AP Multicultural Literature
Ms. Nichole Wilson
14 February 2013
The Deeper Meaning of a Passage
The passage from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, on page 316, beginning with “Gandalf walked” and ending with “treacherous swamps” puts the audience in the hobbits place then uses that platform to show the nature of the world of Middle Earth through Linguistic elements and the hierarchal structure of power Tolkien sets up through his use of Semantics. Both of these points aid Tolkien in his ultimate purpose of showing how power and temptation can split apart the closest of comrades.
Tolkien offers many personifying descriptions of nature. He refers to the wind as having “searching fingers” (Tolkien. 316) and to the mountains as having “feet” (Tolkien. 316). The purpose of this is to portray the Earth as have a personality of its own. It’s untameable and above the control of any member of the Fellowship. This untameable quality parallels how “cheerless” (Tolkien. 316) and helpless they feel. The Earth, like temptation, feels unstoppable and pointless to counteract. Tolkien brings this linguistic description of the Earth to reflect his ultimate purpose.
Where temptation/weather seems to split the Company apart is how the journey affects the companions differently. While this ferocity seems to strike the entire party negatively due to the way none of them, despite their “well clad” (Tolkien. 316) appearance, can ever get fully warm it seems to strike the hobbits hardest. The audience is given an inside look into their perspectives and learns that they feel that although they had “walked and stumbled” until exhaustion they were ultimately “getting nowhere” (Tolkien. 316) None of the other characters in the Fellowship seems to hold this feeling despite their chill. Tolkien chose to only include to hobbits perspective not only to bring his audience into the perspective they are supposed to view the story from but also to differentiate the hobbits from the others.
While the hobbits stumble along Aragorn and Gandalf, at the front of the pack, seem starkly contrasted. Aragorn knows the land ahead of him “even in the dark” (Tolkien. 316), even Legolas who is at the back of the Company is described as having “keen” eyes. Aragorn’s knowledge of the land exudes confidence and assuredness that they will reach their goal. Legolas’s keen eyesight seems to show that he is still unwearied by his travels. The hobbits, based on their “creeping forward like snails” (Tolkien. 316) beg neither confidence nor freshness. Their ignorance of the land and tiredness separate them from the rest of the group. Once again the elements and uncontrollable factors of the world have driven apart, even in a small sense, a group of people. Once again this parallels the larger purpose of the work. Aragorn and Legolas’s ‘power’ in their advantages over the smaller, weaker hobbits drives a wedge in the group dynamic.
It's interesting how you compare the weather and temptation. Your thesis seems to suggest something slightly different about the separation that a greed for power or lack of will power can cause. I like what you focused on in your thesis as it seems to be a universal theme in a lot of works. I think separating the two into the separation from power and separation from individual need, based on how they all had different reactions to the weather, would have been a good idea! I think when put in situations where your surroundings are uncontrollable and you are in a uncomfortable situation, people tend to think only of themselves, leading to this greed and cause of separation.
ReplyDeleteWhere there is definitely a battle being fought here, as the travelers must fight against the elements of nature how is there a presence of “power and temptation” in this passage? I don’t fully understand how you see that there is a “wedge” driven between them, based on the text of this passage. . . Could you explain how you reached that conclusion? When you mentioned that “Legolan’s keen eyesight seems to show that he is unnerved by his surroundings” I agreed with that statement, the mention of his eyesight being “keen” implies that he is very aware of his surroundings. While reading the passage I could actually imagine him looking around possibly trying to pick up on everything. The imagery definitely is a vital part of this passage.
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