April 28, 2002

Allegory in Tolkien
Al Gore

It's very simple, an allegory is a story that is a sort of blow-by-blow re-telling another story, but through new symbols and new characters. Allegory is sort of like doing Romeo and Juliet, changing the names, setting it in Southern California, replacing daggers with pistols, and throwing in a few chase scenes.

If Tolkien had done an allegory, it might have been much like C.S. Lewis’:

In the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, Lewis told of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. Instead of a wooden cross, we have a stone table, instead of the Imperial Romans and Upset Jews, we have a hoard of evil creatures. Instead of the Devil, we get the White Witch, instead of Jesus, Aslan the lion. Just like Jesus, Aslan is slain, but rises again, and in doing so defeats the Witch (Devil) and saves the world. etc. etc. No plot surprises to Sunday School students.

The kids Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are perhaps out of place in an allegory - they may be a classic invention to help the audience feel or identity with someone in the story. But even they can be seen as allegorically representing faithful disciples or something else.

Tolkien, avoiding allegory, avoids obvious blow-by-blow parallels with an earlier story by making up LOTR from scratch, and thus avoids Allegory. Problem solved. He is not retelling nor re-symbolizing earlier stories or plots. We can all agree on this.

However, this does not lead one to sensibly conclude that Tolkien wrote something that was not strictly Christian, in fact it is specifically, Roman Catholic. Middle Earth and its inhabitants are all things that are in a Roman Catholic universe, faithfully obeying Tolkien’s interpretation of Roman Catholic teachings.

Tolkien says so himself repeatedly in his letters. For example, The Valar are not Gods. Only one, Eru is God. Every so-called major or minor divinity in the LOTR is an angel, archangel, cherubim, etc. Gandalf is a lesser one of these. The elves are some kind of half-angel (hence their lacking a soul, and having a spirit). We have the complicated and typical Roman Catholic view of the soul or spirit and its relation to the body, a deep bias against sorcery and magic of every kind, etc. Remember the Elves deny that their “magic” is anything but skill. Gandalf's “magic” is simply Angelic power. As far as I know, only the evil Necromancer, Sauron (and maybe the fabled Queen Beruthiel) uses what might be termed magic, that is trapping of disembodied souls or control of minds, etc. Middle Earth’s age is calculated equivalent to the best theological theories of the day. Finally, Frodo is a kind of failed proto-messiah, Tolkein says so himself. Etc. Etc.

The physics and metaphysics of Middle Earth are Roman Catholic, like it or not (I don’t), and that is not allegory. I personally love his stories, but wish Tolkien had fully let himself be a storyteller and flushed some of the the theology, or at least used a better metaphysics, like Aristotle’s.

Please: much of this debate would be cleared up by reading Tolkien's letters themselves. He is fairly forthcoming about all of this.