J.R.R Tolkien | Optimism
“He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years un-counted…and together through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings -
The soldiers stood together, their voices hushed and their nerves frayed as the enemy approached. They knew the coming battle would claim many lives, perhaps even their own. Some thought of home, others of family and friends, and a few of the life that awaited them beyond the shadows of this world. When their commander gave the word, they marched forward to an unknown fate.
The imagery of soldiers facing impossible odds against a superior foe is splashed across the bloody pages of human history. Some run and hide, others cry out for help, but most do their duty—no matter whom they fight for or against. As we talked about last week, many veterans choose not to dwell on heroic deeds done on the battlefield but simply think of it as a job that needed doing. This was true of one of the last century’s most famous authors, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Familiar to millions as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien believed that myths used stories of heroes to inspire generations of readers. He began his writing career with a children’s book, and when his publisher asked for a sequel, Tolkien had to give it some thought. For much of his life, he had lamented the fact that much of English mythology had been destroyed by invading armies or imported from abroad. (For example, the most famous English myth, that of King Arthur, was a blend of Scottish and French stories.) On putting pen to paper for the first time on his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien began to craft alternate mythology for his homeland that would tell heroic tales that, he believed, were lacking in modern Britain.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit”
The story of The Hobbit began when the professor was correcting papers one afternoon and came across a blank page that a student had left him. On it, he scribbled the words, “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” He later commented in a letter to a friend that he did not know where the words had come from, but from those words came a story. From the story came a map, and from the map came a world. The first review of The Hobbit came from the publisher Stanley Unwin’s young son Rayner, who told his father that the book was “good, and should appeal to children between the ages of five to nine.” The Hobbit sold out of its first printing in only three months in the fall of 1937 and has never gone out of print. To the author’s surprise, it appealed to more than just children—adults loved the story and the world Tolkien had created. The protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, was a simple man who loved the finer things in life but never wanted to go on an adventure or seek out wealth and glory.
Tolkien believed that most heroes came from simple backgrounds, and this was certainly true of the beloved, furry-footed Hobbits. Similarly, Tolkien was not high-born or wealthy. He came from a modest family and spent his early life in South Africa and the English midlands. In his early life, Tolkien was fascinated by languages; he once came across a book of Finnish grammar in a library and was transfixed by its complicated dialects and odd-sounding words and phrases. His love of the spoken word led him to create his own languages as a child and later to study English literature at Oxford University. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 derailed his plans to become a professor and writer, as it did for so many young men on both sides of the conflict. Tolkien delayed military service for a year so he could finish his studies at Oxford, and he was then commissioned in the British Army in 1915. A year later, his battalion was deployed to France and stationed at the Somme River. Tolkien, like many Britons, served in a “pal unit” with three close friends from the same town. Sadly, all three lost their lives in the German offensive of 1916, and Tolkien was spared the near-annihilation of his battalion in November 1916 when he was sent home to England to recover from a serious illness.
The simple heroes Tolkien met while serving in the war remained in his memory for the rest of his life. So did the imagery of destruction he witnessed, much of which can be found in his “Book of Lost Tales,” the scraps of stories he wrote while in the trenches, that became the basis for many of his longer tales. The heroes in The Lord of the Rings—Gandalf, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, and others—like those of the “Great War,” were reluctant to face danger but resolute when confronting it. This is true of many mythic figures, and of modern-day heroes. Soldiers, law enforcement officers, and many others may not wish to test their strength in crises, but they get the job done.
“Light and high beauty”
The Lord of the Rings took fifteen years to write. When its first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published in July 1954, Tolkien’s friend and Oxford colleague C.S. Lew-is wrote a moving review of the work: “It is like lightning from a clear sky…here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart.” Millions of readers agreed, and The Lord of the Rings became the second-best-selling book of the 20th century (after the Bible). Those who opened its pages and read the story of Frodo Baggins’ bravery in the face of evil felt their spirits brought beyond the mundane cares of the world—the best work that a heroic myth can do.
One of Tolkien’s most beautiful pieces of writing comes as Frodo and his loyal companion Samwise Gamgee are in Mordor, the literal hell on Middle-earth. Amidst the foul smoke and terrifying orcs, Tolkien penned words that lift the soul. “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
Heroes often choose to face the darkness because they believe in something greater than themselves. It might be their God or country, their sense of duty, or simply to protect innocents back home. Once again, Tolkien’s story hearkened back to myths from every age of human history, from “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to Marvel’s Avengers. When you have something good at home, or even a sense of hope in your heart, it becomes worth fighting for.
For Tolkien, like so many veterans of combat, the thing that drove him forward was friendship. Some heroes will fight for their country, or for high-minded ideals like freedom and democracy. But nearly anyone would fight for their buddy in the next trench or fox-hole. The Lord of the Rings is ultimately a story of friendship, most importantly between Frodo and Sam. When Frodo’s strength fails at a crucial moment in the book’s climax, it is Sam who picks him up—literally—and carries him forward. Heroism is intimately tied to the idea of friendship, of sacrificing for the men and women around you.
“The long defeat” and “the sudden turn”
Sometimes, heroes must face what seem to be insurmountable odds or an all-powerful enemy. Few men huddled in the trenches of the Somme in 1916 believed victory was near—or even possible—but they went over the top nevertheless. Inspired by these heroes, Tolkien wrote of the Elves’ millennia-long struggle against evil in the world as a “long defeat.” Galadriel, greatest of the Elves, spoke the words Joe gave us in his dulcet, cold-riddled tone at the start of this podcast, and went on to tell the Fellowship of the Ring that the cause was worthy, so the fight was noble and heroic. Perhaps they would lose in the end; perhaps Sauron and his minions would triumph. But they must fight, and so they did. Galadriel could have been speaking to Tolkien’s battalion at the Somme in 1916, or to British civilians huddled in London bomb shelters as the Ger-mans rained fire and destruction on their city 24 years later, or indeed to millions of soldiers facing certain defeat in any century. Sometimes the cause is indeed lost, but the fight itself may matter more than its outcome.
And sometimes there is a sudden turn from bad to good. Historians (and podcasters) call these moments “turning points.” Tolkien called them “eucatastrophes,” combining the Greek prefix eu- meaning “good” and catastrophe, the “sudden turn from good to bad.” Myths and fairy tales have used eucatastrophes for millennia—you see them in everything from “Sleeping Beauty” back to the Chinese “Soushen Ji.” In Tolkien’s worldview, eucatastrophes are images of the greatest “sudden turn” in human history: when Jesus of Nazareth died on a cross two thousand years ago and then rose from the dead three days later. The idea that a eucatastrophe might occur in a desperate moment is key to The Lord of the Rings’ central message about heroism—the importance of hope. J.R.R. Tolkien was, like all great heroes of history, an eternal optimist who believed that a turning point might be just over the hill (or under an eagle’s wings) even in the darkest of times.
Tolkien’s countryman, Winston Churchill, gave us perhaps the best summation of heroic optimism in his many speeches during the terrors of the Second World War. Whether “fighting on the beaches” or “we shall not flag or fail,” Churchill summoned the heroic mindsets of old to inspire his nation to resist the onslaught of Nazi tyranny and led his people to victory. When addressing students at his old secondary school in 1941, the prime minister exuded optimism in words that manifest heroism in every syllable. “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. Never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.”
Heroes
The stories of the past, real and fantastic, remind us of what it means to be a hero. It is tempting in uncertain times to think that good has diminished, like the Elves of Middle-earth, and that we stand alone. But as Joe taught us last week, and as Tolkien reminds us in The Lord of the Rings, there are heroes all around us, commonplace men and women who work to make their corners of the world a little bit brighter each day. They cling to something greater than themselves, to their hope of better times. They sacrifice themselves for their friends and families. “What is a hero?” you might be tempted to ask. The pages of history, of our collective literary memory, and of our shared humanity give us the answer: a hero is someone who presses on, remains hopeful and optimistic, and above all never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.
