The Lord of the Rings

Summary

The Lord of the Rings continues the story begun in The Hobbit. Sixty years after his adventure, Bilbo Baggins leaves the Shire on his eleventy-first birthday and, at Gandalf's urging, leaves his magic ring to his young cousin and heir Frodo. Years later Gandalf returns with grave news: the ring is the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to rule the other Rings of Power, lost for ages, found by Gollum and taken by Bilbo. Sauron has risen again and is hunting for it. Frodo sets out with his gardener Sam Gamgee and his cousins Merry and Pippin, escapes the Black Riders with the help of Tom Bombadil and the ranger Strider, and is stabbed with a Morgul-knife on Weathertop before reaching Rivendell. At the Council of Elrond it is resolved that the Ring cannot be used or hidden but must be destroyed in the fire of Mount Doom, in Sauron's own land of Mordor, and Frodo volunteers to carry it. Nine companions set out: the four hobbits, Gandalf, Strider (Aragorn, heir of the kings of Gondor), the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli and Boromir of Gondor. Gandalf falls with the Balrog in Moria; the company passes through Lothlórien, where Galadriel refuses the Ring; at the Falls of Rauros Boromir tries to seize it, and the Fellowship breaks. Boromir dies defending Merry and Pippin, who are carried off by orcs, escape into Fangorn and rouse the Ents against the wizard Saruman at Isengard. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf returned as the White Rider, free King Théoden of Rohan from Saruman's counsellor Wormtongue, and win the battle of Helm's Deep. Meanwhile Frodo and Sam, guided by the captured Gollum, cross the Dead Marshes and Ithilien, meet Faramir, and are betrayed to the giant spider Shelob. Sam, believing Frodo dead, takes the Ring, then rescues him from the orc tower of Cirith Ungol. Minas Tirith is besieged; Éowyn and Merry kill the Witch-king on the Pelennor Fields; Aragorn arrives with the ships of the Corsairs and later leads a hopeless march to the Black Gate to draw Sauron's eye. On Mount Doom Frodo cannot give the Ring up and claims it; Gollum bites off his finger and falls with it into the fire, and Sauron's realm collapses. Aragorn is crowned and marries Arwen. The hobbits return to find the Shire seized by Saruman's ruffians and drive them out. Frodo, never healed of his wounds, sails into the West with Bilbo, Gandalf and the elves, leaving Sam to his family. Written between 1937 and 1949, the work was issued by George Allen & Unwin in three volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in 1954 and The Return of the King in 1955.

Plot or Argument

• Book I: The Ring Sets Out

  Bilbo's farewell party; Gandalf identifies the One Ring; Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin flee the Black Riders through the Old Forest and Bree, are joined by Strider, and reach the Ford of Bruinen after Frodo is wounded on Weathertop.

• Book II: The Ring Goes South

  The Council of Elrond forms the Fellowship of Nine; the mines of Moria and Gandalf's fall on the bridge of Khazad-dûm; Galadriel's mirror and gifts in Lothlórien; Boromir's attempt on the Ring and the breaking of the Fellowship at Parth Galen.

• Book III: The Treason of Isengard

  Boromir's death; Merry and Pippin with Treebeard and the Ents; Gandalf's return; Théoden's healing at Edoras; the battle of Helm's Deep; the fall of Isengard and the parley with Saruman; the palantír.

• Book IV: The Ring Goes East

  Frodo and Sam tame Gollum, cross the Dead Marshes, are held by Faramir in Ithilien, and climb the stairs of Cirith Ungol into Shelob's lair, where Sam takes the Ring from his master's apparently lifeless body.

• Book V: The War of the Ring

  Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead; Denethor's despair and death; the siege of Minas Tirith and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields; the Houses of Healing; the march of the Captains of the West to the Black Gate.

• Book VI: The Return of the King

  Sam rescues Frodo from the tower; the climb across Mordor; Frodo's failure and Gollum's fall at the Crack of Doom; Cormallen; the crowning of Aragorn; the Scouring of the Shire; the Grey Havens.

• Appendices

  Annals of the kings, the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, family trees, calendars, and notes on the languages and alphabets of Middle-earth.

Characters

• Frodo Baggins, Ring-bearer

  Bilbo's heir, who volunteers to carry the One Ring to Mordor and is worn down by it.

• Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's servant and companion

  Gardener of Bag End whose loyalty carries Frodo up Mount Doom.

• Gandalf, wizard

  Grey Pilgrim who falls in Moria and returns as Gandalf the White to lead the West.

• Aragorn (Strider), heir of Isildur

  Ranger of the North who claims the throne of Gondor and proves a healer-king.

• Gollum (Sméagol), former bearer of the Ring

  Wretched, divided creature whose craving for the Ring ends in its destruction.

• Boromir, man of Gondor

  Brave son of the Steward who tries to take the Ring and dies redeeming his fall.

• Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took, hobbits of the Fellowship

  Young cousins who rouse the Ents and serve Rohan and Gondor in the war.

• Legolas and Gimli, elf and dwarf of the Fellowship

  Members of feuding races who become fast friends.

• Saruman, fallen wizard

  Head of the wizards' order who seeks the Ring for himself and later spoils the Shire.

• Sauron, the Dark Lord

  Maker of the One Ring, never seen in person, ruling from Barad-dûr.

• Éowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan

  Théoden's niece who rides to war in disguise and slays the Witch-king.

• Faramir, captain of Gondor

  Boromir's brother, who refuses to take the Ring when it is in his power.

Lessons

• Power that cannot be used well

  The Council of Elrond refuses the obvious plan of turning Sauron's weapon against him, because the Ring corrupts whoever wields it, however good the intention. Gandalf, Galadriel, Faramir and Sam each refuse it in turn, while Boromir, Saruman and Denethor are undone by desiring it or its kind of mastery.

  • Why does Gandalf refuse the Ring when Frodo offers it to him in Book I?
  • How do Faramir's and Boromir's responses to the Ring differ, and why?
  • Is there any power in our world that should be destroyed rather than used?

• Pity and the limits of the hero

  Gandalf tells Frodo that Bilbo's pity for Gollum may rule the fate of many, and so it does: at the Crack of Doom Frodo fails, and only Gollum's mad seizure of the Ring ends the quest. Tolkien makes mercy, not strength, the hinge of the story, and lets the hero's failure be redeemed by what he had earlier spared.

  • Why does Frodo spare Gollum, and why does Sam distrust him?
  • Does Frodo's failure on Mount Doom make him less of a hero?
  • What does the ending suggest about who is really in charge of events?

• Faithful service

  Sam is a servant who thinks of himself as nothing special, yet his loyalty is the steadiest strength in the book. He carries Frodo up the mountain, refuses to keep the Ring, and returns to plant the Shire again with Galadriel's gift.

  • At what moment in Book IV or VI does Sam become the leader?
  • Why does the book end with Sam rather than Frodo?

• Wounds that do not heal

  Frodo saves the Shire but cannot live in it. His knife wound, the spider's sting and the Ring's long weight return on their anniversaries, and he finally sails West for healing. Tolkien, a Somme veteran, treats victory honestly: some who win a war carry it with them for life.

  • Why can Frodo not settle back into the Shire after the war?
  • What does Frodo mean when he says the Shire has been saved, but not for him?

Context

Tolkien wrote the work as a Catholic philologist steeped in Old English, Old Norse and Finnish literature, and as a man who had lost most of his close friends in the First World War. It grew out of his invented languages and his private mythology of the Elder Days, later published as The Silmarillion. Tolkien rejected readings of the Ring as an allegory of the atomic bomb or of the Second World War, preferring applicability, the freedom of the reader to apply the story, over allegory, the purposed domination of the author.

Composition

After The Hobbit succeeded in 1937, Allen & Unwin asked for a sequel; Tolkien began in December 1937 and worked on it, with long pauses, until 1949, reading chapters to C. S. Lewis and the Inklings and sending parts to his son Christopher, then training with the RAF in South Africa. Because of its length and postwar paper costs Allen & Unwin divided it into three volumes, published 29 July 1954, 11 November 1954 and 20 October 1955; Houghton Mifflin issued the American edition. Tolkien regarded it as a single novel in six books, and he revised the text for the second edition of 1965-66. In a 1953 letter to the Jesuit Robert Murray he called it a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first but consciously in revision.

