At 7:05 AM -0500 27/12/2001, Candice Ward wrote:
>The ring's evil influence--to which Froto (who is said to
>be "in love with the Shire") seems immune, unlike Bilbo, who experiences it
>for the first time in 60 years as a result of being at odds with his
>community--operates through power's self-alienating effects. When one of the
>"fellows" protests (with his eye clearly on the ring), "I'm not a thief,"
>Froto retorts, "You're not yourself!"
I haven't seen the movie yet (going today), and I feel more than a
little dubious about taking the LOTR as a serious moral template for
the Real World (it's fantasy, after all, and Tolkien resisted the
allegory factor with great energy): but it has to be said that Bilbo
in fact gets the Ring through stealing it and a little dishonest
dealing with riddles, and it's clear that the Ring's malign influence
begins the instant he touches it. There's a fair bit of stuff in the
Book about the lies he tells to justify his ownership of it, and
Gandalf's sense of disturbance. Frodo is not immune either, although
the hobbits, through a certain natural toughness, are more resistant
than others. Bilbo's oddness within the community and his
eccentricity is heroicised rather than criticised: he is a Special
Hobbit because of it.
The cherished values of the Shire are basically childlike - getting
presents and eating. The great sin in Tolkien's world is Possession:
Sauron (and by extension the Ring) seeks only to own and coerce, and
so deprives whatever it encounters of its own freedom. This
possession (derived I think from the traditional greed of Dragons) is
allied with a loss in Being (Sauron's Eye, and the world of the
Nazguls, is described as a great and despairing blackness). I guess
a little Platonic, virtue being its own reward and evil its own
punishment?
Those Inklings were hardly bastions of radical thinking...
For what it's worth -
Best
Alison
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead
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