"If not allegory, then his works are loaded with characters and events parallel to his world" (Behind… 2)."The intricacy of Tolkien’s web of cause and effect, of the interactions of motives and wills, natural or supernatural, is extraordinary and notwithstanding the frame of fantasy-profoundly realistic."(Issacs, 30)In the Lord of the Rings, I have researched the similarities to events that have happened in history, religion, people, and other works.Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is based on historical events, religion, people, and other works by different authors.

    In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien has a war against the West from the East.In both World Wars, this has been the case.Germany or Prussia have been the East and America and Tolkien’s homeland, England have been the West.Many people have compared the war in The Lord of the Rings, to World War I.As C.S. Lewis says in Tolkien and the Critics: size="1">This war has the very quality of the war my generation knew. It is all here: the endless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of the front when "everything is now ready" the flying civilians, the lively, vivid friendships, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and heaven sent windfalls as a cache of choice tobacco "salvaged" from a ruin. (14)

    Tolkien himself was not left unaffected by World War I. He served in a country regiment in the war. "He was 23 then, and like all of his generation of Englishmen, young lions under the donkey went to war… Tolkien served in the sacrificial role of an infantry soldier in the Landcashire Fusilers, one of the good country regiments that inevitably suffered great casualties" says William Ready in The Tolkien Relation: a Personal Inquiry (11).In fact, some critics claim that Mordor was actually an image of the front lines of World War I seen by the eyes of J.R.R. Tolkien.As Manlove says in Modern Fantasy: Five Studies

    And as the hobbits move further into Mordor, past the already dreary military camp of the orcs and across the plains of Gorgoroth "pocked with great holes, as if, while it was still a waste of soft mud, it had been smitten with a shower of bolts and huge slingstones" (III, 211), creeping from crater to crater, we begin to sense what may lie behind the power with which this landscape has been presented: Tolkien’s own experience of the gradual destruction of life and health as one approached the Western Front in the 1914-18 war, and the desert of shell holes that marked the end of that journey; and from the intensity of his account one might well guess that such a landscape had etched itself deeper than any other. (205) Some critics say that the War was instrumental to his future writing career. Tolkien, his infantry service and the war’s end were all of one force that unified him within himself and were to lead him to the fate that he welcomed and the fame that surprised him in the years that came after. (Ready, 66-67)  Another major reference to his personal life came from his wartime experiences in the trenches along Somme. His detailed accounts of the preparations for war, the strategy, and the day to day businesses that accompanies wartime, are accurate and precise, as one would expect from a former soldier.  It is said that he even used an almanac to calculate how far foot soldiers could move within certain lengths of time. (Behind… 1)

    Tolkien was affected by the war and might even have used writing to escape the pain suffered during and after the war as Ready says in The Tolkien Relation: A Personal Inquiry. "For all that, war cast its shadow over Tolkien; he was a Fusilier, and "one has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel it’s oppression…By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."" (148).   And Reilly says in Tolkien and the Critics "Finally, Tolkien holds that the fairy story, by the use of fantasy, provides escape and consolation…" (146)

    In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s characters view the war against Sauron the same way that the peoples of Europe did after WWI.  "As the general public viewed WWI as the war to end all wars, so did the survivors of The War of the Ring. However, Gandalf warns that as long as there is evil, there will always be war.  If it is banished in one form, it will rise in another."(Behind… 1).

    In The Lord of the Rings, a conversation between Gandalf and Denethor seems to be taken right out of any of the World Wars. As Kocher repeats in The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth.    "Gandalf’s retort to Denethor asserting that he too is a steward accepts the possibility that Sauron will overrun the West…Morning will come again and good will flourish no matter how complete the destruction wrought by evil seems." (45)

    Some have compared the "Ring with the hydrogen bomb and Mordor with Russia", As C.S. Lewis says in Tolkien and the Critics (14).  And Fuller says in Tolkien and the Critics, "… a natural analogy arises between the hydrogen bomb and the Ring of Power which by its nature could not be used to achieve anything good." (32).

    In WWII, Hitler experimented with a variety of genetic experiments in order to produce the Aryan race.  He was relatively successful in his attempt.  In The Lord of the Rings, Saruman also experiments with genetics.  He produces a new type of orcs that are better fighters, adapt to the sun much better than regular orcs, and are larger.  In The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth, Kocher says "Saruman is continuing these genetic experiments and has produced a new variation (not a new species).  Orcs of the White hand, larger, better fighters…"(64).