Reception

Early reviews were divided: C. S. Lewis and W. H. Auden praised it, while Edmund Wilson dismissed it. An unauthorized American paperback in 1965 and the authorized Ballantine edition that followed made it a campus phenomenon in the United States. It has sold well over a hundred million copies, has been translated into dozens of languages, and shaped the whole modern genre of fantasy. Radio, animated and live-action adaptations followed, most famously Peter Jackson's three films of 2001-2003.

Comparisons

• the-hobbit

  Bilbo's comic magic ring becomes the One Ring, and the earlier book's light quest darkens into a war for the whole world; Tolkien rewrote the Gollum chapter of The Hobbit in 1951 to fit.

• on-fairy-stories

  The lecture names the eucatastrophe, the sudden joyous turn, that Sam feels on waking at Cormallen, and defends escape and consolation as proper ends of fantasy.

• beowulf

  Tolkien's Beowulf lecture praised the poem's northern courage that fights on knowing defeat; Théoden's last charge and the march to the Black Gate carry the same spirit, now set within a Christian hope.

• the-last-battle

  Tolkien's friend Lewis also ended a long fantasy with a world's ending and a passage West or further in; Lewis's Narnia closes with open Christian imagery, while Tolkien keeps his faith beneath the surface of a pre-Christian world.

• the-pilgrims-progress

  Both follow a burdened traveller through perilous country with a faithful companion, though Tolkien disliked allegory and Frodo's burden, unlike Christian's, is never lifted by his own effort.

• paradise-lost

  Saruman and Sauron, like Milton's Satan, are created beings who fell through pride; both works ask how evil can only mar and twist what was made good.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Each time someone is offered the Ring or the chance to take it: Gandalf at Bag End, Galadriel in Lothlórien, Boromir at Parth Galen, Faramir in Ithilien, Sam at Cirith Ungol.
• Gandalf's words to Frodo in The Shadow of the Past about Bilbo's pity for Gollum, and how they come true at the Crack of Doom in Book VI.
• The many leaders of men in the book, especially the contrast between Théoden, freed from Wormtongue, and Denethor, who despairs.
• The lembas, the light of Eärendil in Galadriel's phial, and other gifts from Lothlórien, and when each is needed.
• How the Scouring of the Shire brings the war home to the hobbits' own village.

Key terms and names

The One Ring

Sauron's ring of power, forged in Mount Doom to rule the other Rings, which bends the will of its bearer toward domination and can be unmade only in the fire where it was made.

The Fellowship

The nine walkers chosen at the Council of Elrond to match the Nine Riders: four hobbits, a wizard, two men, an elf and a dwarf.

Nazgûl

The Black Riders, nine kings enslaved by rings Sauron gave them, led by the Witch-king of Angmar.

Athelas

Kingsfoil, a humble herb that in Aragorn's hands heals wounds and the Black Breath in the Houses of Healing.

Palantír

A seeing-stone of the old kings; Saruman and Denethor are deceived through theirs, and Aragorn wrests his from Sauron's control.

Ents

Ancient tree-herds of Fangorn Forest, led by Treebeard, who destroy Saruman's Isengard.

Mount Doom (Orodruin)

The volcano in Mordor where the Ring was forged and the only place it can be destroyed.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Gandalf learn about Bilbo's ring in Book I, Chapter 2, and why does the Council of Elrond decide it must be destroyed rather than hidden or used?
2. Comprehension How does the Fellowship break apart at the end of Book II, and where does each member go afterward?
3. Comprehension What happens at the Crack of Doom, and what part does Gollum play in it?
4. Interpretation Boromir and Faramir are brothers raised by the same father. Why does one try to seize the Ring and the other refuse it?
5. Interpretation Aragorn proves he is king in the Houses of Healing before he is crowned. Why does Tolkien make healing a sign of rightful rule?
6. Interpretation Why does Tolkien include the Scouring of the Shire after the great victory instead of ending at the coronation?
7. Big Question Frodo fails at the last moment, yet the quest succeeds. What does the book suggest about the relation between human effort, failure and providence?
8. Big Question Is it ever right to use an evil means to defeat an evil enemy?

Faith Connections

• Romans 12:21 (Scripture)

  Paul urges believers not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good. The Council rejects using the Ring against Sauron for this reason, choosing the seemingly foolish way of destruction over domination.

• Matthew 6:13 (Scripture)

  Tolkien wrote in his letters that Frodo's failure on Mount Doom recalls the petition lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: some trials are beyond any creature's strength, and deliverance comes by grace.

