August 10, 2002

Bomadil/Christianity in LotR
Jim W.

I am starting to get very tired of all this "Gandalf is Christ" and "Tolkien put a bunch of biblical metaphores in LotR" talk. Tlkien wrote this to be read as a STORY, not an allegory. Sure, if you look for them, there are billions of biblical references in the trilogy. The fact of the matter is, Tolkien didn't write the books thinking "Gandalf is a Christ figure, so what would Christ do?"

I suggest you get The Letters of JRR Tolkien. It gives an insiteful look into Tolkien's mind. In letter 131 it says:

"I dislike allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more 'life' a story has the more readily will it be susceptible to allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory s made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.)"

"it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy- story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary `real' world."

Then in letter 181 it states:

"Thus Gandalf faced and suffered death; and came back or was sent back, as he says, with enhanced power. But though one may be in this reminded of the Gospels, it is not really the same thing at all. The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare to write. Here I am only concerned with Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees."

I'm not saying that his Christian beliefs weren't a part of his work. Since he was intending (at first) to write a mythology, religion is a part of it, but an unconscious part. He did not intend for LotR to be read allegorically.

I read on one of these posts that the reason why Bombadil wasn't affected by the Ring was because his will was as strong as Sauron's (or something to that affect). According to letter 28:

"He is master in a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. [He represents] the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature...and entirely unconcerned with `doing' anything with the knowledge..."

So the reason why he isn't affected is because he has no desire for power or domination, so tools for domination have no affect on him. I would like to end by apologizing for the length of this post, but I hope this clears some things up.