    Hitler, during WWII, employed hundreds of spies.  Their job was to find information relative to their side of the war.   In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron employs a vast network of enemy agents who are all committed to the finding of the Ring.  As Fuller says in Tolkien and the Critics, "With so heavy odds, against so formidable an adversary, a significant factor provides one hopeful element in the grim web of Sauron’s network of agents, tracking down the Ring." (28).

    When the unending bombardment by the Germans fell every day, the people of England never gave up hope or the courage to fight and as Gimli says in The Lord of the Rings, "There is good rock here; this country has tough bones" (Issacs, 14).

    In The Lord of the Rings, there are many allusions to events that happened on distant history. Many different countries from many different directions have attacked England in its history.  The Romans, Germanic tribes, and many others.  In The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle-Earth, it proves just that.

    Also our Europe has warred from early times against Arabs from the south and Persians, Mongols, Turks from the near and far east.   Similarly, Gondor resists Easterlings and Southrons, who have pressed against its borders for millennia, and have become natural allies of Sauron.  The Harradrim of the South even recall Saracens in their swarthy hue, weapons, and armor, and suggest other non- European armies in their use of elephant ancestors, while the Wain riders from the east come in wagons rather like those of the Tartar Hordes.  The men of Gondor live and fight in a legendary Arthurian, proto-medieval mode, and the Rohirrim differ from early Anglo-Saxons mainly in living by the horse, like Cossacks. (Kocher, 16)

    In the history of England, there have been many different migrations to there.  This is also the same in The Lord of the Rings.  Kocher says the following about this in The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth.

    Already noticed in the foregoing pages are many instances of Tolkien’s art in gaining credence for history of Middle-Earth by introducing episodes of various sorts that tease us with their resemblance to episodes that we know have actually occurred in our not too distant past… Just as Earth has seen wave after wave of tribal migrations into Europe from east and north, so on Middle-Earth the Elves, the Edain, the Rohirrim, and the Hobbits, have drifted west at various periods from the same directions. (14)

    In The Lord of the Rings, the conflict could also be fitted to describe the battle of religions during The Second World War.   As Fuller says in Tolkien and the Critics;

    It has for me (Lord of the Rings) been an allegorical relation to the struggle of Western Chrtistiandom   against the forces embodied, successively, but overlapping, in Nazism and Communism.  The work was conceived and carried forward when the darkest shadow of history was cast over the West and, for a crucial part of that time, over England in particular. (32)

    The Lord of the Rings was written during World War II.  The battle in Mordor and the Ring being destroyed and therefore ending the war reminds me of the late stages of WWII when the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.  Fuller says in Tolkien and the Critics the following;

    Somewhere in the stages of its growing… the vision of the larger trilogy came upon him, and that the gathering darkness and gloom over the remnants of the West in the Third Age of Middle-Earth grew from the darkness and threats looming over western Christendom in the 1930’s when The Hobbit was written.  The Trilogy was produced during and after the years of World War II… (36)

    The Lord of the Rings also has many references to the Bible and religion.  There are references to Adam and Eve and the fall of man.  In The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth, Kocher says " The ideas that Durin was firstborn without a companion and went about giving names recalls Adam in Eden." (96).

    In The Lord of the Rings, there is no mention of God, but such names as The Supreme Being, the One, and other vague but rather clear allusion to God.  Tolkien said himself, in an interview that "Gandalf is an angel" (Issacs, 35).

    There are also many other illusions to Christ. Frodo and/or Gandalf could be "partial anticipations of Christ" (Issacs, 35).  Christ, before he was taken to be crucified, went and prayed for "the cup to be removed from Him".  Frodo does the same thing when he asks if anyone else could do it. Gandalf too is somewhat like Christ.  He undergoes a resurrection and temptation when he is tempted by Frodo’s offer of the Ring.

    With Frodo, quite simply and movingly, it lies in his vain wish that the cup might be taken from him, and since it may not, he goes his long, delorous way as Ring Bearer- a type of cross bearer to come.  More mystically with Gandalf, indicative of the operation of an unexpressed Power behind the events, the wizard undergoes a harrowing prefiguring of the death, descent into Hell, and rising again from the dead.  Also he experiences something of the temptation in the wilderness in his refusal of the Ring which he has power enough to wield.  (Kocher, 35)

    In The Lord of the Rings, are good and evil creatures.  The good creatures are Christian-like and the evil creatures are satanic and demonic.  "Tolkien’s world has a variety of malevolent creatures.  At the center are demonic powers, the greatest of whom is Sauron, who is unmistakably a satanic figure, who might be nothing less than one of the fallen angelic host, and whose very name suggests the serpent." (Issacs, 24)