• Luke 22:26-27 (Scripture)

  Christ says the greatest must be as one who serves. Sam, the gardener and servant, and Aragorn, the king who comes as a healer, both live out this reversal.

• Augustine, City of God XII (Great Conversation)

  Augustine argues that evil has no being of its own but is a privation of good. Tolkien's Sauron and orcs can only corrupt and mock what was made good, never create, which follows the same line of thought.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The Ring gives its bearer power to dominate others, and such power corrupts every will that takes it up, however good. Therefore evil cannot be defeated by seizing its weapon; the Ring must be destroyed. That task cannot be done by strength, since the strong are the most tempted, so it falls to the small and humble, sustained by friendship and mercy. Even they fail at the last, and the quest is fulfilled by the pity Bilbo and Frodo showed Gollum, which points to a providence working through good choices beyond the chooser's sight.

Rhetorical device: interlace (entrelacement). From Book III onward Tolkien alternates and overlaps the threads of the divided company, as medieval romances do, so that events at Helm's Deep, Isengard and Ithilien are told out of order and only come together at the Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate.

Debate: Resolved: Frodo's failure to destroy the Ring by his own will makes him a greater hero, not a lesser one.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace Gollum from The Shadow of the Past to the Crack of Doom and argue whether the mercy shown to him was wisdom or a gamble that happened to succeed.

Comparison with Beowulf: Tolkien admired Beowulf's courage in the face of certain defeat. Compare Beowulf's last fight with Théoden's charge or the march to the Black Gate, and argue how Tolkien's Christian hope changes the meaning of that courage.

Medical Lens

Healing is a real concern of the book. In the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith the herb-master and the old wife Ioreth treat the Black Breath, a deadly despondent sleep that falls on Faramir, Éowyn and Merry after contact with the Nazgûl; Aragorn heals them with athelas and his own call, fulfilling the saying that the hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so proving his kingship by medicine before he is crowned. Frodo's wounds from the Morgul-knife and from Shelob, and the long burden of the Ring, return as illness on their anniversaries in October and March; readers often compare this to the recurring distress of veterans, and Tolkien had seen trench warfare and contracted trench fever after the Somme, but the comparison is an interpretation, not Tolkien's own label. Gollum's craving for the Ring, his split speech as Sméagol and Gollum, and Frodo's growing inability to let it go are frequently read in the language of addiction and compulsion; Tolkien framed them morally and spiritually. Denethor's despair and suicide on the pyre, and the hunger and thirst of the crossing of Mordor, complete the picture.

• Book I, Chapters 11-12

  Frodo is stabbed on Weathertop; the cold spreads from the wound until Elrond removes the knife-splinter at Rivendell.

  WAR Wounds Physicians Doctors
• Book IV, Chapter 2 and following

  Gollum's divided talk between Sméagol and Gollum as he argues with himself over the precious.

  Addiction Obsession Monomania
• Book V, Chapter 7: The Pyre of Denethor

  Denethor, despairing after looking into the palantír, burns himself and nearly burns his living son.

  Melancholia Depression
• Book V, Chapter 8: The Houses of Healing

  Aragorn treats Faramir, Éowyn and Merry for the Black Breath with athelas, while Ioreth and the herb-master look on.

  Physicians Doctors Nursing Caregiving
• Book VI, Chapters 2-3

  Frodo and Sam cross Mordor short of water and food, Sam rationing what is left and finally carrying his master.

  Starvation Nutrition Nursing Caregiving
• Book VI, Chapter 9: The Grey Havens

  Frodo falls ill on the anniversaries of his wounds and decides to sail West for healing he cannot find at home.

  Trauma Shell Shock WAR Wounds

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Compare the ways Gandalf, Galadriel, Faramir and Sam refuse the Ring. What does each refusal reveal about the one who refuses?

• Fiction

  Write Sam's account, many years later, of the night on the slopes of Mount Doom, for his children in the Red Book.

• Classroom

  Map the two journeys of Books III-VI side by side and mark where the events of one thread affect the other.

• Poetry

  Write a lament for Boromir in the alliterative style of the songs of Rohan.

Further Reading

• The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

• The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter

• J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography, Humphrey Carpenter

• Tolkien and the Great War, John Garth

• J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Tom Shippey

• The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey