Lord Of The Rings As A Metaphore

For Ww2 Essay, Research Paper

The Lord of the Rings, a Metaphor for World War II

Joe Shmoe

1/16/2000

The book The Lord of the Rings (which the author originally intended to be one book) resounds with symbolism and metaphor which reflects the era in which it was written. Although the author claims this story has no “inner meaning or ‘message’” and that the story is merely a story to be told, it would take a far stretch of the imagination not to find the ideas of the book as metaphors for the real world around it. The very essence of the characters and plot lends the book so completely to the idea of its metaphorical representation of World War II, it is obvious why the author would deny the relation.

The story begins with Bilbo leaving the Shire after his 133rd birthday. He gives the Ring, which is the source of limitless, corrupting power to Frodo, Bilbo’s adopted heir. From this point, Gandolf, the almighty and mysterious wizard, helps lead Frodo and a band of other Hobbits and heroes on a quest to destroy the one ring in order to keep it out of the grasp of Sauron, who is the representative of all evil in the world. While this at face value may not seem to have a relationshiop to WWII, the very nature of metaphor, the comparison of two unlike thing to express a meaning, allows these two ideas to coexist and create an entirely new idea.

The Ring in the story represents the center of power and action throughout the novels. The Ring was created by Sauron in an earlier age, along with eight other rings, in order to increase his power. The Rings all represented greater power but were tainted by the forging and the forger. The Ring which Sauron made for himself, is the ultimate source of power, the power of hate. The Ring is a metaphor for hate. It makes the wearer of it invisible to prying eyes. Through the use of hate, a person can mask his true character from those around him. Also with the Ring, any wearer is granted the power of invisibility, but only specially trained people can harness its true power, which is to alter the world around it. So is true with hate. Only those who are truly masterful in the art of speech can use hate to its full potential and extreme. Also, the Ring has a side effect: it corrupts that which is good to evil and distorts those who use it to hide from others. This is true, too, of the power of hate. Those who begin with the best intentions commonly cause more harms than that which they originally intended to solve. As a person uses hate to disguise him from what he fears the world sees them as, he becomes what they fear the world sees him as being. Such is the case of the character Smeagol.

The character of Smeagol, as told by Gandolf, began life as a perfectly nice Hobbit. But after his cousin Deal discovers the Ring while fishing, Smeagol murders him, steals the Ring, and uses the power of invisibility to steal form his fellow Hobbits. Eventually he is twisted by the power of the reign and becomes a hideous creature, afraid of the light of the sun. In this context, Smeagol can be seen as a metaphor for the German people before and after the popularization of the ideals of the Nazis. The Ring maintains the meaning of the power of hate, but this time it is welded by a power outside of its wearer. In the story of Smeagol is an invisible hand, the hand of Sauron. He guides Smeagol down the path of evil in order to convince him to return the Ring to him. This is also true with Hitler and the German people. He used the power of hate to corrupt the German people to the point where they would stand aggressive war and grievous crimes against humanity– things which they would never have imagined doing before hate was brought into the equation. The Ring was given its corruptive qualities by its master and creator Sauron.

Sauron enters the novel as the representation of pure evil. Sauron never actually talks nor directly participates in any of the novels, but without him there would have been no story. Sauron is most clearly Hitler’s parallel in the scheme of things. They both sought to use hate to gain power over those around them. They both fell to the flaw of hubris. Hitler thought that Germany could not lose, the Aryan race would rule the world, and the thought of this not happening never crossed his mind. Sauron, in the same vein, could never understand the idea of his enemies not using the Ring against him in order to defeat him. In his great arrogance, he assumed the enemy would see that the quickest way to victory would be by using the Ring to bring an end to him. This is where the character of Gandolf sees the possibilities of the Ring. In a conversation with Frodo, Gandolf tells Frodo (after Frodo asks him why he does not simply use the ring to destroy the armies of Mordor and kill Sauron), that if he had even touched the ring, he would have been so greatly drawn by its power that he would not have been able to control himself. He says that in the beginning it would be for the good of the people, but in the end he would be as evil as Sauron ever was by the corruption of ultimate power thereby giving Sauron victory in his defeat. This is the power of hate. Even when originally used for the best intentions, it always ends up hurting the ones who use it, despite of any good they originally intended.

The character of Gandolf is the metaphor for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Ga