    In The Lord of the Rings, there are many references to resurrection.  In the Christian religion, this is a major part.   Sauron himself looks forward to some sort of "Black Resurrection" (Kocher, 68). The "overall tone in it is still very much Christian". (Kocher, 78)  The good people of The Lord of the Rings act like Christian people and believe the same way.  As Kocher says in The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle-Earth, " All the mortal races look forward to some sort of life after death in some unspecified somewhere" (93) and " The prospect of a reawakening after death is traditional among the dwarves." (96)

    The land called the Shire reminds many people of England’s countryside.  The hobbits in the story "inhabit a gentle region called the Shire, which has much the character of Cotswold Country" (Issacs, 19).  Tolkien "makes sure that on the small scale its local terrain, climate, and dominant flora and fauna are as much as we know them today." (Kocher, 8)

    Tolkien goes on to describe, in vivid detail, Eskimos.  He gives the distance as "hardly more than a hundred leagues north of the Shire" (Kocher, 5).  "He goes on to describe the Forodwaith people living there as "Men of far off days." who have snow houses, like igloos, and sleds and skis much like those of the Eskimos." (Kocher, 5)

    In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes stars and constellations; the same ones we see today.

    To strengthen visibility, and also to counterbalance the alien topography of Middle-Earth’s Europe, Tolkien lights it’s night skies with the planets and constellations we know, however different their names.   Orion is seen by hobbits and elves meeting in the Shire woods"… there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Mendelvagor with his shining belt."   Unmistakably Orion.   Looking out of the window of the inn at Bree, "Frodo saw that the night was so clear.   The Sickle was shining above the shoulders of Breehill."   Tolkien adds that " the Sickle" is the Hobbit’s name for the Plough or the Great Bear.   Glowing like a jewel of fire "Red Borgil" would seem to be Mars.  Earendil’s star is surely Venus, because Bilbo describes it as shining just after the setting sun ("behind the sun and light of moon") and just before the rising sun ("a distant flame before the sun, a wonder ere the waking dawn…"). (Kocher, 7)

    In Europe, most of the languages are romance languages, all except German.  German is very different from any other European language.  As Kocher says in The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle-Earth, "The rivalry between Westron and Sauron’ s Black Speech, spoken by all his servants, typifies the enmity of the two cultures…" (15).  This could very well be describing the German or even Russian language in the sense stated in the previous sentence.

    Sauron also "hated any other freedom other than his own…" (Kocher, 56) Nazi Germany also hated freedom and democracy during WWII.   During the war, Hitler ruled in a totalitarian, fascist regime.  They controlled everything, and took over the countries that did not believe in what they did.

    In The Lord of the Rings, the "commonest form of government is a benevolent monarchy, but the Shire of the Hobbits is a kind of small town democracy and Sauron’s kingdom of Mordor is, of coarse, a totalitarian and slave owning dictatorship" (Issacs, 53).

    The Lord of the Rings has similarities between other works of literature.  It has been compared to such works as King Arthur.  "The "Blessed Realm" lies in the mystery of the west, beyond the sea, and certain characters sail toward it in an image akin to the passing of Arthur into Avalon." (Issacs, 29)

    The Lord of the Rings seems to be based on an opera by Wagner.  The structure is the same and many similarities arise between the two.  As Fuller says in Tolkien and the Critics;

    The four-part structure of the work is analogous to Wagner’s Ring Cycle of operas.  A shorter, relatively childlike wonder tale (Das Rheingold and The Hobbit respectively) in each case introduces a massive trilogy.  It is odd and interesting that a Ring of Power is central to both stories and lends its name to their titles, and that dragons and a broken sword to be mended by a warrior hero occur in each. (18)

    If "fantasy is based on hard fact" (Ready, 177), then The Lord of the Rings is completely based on historical events, lands, religion, governments, and other works by different authors.  By using quotes by different authors, I have shown that "it is impossible not to be haunted by parallels between Tolkien’s Middle-Earth and our here and now" (Isaccs, 34).    I have also found that many interpretations can be made from The Lord of the Rings, and different meanings can be taken form the same scenes.  But all in all, The Lord of the Rings was based on many different things combined to form quite possibly, the greatest literary work the world has ever seen.

by Michael Tagge

Works Cited

- Behind the Lord of the Rings - www.auburn.edu/~speedhe/lotr.html

- Issacs, Neil D.  Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’ The Lord of the Rings University of Notre Dame Press, 1968

- Kocher, Paul H.  The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Middle-Earth Ballentine Books, 1972

- Manlove, C.N.  Modern Fantasy: Five Studies
Cambridge University Press, 1975

- Ready, William. The Tolkien Relation: A Personal Inquiry
Henry Regnery Company, 1968