Quests in Middle-earth
J. R. R. Tolkien's best-known novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both have the structure of quests, with a hero setting out, facing dangers, achieving a goal, and returning home. Where The Hobbit is a children's story with the simple goal of treasure, The Lord of the Rings is a more complex narrative with multiple quests. Its main quest, to destroy the One Ring, has been described as a reversed quest – starting with a much-desired treasure, and getting rid of it. That quest, too, is balanced against a moral quest, to scour the Shire and return it to its original state.
Tolkien superimposed multiple meanings on the basic quest, for example embedding a hidden Christian message in the story, and marking the protagonists Frodo and Aragorn out as heroes by giving them magic swords in the epic tradition of Sigurd and Arthur.
Context
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J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in Middle-earth.[1]
A
Quest novels
The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings can both, the scholar of literature
Event | The Hobbit | The Lord of the Rings |
---|---|---|
Start | From Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins | |
Sendoff | Bilbo hosts a party | |
Mentor | The Wizard Gandalf sends the protagonist on eastwards quest | |
Helper | The wise Half-elf Elrond offers a haven and advice | |
Underground perils | Escape from Goblin Town | Escape from Orcs, Trolls, Balrog in Moria |
Elves | Meet Elves of Mirkwood | Meet Elves of Lothlórien |
Desolate region | Cross the desolation of Smaug | Cross the Dead Marshes
|
Helpers | Received by Men of Esgaroth | Received by Ithilien
|
Climactic battle | The Battle of Five Armies | The Battle of the Pelennor Fields |
Mountain goal | Lonely Mountain | Mount Doom
|
Restoration of King | Bard returns to ancestral throne in Esgaroth | Aragorn returns to ancestral throne in Gondor |
Returning home | Bilbo's possessions are being auctioned off | Shire has been despoiled, requires scouring |
Randel Helms, a scholar of literature including Tolkien, comments that the two novels have the same story and the same theme, "a quest on which a most unheroic hobbit achieves heroic stature". Further, Helms writes, both have the "there and back again" quest romance format, and both quests have a timescale of one year (spring to spring, and autumn to autumn, respectively).[6] He comments that while the two novels are thus structurally similar, "the natures of the two quests and the reasons for beginning them are strikingly different," Bilbo's being "at first little more than a lark with venal motives" whereas Frodo's quest "goes with the pain of a sad but noble decision".[7]
Event | The Hobbit | The Lord of the Rings |
---|---|---|
Start | From Bag End in the Shire | |
End of 1st phase | Trip down River Running, nearing Erebor |
Trip down River Anduin, nearing Mordor
|
Approaching the goal | Cross the dragon's withered hearth | Cross the evil polluted plain of Gorgoroth
|
Achieving the quest | Enter hole in side of the Lonely Mountain | Enter hole in side of Mount Doom
|
Success marked by | Arrival of Great Eagles | |
Returning home | Have to stop auction of Bag End | Have to scour the Shire of Sharkey's evil |
Balanced structures
Quest balanced against series of tableaux
The scholar of humanities
Quests of the Ring and the Shire
Tolkien scholars and critics have noted that the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings, "The Scouring of the Shire", with its separate quest to save the Shire, implies some kind of formal structure for the whole work. The critic Bernhard Hirsch accepts Tolkien's statement in the foreword to the Fellowship of the Ring that the formal structure of The Lord of the Rings, namely a journey outward for the main quest and a journey home for the Shire quest, was "foreseen from the outset".[12] Another critic, Nicholas Birns, notes approvingly David Waito's argument that the chapter is as important morally as the Fellowship's main quest to destroy the One Ring, "but applies [the morals] to daily life".[13][14] Birns argues that the chapter has an important formal role in the overall composition of The Lord of the Rings, as Tolkien had stated.[13] Kocher writes that Frodo, having thrown aside his weapons and armour on Mount Doom, chooses to fight "only on the moral plane" in the Shire.[15]
Reversed quests
The Tolkien scholar
Character | Quest | Outcome |
---|---|---|
Traditional Knight-errant | Obtain the Holy Grail | Success, spiritual purity |
Frodo Baggins | Destroy the One Ring | Ring is destroyed, but not by Frodo; Frodo returns broken |
Black Riders |
Obtain the One Ring | Failure, they are destroyed, along with the Ring |
Mason Harris, in Mythlore, contrasts Frodo's "renunciatory" quest with Bilbo's. In his view, The Hobbit represents Tolkien's ideal journey as Bilbo's "curiosity overcomes his Hobbitish fear of the unknown, while Frodo wishes that he had never seen the Ring, but also, because of the Ring's influence, would like to keep it, and thus both dreads his journey and is reluctant to fulfill its object."[22]
Multiple meanings
Shippey remarks that The Lord of the Rings contains meanings of different kinds beneath the immediate quest story. Thus, Tolkien, a
The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that both Frodo and Aragorn receive their renewed magic swords in Rivendell, marking them out as heroes in the epic tradition of Sigurd and Arthur, at the start of their quest.[24]
References
- ^ Carpenter 1978, pp. 111, 200, 266 and throughout.
- ^ Segal, Raglan & Rank 1990, Introduction: In Quest of the Hero.
- ^ Campbell 1949, p. 23.
- ^ Auden 2004, pp. 31–51.
- ^ a b Kocher 1974, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Helms 1974, p. 21.
- ^ Helms 1974, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Helms 1974, pp. 21–22.
- ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 19 "Of Beren and Lúthien"
- ^ Moore 2022.
- ^ a b Rosebury 2003, pp. 1–3, 12–13, 25–34, 41, 57
- ^ Hirsch 2014.
- ^ a b c Birns 2012.
- ^ Waito 2010.
- ^ Kocher 1974, p. 108.
- ^ a b West 1975, p. 81
- ^ a b Miller 1975, p. 96
- ^ Lobdell 1981, p. x.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 161.
- ^ Stanton 2015, p. 16.
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 369–370.
- ^ Harris 1988.
- ^ Shippey 2005, p. 227.
- ^ Flieger 2004, pp. 122–145.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-618-42251-7.
- JSTOR 24353144.
- ISBN 978-0-6910-9743-5.
- Campbell, Lori M. (2010). Portals of Power: Magical Agency and Transformation in Literary Fantasy. ISBN 978-0-7864-5655-0.
- ISBN 978-0-04928-039-7.
- ISBN 978-0-618-42251-7.
- Harris, Mason (1988). "The Psychology of Power in Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings', Orwell's '1984' and Le Guin's 'A Wizard of Earthsea'". Mythlore. 15 (1). Article 8.
- ISBN 0-395-18490-8.
- Hirsch, Bernhard (2014). "After the 'end of all things': The Long Return Home to the Shire". S2CID 170501504.
- Kocher, Paul (1974). Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien. Penguin Books.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-1898-0.
- ISBN 978-0-8754-8303-0.
- Moore, Clare (2022). "Goddess and Mortal: The Celtic and the French Morgan le Fay in Tolkien's Silmarillion". Mythlore. 41 (1). Article 12.
- ISBN 978-1403-91263-3.
- Segal, Robert; ISBN 978-0-691-02062-4.
- ISBN 978-0261102750.
- Stanton, Michael N. (2015). Hobbits, Elves and Wizards: The Wonders and Worlds of JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'. ISBN 978-0-312-23826-1.
- ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
- Waito, David M. (2010). "The Shire Quest: The 'Scouring of the Shire' as the Narrative and Thematic Focus of The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 28 (3–4): 155–177.
- ISBN 978-0-8754-8303-0.