Allegory or Applicability?

[Andorinha]

A recent TV documentary that purported to be an insider view of "The Lord of the Rings," presented the bold (and bald) statement that Tolkien's work not only could be read allegorically, but that in fact it should be. I disagree with both the tone and the veracity of this TV source as I do not believe that there is any real allegory involved here, religious or otherwise. Nor do I agree with this TV source when it stated that Tolkien made a direct connection between Lembas and the Eucharist.

The following is my reaction to this allegoric interpretation:

In fact, the first such statement recorded concerning a link between Lembas and the Christian Eucharist was a reader's personal interpretation, and not a purposeful statement of Tolkien's. (see Letter #213 in Humphrey Carpenter's Letters of JRR Tolkien).*

While there are matters of a generalized religious/ philosophical nature in almost all of his works, JRRT did not set out to write Christian allegories the way his long-time friend and fellow academician, C.S. Lewis did -- especially in his Narnia stories. In Narnia, the Lion Aslan is only a slightly disguised Jesus Christ, and the author deliberately designed this connection so that even the simplest-minded readers could "get the message."

But, for JRRT's Middle-earth writings, there is no deliberate, designed coorespondence between his characters, or his devices and any figures/ elements taken from the Christian religion: Gandalf is definitely NOT Jesus Christ, Frodo is NOT Jesus Christ, Sauron is NOT Lucifer-Satan, Galadriel is NOT the Virgin Mary, and Lembas is NOT the Christian Eucharist.

In fact, Tolkien went to great lengths in his Letters, and even in the foreword of The Lord of the Rings to make quite clear his personal aversion to writing allegorically:

1) "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it [LotR] has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical." (LotR, preface. p. 10 omnibus edition).

2) He re-iterates this in a letter to Herbert Schiro, Nov. 17, 1957: "There is NO 'symbolism' or conscious allegory in my story. Allegory of the sort 'five wizards = five senses' is wholly foreign to my way of thinking. ... That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is." ( Letter # 203, p. 262, Letters of JRR Tolkien, ed Humphrey Carpenter).

3) And again: "I have no didactic purpose, and no allegorical intent. I do not like allegory -- properly so called: most readers appear to confuse it with significance or applicability ..." (Letter # 215, to Walter Allen, April, 1959, pp 297 - 298 in H. Carpenter Letters of JRRT).

4) Specifically concerning Tolkien's Lembas intention: "Lembas, 'waybread',is called a 'food concentrate'. ... In the book [LotR] lembas has two functions. It is a 'machine' or device for making credible the long marches with little provision..." (Letter # 210, p 275) and "It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind."(Return of the King, p. 213) In Tolkien's mind, the Lembas function as a form of enhanced sustenance for both the body and the will of those who eat it. But, eating Lembas is never presented as a sacred ritual, and Lembas do not function the way the Eucharist does to bring believers into a direct communion with their deity.

What we do find in Tolkien's Middle-earth is the applicability of his characters, and his devices when they are compared to a wide-range of other elements from other contexts. There are many similarities, and parallels that can validly be drawn: Morgoth and Sauron do exhibit behaviors that can be classed as Satanic for Christians, or as Ahrimanic for Mazdaeans in Old Persia; Frodo, Galadriel, Fangorn, Elrond, Earendil, Luthien Tinuviel, Beren, Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn, (maybe even Gollum?!) can all be demonstrated to behave, at times, in self-sacrificing ways that are similar to the general concept of a self-sacrificing, salvific Jesus Christ. Lembas may nourish the body, and sustain the spirits of those who eat them, just as the Eucharist does "metaphorically" in Christian beliefs -- BUT, these are only similarities, not purposely designed identifications (allegories) made by the author. As such these perceived similarities exist more in the readers' minds than in Tolkien's intentions. A Buddhist reading The Lord of the Rings might just as validly compare Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf with the Bodhisatvas; a Pagan Roman might see Manwe as Jupiter/ Zeus; and an astronaut might see Lembas as a highly potent, space-age food concentrate with no religious significance whatsoever, etc., etc.

I think one of the major reasons for the high popularity of JRRT's Middle-earth is to be found precisely in its broad applicability -- one does not have to accept a narrow Christian interpretation of the many works he left us; one can engage his/ her own belief system quite fully without invalidating the author's intentions. If Tolkien had written allegorically, then this freedom would be denied his readers, and his avid audience would, I am certain, be far, far smaller.

______________

*In this letter, #213, Tolkien merely tells us that some readers saw Elbereth, The Star Kindler, as a sort of Mary figure, and that one reader of the RC faith saw the "spirt-lifting" aspect of Lembas as being "similar" to the Eucharist. Tolkien admits only that there may have been some deeply subconcious influence here, but no deliberate attempt at allegory.

