Hey Garfelf you fat cat !! (what's up with the name? It's kind of silly. I hope you're not offended.) You seem like a regular in that board, I try to stick to the ones about the game mostly but I just thought I'd stick my head in. I just thought I had some interesting input for the thread but I kind of didn't feel like sticking my head out and I'm sort of shy. I thought you might post it there for me? You see, I'm a budding Tolkien scholar and I happen to be working on a thesis which, if I could put it that way, would break new ground in the field of Tolkien scholarship.
According to my thesis, this idea that usually gets dismissed, that The Lord of the Rings was really about World War II? Well, it's right after all but not for the reasons people think. You have to bear with me here: according to certain unpublished letters and notes from Tolkien which my university (unfortunately, I can't say which) happen to possess, Tolkien well hidden political leanings which he managed to conceal throughout his life. My thesis sets out to prove that The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion are in fact allegorical, and they concern the rise of Communism and a hypothetical WWII scenario in which Western Europe bands together to destroy the Soviet Union.
In my view, and this is heavily corroberated in those letters and notes that I mentioned, the Silmarillion corresponds to the history of Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. Morgoth, Tolkien's "Marx" figure, rebelled against his masters the Valar, who symbolize the paternalistic regimes of 19th century Europe. He created the orcs, who are parodies of working class people, and in the books speak "corrupted" English based on working class dialects. The creation of the orcs is symbolic for the awakening of class consciousness in the proletariat by Marx.
Sauron, being Morgoth's lieutenant and pupil, is a compund character and represents Lenin and Stalin. Whilst Morgoth tried to spread his influence in the North, as Germany, Britain and France from a Mediterranean perspective are in the North of Europe, Sauron brings the orcs and "evil" East. After a series of setbacks in the Silmarillion, the Valar and their cronies the Elves stamp out the influence of Morgoth but not eradicate "evil" entirely, representing the uprisings in 1848 in Europe and their limited success. Morgoth's student Sauron then takes over the mantle of lord of international Communism, and his inital base in Dol Guldur represents the Second International. Due to intervention by the Great Power, Sauron is forced to move East into Mordor, representing Communism taking on a more (in Tolkien's view) "Asiatic" character and adopting Socialism in One Country and biding its time until an attempt at a violent take-over of Europe/Middle Earth.
Gondor, then, would be nothing other than Nazi Germany, and if you look at its central position and compare the two, it makes sense. Denethor is Tolkien's Hitler figure, and the return of Aragorn is nothing other than the return of the hypothetical House of Hohenzollern. Rohan is quite clearly Britain, riding out to help Germany in this hypothetical scenario. The Hobbits are idealized peasants who do not rebel against the established social order, and some of them, like Frodo Baggins, are wealthy farmers who oppose Sauron's agenda. Samwise Gamgee, an Uncle Tom-like figure, represents the simple but fanatically loyal servants who help them.
*Notice how "Melkor" and "Morgoth" both begin with an "m". There is more symbolism in that the name "Melkor "is obviously lifted from the biblical figure of "Melchior", who brought the gift of
frankincense to the "
king of the Jews". Marx was of course of Jewish ancestry himself, and for several years he lived in France. The first element of Morgoth,
*mor, could also reasonably be construed as an oblique root of *Morx by the rules of Latin or Greek, which is something that would make sense to an eccentric professor of linguistics like Tolkien. Sceptics might argue that the first element of Morgoth is
mor-, meaning Black in Sindarin. This criticism can be easily dimissed by pointing to the fact that Tolkien was lazy and liked to make up names and then create etymologies for them. See Brandywine/Branduin, which is clearly something he came up with after a late-night bender with C.S. Lewis.
Obviously I couldn't relate the contents of my thesis in their entirety, I could only give but a few glimpses. I urge anyone who interested in Tolkien to keep their ear to the ground in the close future, because when my thesis comes out, it's going to be huge.
I hope you found this interesting and want to put it in the thread for me, and thanks in advance!
