John Garth #2: WWI imagery in LoTR
In developing his argument that LoTR reflects Tolkien's response to WW
I, Garth identified a number of specific images that seem to him to come
directly from the experience of soldiers in the trenches of that war.
Here are some:
Fell beasts, and the Ringwraiths' shrieks. WW I
soldiers often described the noise of artillery fire overhead as unearthly
shrieks, or the sound of wings.
Frodo's paralysis with the barrow wight, and his and
others' paralyzed response to the Ringwraiths. Garth suggests these are
drawn from the experience of paralyzing fear described by soldiers in
battle. He recalls that Tolkien himself used the expression "animal
horror" to describe his experience of warfare, and that this phrase is echoed
in his descriptions of the utterly demoralizing effect of the
Ringwraiths.
Green glow in the barrow. Similar, apparently, to how the
world looked through a WW I gas mask.
Various fogs and miasmas. Similar to poison gas?
Dead Marshes. Garth sees in this a metaphor
for memories of the dead
that soldiers found themselves unable to forget.
The barrow wights (or maybe the Dead?) There was a
WW I soldiers'
myth of a band of ghoulish deserters living in abandoned trenches and
coming out by night to plunder and kill.
The Breaking of the Fellowship. Garth sees this as
paralleling the
experiences of members of a platoon, who developed close bonds, were abruptly
parted by orders or injuries, and then had to carry on in danger and in fear
for their comrades' safety but unable to get news of or help them.
The Ring's effect on Smeagol and Frodo. Much like
shell shock--anxiety, vigilance, twitchiness, irritability, feelings of
estrangement from others.
1) Do you think these parallels are likely to be echoes of Tolkien's
wartime experience? (Many other literary and historical sources for some
of these have been discussed here at various times.) Again, to the extent
that there are connections to what Tolkien saw and felt as a soldier, does it
make a difference to you to think of these images from LoTR in this way?
2) What other images seem to you especially likely to have been drawn
from Tolkien's war experiences?
And a final question on "Frodo and the Great War:"
3) Accepting for the moment that in using these themes and images,
Tolkien may have been working out his response to his wartime experiences, why
does that make for a story that appeals to us? What's the parallel in our lives
or psyches to the experience of a young Edwardian English academic, transported
nightmarishly "there" to the trenches "and back again," that makes this story
resonate
so?
Miss Darcy looked as if she wished for courage enough to join in...; and sometimes did venture a short sentence, when there was least danger of its being heard.--
Jane Austen