[Andorinha]

THE FULL TIRADE

Part I:

When religion and Tolkien are discussed it seems hard for people to maintain a scholarly objectivity. Those who are "staunch" Christians often overstate the amount of Christian information to be found in The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings -- while those whose ruling mindsets are only marginally "christianized," or may even be non-Christian, have a tendency to find nothing particularly Christian in Middle-earth at all.

This becomes an especially complex matter in that JRR Tolkien was, after all is said and done, a mere mortal plagued with a common man's normal inconsistencies. While the traumas of his childhood produced in him an almost rigorously conservative brand of RC faith, he never became a fire-breathing RC evangelist, and never deliberately enthused his writings with blatant Christian propaganda -- and certainly he never mounted the podium of Christian allegory the way CS Lewis did! But, at the same time, JRRT seems (at least from the post WW I period onward) to have made sure that nothing he wrote in his revised mythologies, or in his new works (The Hobbit and LotR) actually contradicted the received myths of his Christian faith. Consequently the core of his popular writing, The Hobbit and LotR, can be read profitably by persons with no knowledge of Christianity whatsoever -- one does not need a Christian background to make sense of Tolkien's tales, whereas with the allegories of CS Lewis, one must understand Christian mythology, beliefs and dogmas to find the "true" meaning and "intended" purpose of the Narnia books.

For some readers, this lack of obvious, directed, Christian "meaning" is the saving grace of Tolkien's writing -- for others who are deeply bound into the Christian faith and wish to interpret all things as being within its illuminating ambit, this lack of open Christianity may be seen as a flaw, perhaps even a damning omission. Tolkien seemed to be, at first, quite comfortable with creating a whole new universe that could be seen as being pre-Christian, and hence required little or no open statements on religion whatsoever. Consequently, there are no references at all to God or gods in The Hobbit, and only a few, slightly religious comments in the LotR itself -- and even where the Valar and Illuvatar are mentioned, an objective reader will be unable to firmly decide if the Powers so addressed are Christian, Pagan, Buddhistic, Hindu, monotheistic or polytheistic. In fact, I think the "religious" passages of LotR are so vaguely stated that they are equally applicable to any and all of these categories. Tolkien wisely (in my view) left the injection of religious belief up to the individual reader.

But, at this point, soon after the 1955-56 publication of the LotR, JRRT began receiving disparaging comments from Christian zealots who had expected a more Christianity-enthused work, and a less "Pagan" seeming one. These zealots did not want the matter of religion to be left ambiguously open to reader interpretation. They wanted a definitive statement from Tolkien that his works were exclusively Christian. Some of these people found his books to be "sacrilegious," by which, I suppose, they meant not explicitly Christian enough to suit their tastes. A critical review by Harvey Breit in the New York Times Book Review, June 5, 1955, stated that Tolkien's world in LotR lacked Women and Religion. Other critics soon picked up on this thread and joined the chorus asking JRRT why he so sedulously avoided God in his writings.

Being a devout, practicing Christian, such attacks seem to have wounded JRRT deeply, and they stung him into delivering a series of letters of self-defense. Tolkien began publically proclaiming his personal status as a Christian, and he put his Roman Catholic credentials on public display for all these doubters to peruse. He began pointing out that Christian virtues, Christian values, and Christian ideals could still be "inferred" from the story lines, and the character motivations of his Hobbits, Rangers, Wizards, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, etc. etc. Even Sauron, Saruman, the Orcs, Trolls, The Nine Nazgul, and Gollum, could all be interpreted, or "judged" from a Christian perspective. This is what he, Tolkien, meant by the "applicability" and generalized "significance" of his tales. Tolkien even went so far as to make clear that his own interpretation of LotR was natually skewed towards a Christian monotheism and he excused the lack of "open religion" in his books with the following: "The odd fact that there are no churches, temples, or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted. ... I am in any case myself a Christian; but the 'Third Age' was not a Christian world." (Letter # 165, June 30, 1955, p. 220).

This should have been enough for his Christian critics, but some of these Christians were downright bigots, and they were not satisfied with "mere applicability," they wanted to find a more evident and vocal presentation of the triumphant virtues of their Christian faith in the annals of Middle-earth. Since Tolkien could not, or at least would not, take The Hobbit and LotR out of publication to re-write them as open articles of the Christian faith, zealous Christians found a way to "Christianize" these books for him. Under the "applicability" clause, it was (still is) valid for Christians to give a Christian interpretation to all the actions, events, objects, and characters found throughout the pages JRRT composed -- and many Christian readers proceeded to do just this. They "Christianized" and sanitized LotR (by removing Pagan references and interpretations) something that was their right as readers, although I think they often "over-Christianized" the mythologies of Middle-earth, and thereby missed out on the Pagan elements that came from Tolkien's early Graeco-Roman classicism, and the influences of his Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Finnish sources: the Sagas and the Kalevala.

