The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a seminal, genre-defining work of literature, praised and beloved for its timeless storytelling. J.R.R. Tolkien’s work has not only influenced modern fantasy literature, but also the film industry (with its Oscar-winning movie adaptation), music, video games, and table-top role playing games (such as Dungeons and Dragons). To call The Lord of the Rings a cultural behemoth would be an understatement: The search for the hidden, deeper meaning baked inside of this fantasy epic has puzzled scholars and pop culture connoisseurs for decades. Some critics claim the series is an allegory for World War I or II, while others call the work entirely apolitical, meant to be read as its own self-contained story, isolated from the culture of the late 1930’s to late 1940’s England when it was written and published. Tolkien himself was quoted by Brian N. Wiedner as saying, “The Lord of the Rings is not ‘about’ anything but itself. Certainly it has no allegorical intentions general, particular or topical; moral, religious or political” (76). With its immense literary influence, arguably, the trilogy has surpassed Tolkien’s authorial intentions as an individual, harboring a life of its own as a text that belongs to its readers.
To view authorial intent as gospel is, in part, conclusive and cathartic for readers; knowing that there is a message that we can excavate is comforting, and gives us a reason to dig deeper. In many traditional schools of literary thought and analysis, the author is viewed as an all-powerful creator of their universe, and the text is a reflection of their worldview. Biographical information pieces together the context in which the text was created, and often informs the reader of the author’s head space and ideologies in order to help us understand an undeniably “true” reading of the text.
To Roland Barthes, the author must die a figurative “death,” severing the creator’s intention from their writing. To argue for a “death of the author” is to argue that we should not base a critical analysis on the author’s biases as a definitive explanation of the text, but rather, divorce biographical evidence from textual analysis entirely. If we apply Barthes’ “Death of the Author” to The Lord of the Rings, it is possible to disentangle the author’s apolitical intentions from our readings of the text. It is also possible to view Tolkien, as Barthes notes, as a scriptor who exists to produce, but who cannot explain what he has created to his readers. According to Barthes: “the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions” (2). In arguing against this author-centric view, we can surpass the idea that the author’s interpretation or intention is superior to the reader’s. Writing begins where the text meets the reader. Rather than studying Tolkien’s journals or letters to discern his political views in order to influence our reading, the text exists on its own, outside of Tolkien’s past or biography. Therefore, his assertion of his work as lacking allegory, religious or political undertones does not overshadow textual evidence and is no more authoritative than a reader’s interpretation of the text.
Barthes argues against finding a definitive meaning of a text at all; rather, by making the author irrelevant, we do not limit ourselves to a singular reading: “Once the Author is gone, the claim to ‘decipher’ a text becomes quite useless. To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing” (5). The author, in this case, Tolkien, cannot control his intention on the page or in the cultural narrative at large. There is no secret, underlying truth that can be ascertained about The Lord of the Rings that scrubs away every other critical analysis and renders all other readings meaningless. Once we get away from trying to decipher a single meaning, we can “traverse” writing instead of “penetrating” it. Instead of boxing ourselves in to one way of looking at the novels, we are free to explore a multiplicity of interpretations that exist simultaneously. By embracing a multitude of interpretations and figuratively “killing” the author as a controlling authority figure, we can assess cultural attitudes that exist within the text, unbeknownst to the author’s intention. Disconnecting Tolkien–the man, academic, philologist, and writer who lived from 1892 to 1973– from The Lord of the Rings allows the reader to resist his intent and form our own reading of the text.
Scholars and critics have long looked to Tolkien’s ideological stances in forming their reading of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien has existed as an author figure whose purpose was to function in the cultural discourse as an authority of his own text. This vision of the author as a figure in our culture complicates the “killing” of the author, and shows how the death of the author is idealistic from a theoretical perspective, but impossible to entirely apply because our discussions and views of literature are an entangled web in which the author cannot be completely disassociated from the text. Foucault writes in his essay, “What Is An Author?”: “the name of the author remains at the contours of texts—separating one from the other, defining their form, and characterizing their mode of existence. It points to the existence of certain groups of discourse and refers to the status of this discourse within a society and culture” (305). Tolkien, like his books, is also mythologized within literary discourse. His views, words, interviews, and beliefs serve a function in their connection to The Lord of the Rings as a means of classifying the novels as different from other novels. The function of the author in this discourse has evolved over time: “‘[L]iterary’ discourse was acceptable only if it carried an author’s name; every text of poetry or fiction was obliged to state its author and the date, place, and circumstance of its writing” (306).
Although the two theorists differ in how they see the author as functioning within the text itself and our culture, a compelling aspect of both Barthes and Foucault’s essays is giving more power to the readers. Barthes and Foucoult, to a greater or lesser degree, remove the author as the sole proprietor and authority of their own work, acknowledging that while the author may serve a function in our literary analysis, limiting ourselves to only caring about the author’s intentions shrouds our perspective and ability to find different meanings for ourselves. Giving readers power to discern their own readings from the text in isolation is especially important in our modern world, where writers and fans can interact online, giving authors an ability to course correct or retcon their work in real time.
