A Study Guide for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781535838061

Book preview

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The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

1954-1955

Introduction

The Lord of the Rings, by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, first published in three parts during 1954 and 1955, is sometimes thought of as the first adult fantasy novel, although as a form it has affinity with the old heroic romances that inspired its author. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and a scholar of such texts as Beowulf. His mythic quest novel, pitting a small hobbit as a hero against the Lord of Evil, holds a unique place in twentieth-century fiction: it is popular culture and enduring literature at the same time. It is a story about how goodness prevails, even in times of confusion and war, when people of integrity hold together. From the first, the book evoked strong, subjective reactions. In the fifty years following its publication, commentators learned to take an objective look at it.

Tolkien knew there was a hunger for heroic myth in the modern world, but he was surprised by his vast success. He would be even more over-whelmed at the games, toys, and films spawned by the novel, but he would understand the urge to proliferate what he had done. He hoped to sketch out a giant mythology that others could appreciate and add to, and they have. Not only has the fantasy industry grown up around the book, but also a demand for more details about his imaginary world, Middle-Earth. His son, Christopher, carried on, editing and publishing Tolkien's unfinished manuscripts. The amount of Middle-Earth history and chronicles published since the author's death is fourfold in volume to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings put together. Tolkien demonstrates that mythic stories speak to the human spirit in every age.

Author Biography

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, of English parents, Mabel Suffield and Arthur Tolkien. His younger brother, Hilary, was born in 1894. In 1895, their mother took the children to England for a holiday, and while they were gone, their father died of rheumatic fever in South Africa. Mabel Tolkien was suddenly a widow in Birmingham, England, with two small children and very little income. She found a cottage in the country for the boys in Sarehole, Warwickshire, and the setting's effect on Ronald was deep. This was his ideal English countryside before industrialization, a hobbit landscape of villages and carts, an old brick mill, and lots of trees.

His mother was his first teacher, and from her, Ronald learned a love of languages and botany. He also loved fairy tales, adventure stories, and drawing. Meanwhile, she became a Catholic, to her family's dismay. This choice cut her off from their financial and emotional support, but Tolkien was proud of his mother's religious strength all his life. His strong Catholic faith came from her.

At the age of seven, he entered King Edward's School in Birmingham, and the family moved there. After two years, both boys were enrolled in a Catholic school, and the local priest, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, became the boys's guardian. Because Ronald needed a more intellectual training, his mother enrolled him again at King Edward's on scholarship.

Mabel Tolkien died in 1904 of diabetes when Ronald was twelve. Though the orphans boarded with an aunt, Father Francis became their only real family. At King Edward's, Tolkien formed his first club, the TCBS (Tea Club and Barovian Society) with four close friends who all shared an interest in ancient languages and medieval studies. Tolkien even then was writing verse and inventing his first languages. The group dreamed of contributing something new to the world. This club helped him find a voice for his life work.

At the age of sixteen, Tolkien fell in love with nineteen-year-old