3. Conclusions from Literary Criticism
Tolkien always said that biographical incidents or particularities shouldn't influence a text. But in his case he was not right at all. Of course, The Lord of the Rings is not starred by an old wise man who invented new languages for fun, lost his mother at an early age, had to face the opposition of his religious advisor to his relationship with a woman, took part in a war and witnessed another, and so on. That would be the traditional kind of information to be found in an autobiographical novel, even in a modern comic: re-creating a hard life in fiction or inventing just the opposite to exorcize oneself from frustration.
Many a scholar may have wondered about the fact that in The Lord of the Rings there was a war against an evil tyrant (Sauron) as well as the opposition to a relationship of members from different races (Aragorn and Arwen), and that was enough to demonstrate the influence of Tolkien's biography. Let's turn it around and talk first about fiction and then about resembling facts. For instance, Gandalf was left for dead at the Mines of Moria, meaning the lost of the oldest, wisest and dearest member of the "family", same as when a grandfather dies and leaves brothers, children and grandchildren. And as far as it is known this is not only particular to Tolkien, but to anyone.
That seems to be the kind of biographical approach rejected by Tolkien, which is none other than allegory again. Of course it is unavoidable that sometimes the author has to fill the story with current facts from daily life to get some dynamism. And what did Tolkien do to keep the "currency" of events away from "biographical allegory"?
3.1 Life and War
Tolkien might have summarised his experiences into ideas, so they could become universal but yet remained human. Facts had to be familiar enough to the reader, but not so as to remind him of the author's life, but of anything like they had suffered or lived. That's exactly why Tolkien was against biographical approaches: a single scope for the emotions and thoughts contained in or inspired by a literary text, or any artistic way of expression, completely annihilate the real intention of it. Joseph Pearce keeps quite an objective approach towards the influence of Tolkien's life into The Lord of the Rings, for he deals with significant facts cautiously, as a mere chronicler and doesn't seem to link facts with fiction. But even so, Pearce insists in Tolkien's catholic side and all the events around it, and thus his biographical approach tries to link Catholicism with The Lord of the Rings. One of the most revealing moments is the insinuation to the parallelism between the love-story of Aragorn and Arwen and Tolkien's own banned and finally achieved relationship with Edith (Pearce, ch. 3)
Up to a certain extent we could conclude that Tolkien's 'accidental intentions' (as mentioned by himself in the quote from section 1) didn't have the result of depicting actual facts through mythology, but portraying the actual spiritual, moral, and ethical status of contemporary Western society by means of idealistic facts and people, through models resembling abstract concepts, but human enough to move readers to feel identified with them. In many of the letters he speaks about 'setting' and 'breeding new Saurons':
An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs.
Tolkien & Carpenter, The Letters of Tolkien, 78
So this is a perfect example of the idealization Tolkien looked for and developed: Sauron turns from the name of an individual into a way to define any evil, tyrannical leader from contemporary society. The problem was that Tolkien's timeline ran together with that of the Two World Wars. Truth to be said he didn't use Nazism nor any of the wars straight, directly, but what was behind them all. They were not the context, but the spiritual, moral, and ethical dimension behind them. Hitler himself was nothing but the embodiment of an ideal, and though he would later be mystified, he was just that, part of the shape of a context.
The reason why the allegory to Nazism or to any of the two world wars are yet debated is that they took place before and during the entire book was finished. This arises a question: in case this allegory was present in the book, would it be Tolkien's global conclusion about what he witnessed or a detailed daily chronicle? If we considered the first idea, the allegory would make sense in spite of Tolkien's reluctance, because we could witness that the author had balanced and compared the facts with those similar from any other period in History, and so he had obtained an inspirational device for the ethics and morality in his story from his actual context. And that would not be a strictly allegorical use. But on the other hand, if the book had been a diary, the text would have been completely different. And that is something many critics have agreed, for being The Lord of the Rings a chronicle, the outcome of the plot would have been the use of the power of the Ring against the Enemy, finally turning the Ring into a metaphor for Atomic Power, a comparison continuously rejected by Tolkien.