[Andorinha]

THE FULL TIRADE

Part II:

In the last few years, probably influenced by the release of the popular Peter Jackson films, there has been a sudden spate of new publications purporting to explain the "hidden" and "true" meanings of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Among them are many "Christian Exegetical" commentaries that often make a great mountain of just a few of Tolkien's early comments. The most frequently quoted, and I think mis-used, is found in a Letter to the Jesuit Father Robert Murray:

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally
religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but
consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or
have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion',
to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious
element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."
(Letter # 142, p. 172, December 1953).

What this letter tells me, is simply "old news:" Tolkien made sure that his LotR did not contain blatant examples of non-Christian religious doctrine that would have marked his novel as being preferentially supportive of the older Pagan cults. It tells me that he took some pains to make sure LotR could be "applicable" to the Christian faith. But it also tells me that he found it would invalidate his storyline, and be anachronistic to fill it up with Christian allegories. So while The Hobbit and LotR have Christian applicability, they are still NOT Christian texts as such. Tolkien simply left out all (or almost all) references to religious activities and belief systems (whether Christian or not) to preserve the applicability effect of his work.

This is not the case with his earlier tales -- later collected, refined and published as the Silmarillion -- wherein the Olympic and Aesir dieties may still be seen peeping through the forms of his Valar, The Powers of the World. In these backstory mythologies, never really expected by JRRT to be published, one can see a rawer, less Christian applicable world. Some of the statements, calling the Valar "gods" are in fact contradictory to Christian concepts. But these stories had been largely conceived early on in Tolkien's life, and some were meant to be close copies of their Pagan sources (like the Kalevala's Kullervo), and some were based on Roman myths -- so it is no surprise that they would have a pagan flavor. There is some evidence found in the HOME series, especially in Morgoth's Ring, that the aging Tolkien had started a final revision of these older Middle-earth myths, with a view to taking all the "paganisms" out of them, and making them more compatible with a Christian applicability.

As a result, some of the recent Christian authors have seen fit to claim that all of Tolkien's vast corpus of Middle-earth writing should be, or even must be more narrowly re-interpreted as True Christian allegory on a par with the works of Milton, and CS Lewis. Some of these Christian Exegetical works now confidently parade the Middle-earth characters and events as having a direct, and exclusive Christian meaning. The principle of "applicability" is now being revoked and denied. For such authors as Bradley J. Birzer, and Joseph Pearce, (Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth) their takes on Middle-earth are the only TRUE ones, and the only valid approach to "understanding" Tolkien is now a Christian one. Such "authorities" proclaim that Tolkien was indeed writing Christian allegories from the very start, allegories in which Varda = the Virgin Mary, (or maybe it's Galadriel?), Manwe = the Arch Angle Gabriel (or maybe it's Saint George?), Gandalf IS Jesus (or variously Frodo IS Jesus), Tom Bombadil is not a "nature spirit," a "genius locci" but the nature loving St Francis of Assisi, and even the food-concentrate Lembas IS the Eucharist.

Well, I'll still cling to what I see as JRRT's original intent, and interpret his works as simply being widely "applicable" and see them as being without a hint of forced, religious allegory...

[Greenleaf]

I agree with you, Andorinha, and by the way, welcome to TR.

I will only add the following words of Tolkien (from Foreward, LotR):

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. ..... I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

Okay, we all know that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and I suppose that some of his beliefs or experiences affected his stories, which is only natural, but that's entirely different from intentional allegory.

(This was posted simultaneously with the second and third post, so I hadn't read them. Therefore, my last sentence is rather superfluous. In any case, this was a great essay.)

[ROBEDMERLINTR]

What Andorhinda says makes sense...I have talked about this other times..I think Tolkien maybe wrote in a way that while not advocating a particular religion or faith......Hisintent was to allow the reader to see what they wanted to see...You have all the elements, that would show the classic Good - vs evil.....But he leaves you to draw your own conclusions..

Regardless of anyone's particular faith/Path ..Tolkien can be enjoyed by all..And I think, that was his intent all along

Respectfully , RM

[Stormrider]

Professor Tolkien was a man who had experienced many things in his life--loss of parents, love, war, close friendship, and he read and translated many interesting ancient writings. Anyone who is writing a tale will draw on their experiences and knowledge.

Because he had such wide knowledge and experiences, he could draw the reader into his tale and touch us all deeply in whatever ways we each would relate to his tale. Readers may, however, find things that seem similar to real events and I guess that cannot be helped because people will draw their own conclusions.

