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.

Top 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Verified Quotes

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.

• Book IV, Chapter 2 and following

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

• Book V, Chapter 7: The Pyre of Denethor

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.