Good, Evil and Ethics in J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the...

Good, Evil and Ethics in J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings Professor’s Comment: This student was very wise not to summarize Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. The student’s primary intention was to describe the ethical themes that can be found in the book. The first part of this essay describes Tolkiens view on the nature of good and evil, while the second part deals with his ethics of individuals. Excellent work! Introduction The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, has been called by some one of the greatest books of all time and has recently earned the claim of greatest book of the 20th century in a poll by Britains Channel 4 (Ohehir). Yet at the same time scholars have often dismissed The Lord of the Rings as a fanciful†¦show more content†¦It could be argued that there is nothing that does not fall outside the laws of nature. But this is not the perspective that Tolkien expresses. To him, living in England during the first and second World Wars, the use of technology as a tool of destruction and conquest was unnatural and evil. In his books, he embodies the idea of technology as magic. This magic or technology is ultimately evil, since its use, for good or malicious intent, always results in the disruption of the cycles of nature. For example, in Middle Earth (Tolkiens fictional world), the pinnacle of technology is reached in the creation of magic rings. These rings are designed to further the processes of nature, to bring great abundance and prosperity to the land. But nature must return to normal, and before the story ends, the power of these good rings is destroyed along with that of the evil One Ring. This brings up another important aspect of Tolkiens good and evil: once technology (or magic) is used to disrupt nature, only similar technology can be used to combat it. This creates an unfortunate cycle. Those whose have no technology must develop it in order to fight those who threaten them with it. Once a people have defeated their enemy by means of this technology, they have already disrupted the cycles of nature in doing so. Tolkien sees this as the reason behind the persistence of evil.Show MoreRelatedThe Lord Of The Rings1469 Words   |  6 PagesTodorov, the author of The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, defined fantasy as â€Å"the creation of a moment of hesitation between two worlds†(qtd. Kelly, Course Introduction 2). This description of the genre compliments J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy due to the author’s use of sub-creation to construct his alternate world. Tolkien believed that the way to create a believable , all-encompassing world was to combine fragments of reality, or the â€Å"primary world†, together to