Tolkien and Allegory

There is much debate amongst fanboys and literary critics alike over whether JRR Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, used allegory. Part of this stems from Tolkien's alleged dislike-even hatred-of allegory. This often bubbles up in discussion arguments about Tolkien's writings. On one hand, you often have those more ready to fully embrace the allegorical, particularly the religious and/or moral allegorical, interpretation of Frodo and the Ring of Power in the identical way one must interpret Aslan on the stone table. Then you tend to have the atheist/secularist crowd who with equal vehemence loathe any allegorical interpretation of Tolkien, or really any major work of literature with anything less than a sneering "We know better than those theist types."

I paint in broad brush strokes, of course. Neither side is really right in the most technical of senses. There are many different types and degrees of allegory. Yes, some are what we might call "in your face" allegories where it is virtually impossible to intrepret the allegory in any sense other than what the author intended. Again, Aslan on the stone table is pretty hard to miss the Christ allegory of the Cross. CS Lewis very much loved allegory of the heavy handed type. But even Tolkien's friend, CS Lewis, could be much more subtle in his usages of allegory.

Most people miss that Lewis' perhaps better and yet more subtle allegory in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is, in fact, not Aslan on the stone table but in the next chapter. Aslan upon his resurrection due to the deep magic from the dawn of time then goes to visit the White Witch's castle and breath life into those Narnians turned to stone by the Witch's magic. Most people miss that this is a classic allegory of Christ's harrowing of hell after His death on the Cross but before his Resurrection. Once you see that chapter about Aslan visiting the White Witch's castle, it is hard to unsee the hard allegory about Christ's "preaching to those in prison," but unless one is particularly familiar with that classic bit of the Triduum story from Holy Week, one can easily miss that allegory entirely. Non-Christians can often pick up the Stone Table allegory but seldom see the harrowing of hell allegory, as that's something not nearly as universal about the Christian story.

Tolkien, however, is much harder to nail down in terms of allegorical interpretation. In fact, he, himself, said, "I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language." The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #131. So, even Tolkien understood and appreciated the allegorical, just not in the heavy handed 1=1 type of allegory of CS Lewis or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress used to such great effect and emphasis. 

Part of this discussion comes from one's personal cultural and societal tastes. There are times and peoples that take to heavy handed allegory, and other times of cynicism and intellectualism where heavy handed allegories are seen as childish or simplistic in terms of their story telling. Some time periods even interpret allegories as "preachy." In an age where the cultural battle cry is "don't judge me!"-anything "preachy" is code word for "how dare you impose whatever moral/religious presumption on me and my hedonism!" 

Personally, I love a good allegory, whether it be fairly heavy handed or a much more opaque and harder to unravel or understand variety. CS Lewis as a whole has probably had more influence over me than virtually any other writer. That included both his fiction (Narnia, Space Trilogy, etc.) and his non fiction writings (Problem of Pain, The Abolition of Man-the image of modern 'men without chests' is truly a marvelous mental image-to name but a few). He even wrote some poetry that is actually pretty good, but most of which was not published until after his death, as Lewis freely admitted he was at best an amateur poet. Lewis is most known for the Narnia Chronicles, which is a classic of allegory on numerous levels.

But then, there is Tolkien. It has taken me many years to fully come to appreciate the literally masterpiece that is The Lord of the Rings. Like anyone of my generation, I enjoyed the blockbuster films. One of the first full length fiction novels I remember reading as a boy was The Hobbit. I thoroughly loved it, but that novel was intended as an children's adventure novel. In fact, Tolkien had originally intended his masterpiece trilogy to be in that vein, and had written quite a bit of what became Fellowship of the Ring in that same light hearted adventure fair when it began to morph into this epic masterpiece that he was tying in with all sorts of bardic pagan and medieval story archetypes. In fact, the Lord of the Rings was originally one great big single novel, to which the publisher was overwhelmed by. The publisher forced him to break it up into a trilogy, as most people were not going to buy a singularly massive 1200+ page mega-novel, if they were expecting another Hobbit-sized adventure. (To the editor's credit, he was probably right about that.)

Tolkien was much more comfortable using much more open ended allegories. While one can make a good case for the Ring being Original Sin and Frodo in some way being a Christ figure, that allegorical interpretation does begin to break down quickly if one pushes it too far. Frodo was certainly not without sin and very nearly succumbs to the power of the Ring on Mount Doom. And it is largely his friend, Samwise, and in some way Gollum himself, that forces Frodo's hand in destroying the Ring of Power for all time. Again, potentially a broad allegory of good and evil, but not a precise or 1=1 type of allegory.

But what is often missed (and certainly was not picked up on by Peter Jackson in the classic big screen film) is the moral allegory of forgiveness. Most people miss that part after the ring is destroyed when Sam and Frodo think they have come to the end of their journey, both in their quest to destroy the ring but also the end of their lives as Mordor is now in ruin and escape seems impossible. But as they sit down for a moment of peace before leaving the precipice of Mount Doom, there is this amazing scene of forgiveness of Gollum, who has ultimately been consumed body and soul in his quest to retake the Precious. And yet, in that moment, Frodo, whose hand is literally now missing a finger because of Gollum's last desperate attempt to save the Ring for himself, Frodo forgives Gollum. It's a marvelous scene.

I was just thinking about his scene a few weeks ago, and, lo, my friend, Dr. Malcolm Guite, read that passage on his Youtube Channel just this morning. He put into words that which I had been meaning to try to convey for the last few weeks. He can do it much better than I, so I urge you, go have a listen. It's marvelous: