Podcast - Tolkien: Good and Evil
Note: This is the second podcast in a series on J.R.R Tolkien. Click here for the first podcast.
Tolkien had just graduated from Oxford when the Great War broke out. Each member of the TCBS was sent into active duty, including Tolkien. He endured the Battle of Somme, the bloodiest battle in British history, only to face a fortuitous difficulty: trench fever. While Tolkien was recovering, he would begin the saga that he’d spend the rest of his life completing.
Tolkien’s experience in the war greatly influenced his descriptions of war and casualties in The Lord of the Rings. As a side note, one of the physicians in the hospital where Tolkien stayed was named Leonard Gamgee. Leonard was descended from a famous doctor, Samson Gamgee, who ended up as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings.
It is important to note that The Lord of the Rings was not written as an allegory for World War I and the evils that took place. The series was written at a much deeper level in a universe that truly wrestled with the problems of good and evil, the struggle of life, the courage of ordinary people, etc. Tolkien attempted to capture the spirit of the British people.
Tolkien addresses the existence of good and evil. Good is good and will win in the end. Evil is purely evil. There is no mixture of the two like in our postmodern culture. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings against the backdrop of World War I as an attempt to restore humanity’s hope in the fact that good does win.
The mythology of The Lord of the Rings attempts to give a deeper meaning to our own experience in our world with good and evil, anguish, and joy.
Tolkien holds up a mirror. When we look in the mirror of The Lord of the Rings, we see our world reflected to us.
Brittany Proffitt lives in Dallas and is a writer and content manager for So We Speak.