I never believed that Tolkien's events in his tale were allegorically created. I think he wove his tale just for the sake of his tale only. All of the themes woven into it are those that appeal to readers and get into their soul and make them love the story.

[Desi Baggins]

I believe that when Tolkien created this world he had to draw upon everything he knew, whether it was his past loves, religion, knowledge of war, ect...I think he even tried to draw on religions other than catholic. He wanted to create another world and not write about this world. I think it is wonderful what he did...The reader can see whatever they want in his story. No allegory as far as I can see!

[Ninhiisenen]

Stormrider said:

Readers may, however, find things that seem similar to real events and I guess that cannot be helped because people will draw their own conclusions.

My dad made an interesting association after watching The Two Towers movie that Sauron's/Saruman's quest for power was like that of Hitler and the genocide of the Jews was like Sauron's attempt to vanquish all those who were against the evil of the ring. I think there is too much concentration on association and influence in the world. You always hear people saying "Perhaps this was influenced by that or that reminds me of this" and then you get the smart people who say "So-and-so is so imaginative, creative, brilliant, etc." because they recognize the spirit of the individual instead of the Popularity Chain of Command where one thing absolutely has to copy another or draw from another to be appreciated and understood.

[Lanhail]

Anorinha wrote awhile ago:
Some of these Christian Exegetical works now confidently parade the Middle-earth characters and events as having a direct, and exclusive Christian meaning. The principle of "applicability" is now being revoked and denied. For such authors as Bradley J. Birzer, and Joseph Pearce, (Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth) their takes on Middle-earth are the only TRUE ones, and the only valid approach to "understanding" Tolkien is now a Christian one.

I gritted my teeth through Pearce ("Man and Myth") and Birzer (Sanctifying Myth") to the point of locking my jaw for unfortunately I read them consecutively. A couple of years have passed since then.

Then, on recommendation at another board, I sent for Following Gandalf, Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings by Matthew Dickerson and an older work by Richard Purtill called JRR Tolkien: Myth Morality and Religion. I received them on Friday and found that I could hardly put "Following Gandalf" down. Here is a review of the book www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_dickerson_followinggandalf.html
I REALLY wish I had read this book before or during my discussions with Heril Bloodfist. (BTW I noticed that Heril is no longer a member. I am very sorry to see that. I will miss him.)
Lanhail

[Fangorn]

Wonderfully incisive review. Definately makes me want to read the book. Lanhail, since this a spirituality board, perhaps you may like to take a few discussions from the book and present them here? Perhaps we could start with the one about why Gandalf achieves success through moral strength vs Saruman trying to achieve it through military strength? I can think of several aplicable examples in our history, such as the 300 Spartans, the battle of Agincourt, and others where moral resolve trumped the out-numbering forces. In fact, I found the movies' use of Aragorn's battle spiel outside the Black Gates, very reminiscient of Henry's at Agincourt. What do you say, Lanhail? Give us some good discussions!

[Fredeghar Wayfarer]

Like Tolkien himself, I dislike allegory for a number of reasons. It's a much more heavy-handed way of writing that forces the reader to accept the writer's point of view, rather than drawing one's own conclusions. Allegorical texts have only one true meaning, as opposed to the more broad range of interpretation in applicability. It's a more personal experience when the reader can interpret a text however they see fit.

Also, allegories tend to strip away the face value of a story. It's hard to be swept away in the reality of an imaginary world when you're constantly thinking "Okay, this character represents this and this concept represents that." When it's all just an allegory for something else, it's as if the actual characters and their struggles don't matter. They're just ideas being used as a means to an end. As a reader and a writer myself, that seems unfair to the story.

So yeah, applicability is the better way to go, as far as I'm concerned. If someone wants to read the story alegorically, I'd tell them, "Hey, knock yourself out." But the beauty of it is that someone else could read those same words and take a totally different meaning or even take no meaning at all, just bask in the imagination of it and the emotional response to the characters.

[Andorinha]

Great point, Fredegar, concerning the "constraining" factor of allegory! I certainly agree that the test of a good book is just how much it engages the individual reader and allows him/ her to interact with the text by personalizing its meaning.

I had not really considered (before you mentioned it) but it really is a pain to leave the surface flow of a book and constantly force an allegorical interpretation over it. I did not realize it, but it is disruptive for me, while reading Narnia, to stop the action and remind myself that here the Lion represents Jesus, the Witch is a pre-creation form of absolute Evil, an accidental, alien intrusion from another plane of existance, etc, etc...

RE - Fredegar: "But the beauty of it is that someone else could read those same words and take a totally different meaning or even take no meaning at all, just bask in the imagination of it and the emotional response to the characters."

A great summation!