Of all the influences on Tolkien’s
life and work his faith was not only the most important, but the earliest to
appear. When his mother brought him back
to England from Africa after the death of his father she returned to the
Catholic church, an act that resulted in her near banishment by the rest of the
(mainly Baptist) Tolkien family. When his mother died only a few years later,
Tolkien believed it was at least in part caused by the struggle of taking care
of him and his brother in the absence of any help from her family. He thus saw
his mother as a sort of martyr, who worked herself to death rather than abandon
the Catholic Church. After his mother’s death, both of the Tolkien boys were raised
by Father Francis Morgan, who had been a good friend to Tolkien’s mother and
continued their education, having a profound impact on the rest of Tolkien’s
life.
As we have seen, Tolkien was
presented with two very different views of the world, the modern and the
ancient, each contradicting the other in how they perceived evil, progress,
fate, and much more. Tolkien believed that the men and women of both eras were
making honest observations, but missing important facts and details skewed
their understanding. The ancients, glorifying the epic hero, missed the human
propensity to misuse power, while the modern world, blinded by atrocities and
the resulting cynicism, failed to appreciate the heroism that mankind can
achieve. In Christianity, Tolkien had a
timeless reference through which to view these conflicting viewpoints and see
that, in many cases, they viewed opposite sides of the truth to the exclusion
of the whole truth.
In his
treatment of evil Tolkien shows us a force that is powerful and real, in
agreement with the ancient stories and the modern World Wars, but in contrast
to many of the pacifist arguments of his age. Tolkien’s heroes face evil both
from within their own ranks and from the forces of the enemy. There are two
places where this can be seen most clearly, Amon Hen and Pellenor Fields. In
each case, the forces of good are handicapped by actions from within their own
ranks before being assaulted by overwhelming attacks. At Amon Hen, Boromir
tries to take the ring from Frodo, convincing him that the Fellowship cannot be
trusted and effectively breaking the Fellowship of the Ring. At Pellenor
Fields, the actions of a despairing Denethor pull Gandalf away from the
fighting, removing the one person capable of withstanding the Witch-King of
Angmar.
Both Boromir and Denethor should be
heroes according to the ancients, rising above such despair and overpowering
all who stand before them. According to the moderns their fall should signal
the beginning of the enemy’s victory. But neither occurs. In each case the
actions another are able to stall the effects of their defeat. In contrast to
Boromir’s claim that he is more worthy to bear the ring, Aragorn sacrifices
himself to protect the halflings, and at Pellenor Fields, instead of cowering
in the face of the Witch-King, whom he cannot hope to match, Theoden charges onward,
rejecting the despair which Denethor has embraced. Aragorn and Theoden each
face similar temptations as their counterparts but reject them, for Tolkien
understood that the evil within is powerful, but not invincible.
Sauron himself is no easy foe, to
be understood or reasoned with, but neither is he nor the evil he represents
the final predetermined end of the world as in Ragnarok or as some pessimists
in the modern age would have us believe. Evil is a threat to man from the
inside, as those of the world war recognized, but it is not an insurmountable
threat. The great error of paganism, as G.K. Chesterton pointed out, is that it
puts things out of place, either making them more than they really are or
disregarding them entirely. What has made Tolkien such a powerful voice about
evil, and nearly every other topic, over the years is that he puts things in
their proper place.
Fate
is one of the things Tolkien believed everyone had gotten a piece of, but
lacked a whole. We speak of ‘chance’, the ancients spoke of ‘Wyrd’ and nobody
seems exactly sure what is going on behind it all. Tolkien believed he
did. One of the fascinating things about
Tolkien is his use of details and asides to make veiled references to one grand
theme or another. One of these is Tolkien’s habit of qualifying any reference
he may make to chance. As Tom Shippey points out
‘Tom Bombadil says,
when he rescued the hobbits from Willow -man ‘Just chance brought me then, If
chance you call it’ (my emphasis). Ruin was averted in the North-lands, Gandalf
says in appendix A (III) ‘because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the
edge of Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth’ (my emphasis
again)
The resulting picture that emerges,
in combination with this and other references such as Gandalf’s remark that he
was ‘sent back’, is of a higher power directing the events in Middle-Earth. Further
examination of Tolkien’s writing shows that these and others are references to
the Valar, the heavenly beings of Tolkien’s world, who are ruled by Eru, The
One.
In the ancient world, fate was an
impersonal, irresistible force that could be influence only slightly by the
‘undoomed man’, while in the modern world it is either ignored or seen in a
similar manner. In Christendom, however, we see Fate as the will of God
misunderstood by the blind. In Midgard, fate overpowers human choice and makes
it as nothing, while under Christ, the will of God enables human choice, and
frees us to reap the rewards of our choices.
The
fulfillment of these two beliefs can be seen in Tolkien’s treatment of the ‘little
people’. The Hobbits are referred to as little people, but this can also refer
to the nameless, faceless, and seemingly unimportant characters throughout the
story. A central tenant of Christianity is God’s use of those the world holds
in little regard, and in Lord of the Rings the fate of Middle-Earth, of the
great kings and noble elves, of the great cities and ancient dwarves all rests
on the actions of two lonely hobbits. Frodo and Sam are successful in part because
they are ‘little people’ and are overlooked by Sauron who is focused on the ‘great
people’ in Middle-Earth. Even until the last he cannot comprehend of the
hobbits as being anything more than spies.
Lord of the Rings could not have
been written by someone like T.H. White, who saw in humanity only unending evil
that joyed in destruction and pain and was futile to resist. Nor could it have
been written by the Norsemen, who struggled to understand how a carpenter who
did not pursue martial glory could save the world. So too did the modern world
struggle to understand how such selflessness and humility could avail against
the evil that so overwhelmed them. Frodo is a uniquely Christian hero, at once
free from the terrible oppression of omnipotent evil yet at the same time enslaved
to the unyielding standard of goodness in contrasts that a pagan world cannot
help but admire even as it is baffled.
Christianity allowed Tolkien to create a balanced world, one that included both good and evil, pain and beauty, joy and sorrow in a way that resonates with the world we live in. Tolkien does not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the 20th Century, nor does he attempt wish it away with easy pleasures. Middle-Earth, in it's reflection of our world, offers hope amidst the sorrow while reminding us that we are not alone.
And that is ultimately what makes the Lord of the Rings such a great story, it portrays the Truth of good and evil.
