what gave the story meaning using his own values to form the languages and cultures often with inspiration from existing languages and cultures. For him the historic depth to the world, particularly the names and languages gave the story itself a depth and reality that produced potent images and a powerfully told story, through this any inner meanings or messages would be made and not through the purpose domination of Tolkien himself. By this I (and Tolkien) mean that he placed recognisable situations and clear emotional strains into the story heavily related to things in our world and the reader’s life but he does not give a one on one substitution. The reader is given the ability to apply their own experience to that of the characters and learn from that rather than a simple one on one substitution. Therefore the story exists as a story and you the reader can apply to it your own experience and take from it what you want with the values Tolkien clearly built into the story, this Tolkien called applicability.

For example one of the major symbols in the story is the one ring and a popular tendency is to say that it is an allegory of the atom bomb with idea such as those who use it corrupt themselves and no good, only destruction can come of it. Tolkien utterly denied this, for him the ring was the ring as it is in the story, a machine built for the coercion of the world. There is no direct allegorical reference but the reader can apply the ring to any form of ultimate and corruptible coercion they have experienced in their own lives. Of course there are clear values and themes that are prominent throughout such as hope (very important) but there is no allegory the story is too consistent with reality for this, the values and themes are built into the very fabric of the imaginary world.  It is through this complex and realistic development of a secondary world with similar values and situations to our own that Tolkien gives an applicable and not an allegorical story. And it is this applicability that gives The Lord of the Rings its universal appeal as people from around the world can see new meanings in it from their own lives, somthing which an allegorical story would not allow for.

One Ring to Rule Them All,

One Ring to Find Them,

One Ring to Bring Them All,

And in the Darkness Bind Them.

It is you that must make what you will of it.

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