Despite the author’s intention not being important or necessary to our interpretation, it is impossible to completely isolate the text from the person who wrote it; moreover, when applying these theoretical lenses to a work of literature, things are bound to get messy and complicated. Although Tolkien died long before the days of Twitter, Facebook and blog posts, Foucault was right in his assertion that the function of the author as a figure changes over time, and will continue to do so. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, the vast amount of scholarship, criticism and influence has a hold on the cultural discourse of the text. In her video essay, “Death of the Author,” Lindsay Ellis contends that:
It’s all well and good–and valid–to restrict the discourse to the text itself, and not what the author says about the text. But here’s the thing–that is neither how consuming art nor human nature works. […] Simply knowing the discourse around Harry Potter influences the way you read Harry Potter, whether you want it to, or not. (14:04-14:30)
A long-standing criticism of The Lord of the Rings as a series is its racism–a topic that many fans have refuted on the basis of Tolkien’s letters. In The Two Towers, the heroic riders of Rohan are described as “Whiteskins” (450); “Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall,” (430) while the evil goblins and Orcs are described as being “swart” and “slant-eyed” wielding “curved scimitars” (415) as opposed to broadswords. In Tolkien’s personal letters, there is some damning evidence that seems to confirm people’s readings of the books as racist, where Tolkien described Orcs as “…squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types” (Letter 210). Yet, there are also letters where Tolkien denounces racist ideology and eugenics, disavowing the Nazis when asked by his publishers whether he was of “Aryan” origin:
Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of arisch origin from all persons of all countries? […] I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine. (Letter 29)
Tolkien also admits to using the dwarves as an analogue for Jewish people, which has been derided by critics as being stereotypical because of the dwarves’ greed and love of gold and riches. Yet, he describes Jewish people as being “gifted people” and his personal friends in his letters. He also seemed appalled at African apparteid, writing to his son, Christopher Tolkien: “The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long” (Letter 61).
Ignoring the racism or racial undertones of the text is irresponsible; to “kill” the author, in this case, would mean to disregard the letters and discussion the text’s representation of race as isolated from Tolkien’s personal opinions. Especially when marketed as apolitical, the books require further analysis from a “resisting reader.” Judith Fetterly writes: “Literature is political. It is painful to have to insist on this fact, but the necessity of such insistence indicates the dimensions of the problem” (xi). She quotes Adrienne Rich, showing that a resisting reading is “the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction” (xxii). Seeing The Lord of the Rings as a reflection of the author’s “true” meaning limits our ability to see in shades of gray and extract multiple, complicated components from the text. However, in resisting the reading of the text as apolitical, whether intentional or not, it is possible for critics to read racial analogues within certain groups of characters. There are aspects of the text that “other” different races and use racial coding from our own world. This issue is complicated further by the film adaptation of the series, which has been criticized in its own right for codifying the Eastlings who fight on the side of Saruman as being of Middle-Eastern origin in a post-9/11 world.
Reading the text as a racial analogue can be disputed from within the text itself, outside of Tolkien’s personal correspondence; other critics and fans of the series have pointed out that many of the evil characters are white, such as Saruman, Wormtongue, Gollum, and the Ringwraiths, and that the fallibility of men as a race is a major component of the books. Others have said that there is a surprising lack of character descriptors, and that some of these descriptions are contradictory, so they do not form a cohesive light versus darkness racial allegory. Different races in The Lord of the Rings–hobbits, elves, dwarves, humans, etc– have biological indicators that separate them, unlike in our culture, where race has no biological or scientific component and has become an arbitrary category to separate us on the basis of the color of our skin. And yet, even with this explanation, we cannot separate our culture from having an impact on the books and Tolkien’s representation of “fantasy racism” within them. In other words, we cannot resolve this issue by saying ‘there’s no such thing as elves and dwarves and orcs.’ In fact, the issue cannot be ‘resolved’ at all.
It is easy to read Tolkien’s letters and his assertion that his books are apolitical and disregard this discussion entirely–case closed–but doing so supremely limits our ability to assess the text. Fetterley writes:
One of the main things that keeps the design of our literature unavailable to the consciousness of the woman reader, and hence impalpable, is the very posture of the apolitical, the pretense that literature speaks universal truths through forms from which all the merely personal, the purely subjective, has been burned away or at least transformed through the medium of art into the representative. (xi)
Although Fetterley’s focus is feminist scholarship, her point about apolitical subjectivity rings true here; art is not apolitical, and if we are to give power to the readers, we must acknowledge that different readers are going to form different interpretations of the text. These interpretations are not singular and homogenous, and they serve to enrich our understanding of how the text can expand based on who sees it.
Some representations of race within the books can be seen as offensive or a reflection of a white-centered European view, but on the whole, even without our external knowledge that Tolkien abhorred racism, one of the main themes of the book is unity. The hobbits are unlikely heroes, surviving adversity and navigating extreme polarities of political power. Frodo is not Aragorn; he is not a character defined by action and being chosen to complete his quest by birthright; he is passive, thrust into his circumstances. Frodo and Sam are subversive to a typical hero’s journey; they are ordinary people without accolades, royalty, or feats of strength and agility. Frodo’s job is to deliver the One Ring to the fiery pits of Mount Doom in order to destroy it. This task is too daunting and tempting for any of the other characters in the story to take on. Ultimately, after pages and pages of struggling and suffering to transport the ring, Frodo, too, fails. Without the help of his friends, and even enemies, Frodo would have also fallen prey to the ring’s power.
The Lord of the Rings is a story about overcoming evil. None of the races or characters within the books can destroy the ring on their own; in fact, they must look to the most unlikely of heroes to fulfill a leading role usually held by characters like Aragorn and Gandalf. The books are humanizing; in order to win the war against Sauron, the characters must put aside their differences and work together to defeat their common enemy. Dimitra Fimi, in her article, “Was Tolkien Really Racist?” writes:
Tolkien’s racial prejudices are implicit in Middle-Earth, but his values – friendship, fellowship, altruism, courage, among many others – are explicit, which makes for a complex, more interesting world. Middle-Earth is a place where different “races” and peoples need to come together and cooperate to triumph over what is predominantly a moral foe.
The books do not paint war as pleasant whatsoever, and even on that basis, they are political. Even in times of war, death and darkness, Sam is able to look at his enemy and find some underlying ‘humanity’–something within that he recognizes as putting them both in a larger framework:
It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace–all in a flash of thought which was quickly driven from his mind. (The Two Towers, 661)
All of these points considered, it is hard to not look at The Lord of the Rings, or any work of literature, as inherently political regardless of authorial intent. These complexities and contradictions within the books are interesting and we should not aim to cleanly resolve them. The cultural importance of these stories and readers’ investment in their meaning have led to innumerable interpretations. In this essay, I resisted Tolkien’s authority over the text by sharing some varied opinions on racial representation, but there are also in-depth studies about the books in terms of war, religion, gender and economics. For example, some people appreciate Peter Jackson’s reinterpretation of gender in the story as hitting a bunch of feminist beats, and there are others who think that Tolkien’s representation of gender in the novel was more nuanced. In the books, Eowyn does not swoon after Aragorn, for example, and she is wholly aware of how she is trapped in the domestic sphere, unable to fight or control her fate. She tells him:
‘All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.’ ‘What do you fear, lady?’ He asked. ‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’ (Return of the King, 784)
She is a strong-willed, complex and brave warrior who has pointed commentary on her situation. Moments like these in the books make it impossible to disregard politics and ideology. In order to read her character as subversive, there must be an ideological structure that she is subverting.
Stories are important because of their ability to mold and change based on who reads them. The Lord of the Rings has stood the test of time on its own merits, outside of authorial intent. What makes The Lord of The Rings so special that its readers evolve and introduce new interpretations of the text. Whether we are empowered by a nuanced representation of a female character or calling into question societal narratives of race as being problematic and flawed, readers bring more to the text than authorial intent ever could. We enrich our understanding of the world around us through reading, and as Fetterly writes: “At its best, [feminist] criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read” (viii). Our role as readers is not to simply uncover the author’s meaning, but to apply our own worldview and interpretation of it in order to change perspectives and how we read. In resisting Tolkien’s intent of being apolitical, we are uncovering much more than his secret nugget of truth. We are uncovering an entire discourse in which thoughts and interpretations vary from one another, build upon each other and sometimes contradict. To change our relation with what we read, we must view books as belonging to their readers, free from a singular interpretation as laid out by the author.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland, et al. The Death of the Author. 1977.
Bhatia, Shyam. “The Lord of the Rings Rooted in Racism: Academic.” Rediff India Abroad. 2003.
Ellis, Lindsay. “Death of the Author.” YouTube. Available Online At: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MGn9x4-Y_7A. 2018.
Fetterley, Judith “The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.” American Literature, vol. 51, no. 3, 1979, p. 426., doi:10.2307/2925405.
Fimi, Dimitra. “Was Tolkien Really Racist?” The Conversation. 2018.
Foucault, Michel. What Is an Author?. 1969.
Ibata, David. “‘Lord’ of Racism? Critics View Trilogy As Discriminatory.’” Chicago Tribune. 2003.
Martinez, Michael. “Is It True There is Racism in The Lord of the Rings?” Middle-Earth Blog. 2012.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1954.
Tolkien Gateway. “Racism in Tolkien’s Works.” 2019.
Weidner, Brian N. “Middle-earth: The Real World of J.R.R. Tolkien,” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 23: No. 4, Article 7. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol23/iss4/7. 2002.
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