Despite we have continuously stood for the fact that Tolkien's biography wasn't present in the contents of The Lord of the Rings because of the approach made, the stylistic/formal presence of the author was, in the other hand, an important fact to consider from the literary measurements of New Criticism. These two sections (3.1 and 3.2) within the conclusion are a compendium of all the contents mentioned and developed in the essay, structured according to the parameters established by the theory of New Criticism.
3.2 The Author and The Text
Thus, measuring The Lord of the Rings from this scope we can finally conclude with some examples of the three most important characteristics to define the attitude of the narrator/speaker within a text: straightforwardness, ambiguity and irony. Regarding the first, it can be said that although Tolkien denied any direct relationship between his book and any political trend or fact (was it symbolic or merely referential) he made an accurate portrait and accusation of contemporary politics and ethics. About ambiguity, the meaning of the Ring is still debated, as some of the happenings from the plot which still remain unveiled, such as the intervention of the Army of the Dead, or Gandalf's physical re-enter in Middle-Earth. They have been discussed but an agreement has not yet been reached about the underlying intentions or the meaning it had for him. And concerning irony the most noticeable cases are explained in the following section.
After we have cleared the intentions of the author through the literary persona, we could also make a final summarising scheme about the nature of the text according again to the application of the principles of New Criticism to The Lord of the Rings. In this second part the classification is made according to the devices of enrichment of the narrator’s attitude and the complexity of the plot. The five key items/devices are: ambivalence, ambiguity, tension, irony and paradox.
As the clearest example for ambivalence, there is applicability, understood as a multiplicity of interpretations which grants many meanings to the same text. There are a lot of "applicable" items within characters and facts. In addition, as said before, some elements from the plot remain obscure, and they get more complex if readers are not provided with additional information by the author in other subsidiary works. There is a certain ambiguity helping the presence of ambivalent elements. But the problem of considering ambivalence as well as ambiguity is again turning (personal) interpretations to valid, defendable arguments.
One of Tolkien’s greatest achievements is the way tension is kept, mostly by the separation of chronological sequences. While we are being told about what happens to a group of characters, the other group remains in the shadow, and when they all meet again in a narrative sequence the plot quickly unveils itself, so the continuity and rhythm is not affected by these “cuts”. And in addition, the success of continuity is provided by the constant feeling of defeat all along the story, and several times we are induced to think that everything is lost. The strongest climatic point happens at the very end, by the edge of the Cracks of Doom, when Frodo seems to lay all to waste when claiming the Ring for himself.
There are a lot of examples of irony. In the case of situational irony we have Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor, making home out of caves and bushes in the middle of desolated landscapes, while continuously dreaming with the safety of his home in the Shire. Concerning the irony of fate or cosmic irony, the hobbits and all the free peoples of Middle-Earth are put to test when facing the personification of evil, Sauron, feeling completely hopeless sometimes, for instance when the Fellowship of the Ring loses Gandalf at the bridge of Khazad-Dûm, which is a hard twist of fate because the Wizard is the wisest and most reliable guide for the company, or again the moment Frodo claims the Ring for himself. There are also positive unexpected twists of fate, like the desperate moment when the Eagles appear at the Black Gate of Mordor to help Aragorn and the armies of the free peoples. Regarding the so-called Historical irony/Cosmic irony through time there is the Long Defeat, announced by the Elves, in spite of the great efforts of the inhabitants of Middle-Earth.
The saddest and greatest irony within The Lord of the Rings is the fade and extinction of most of the fantastic creatures giving sense to the 'magic' of Tolkien's land. Everybody fights for the survival of one race (Men) while on the other hand the struggle means the extinction of others (Ents, Elves, Dwarves). It is quite an ironic result for a war, for there is no true victory whatever happens at the end. That would be tragic irony - same cases as the irony of fate and historical irony: losing Gandalf at the Mines of Moria and the Long Defeat. The last example is certainly a paradox. How is it possible for everlasting creatures to inhabit a fading, perishable world? Their 'eternal life' should be a reason for joy, but only in case they enjoyed a likely everlasting Paradise. The survival of Men means the removal of the Elves from their earthly Eden. The paradox is that the everlasting creatures who really love the Earth must disappear and be replaced by perishable beings, completely indifferent and careless about the wonders of nature.
© 1996-2006, Universitat de València Press
© Ignacio Pascual Mondéjar, 2006
© a.r.e.a. & Dr.Vicente Forés