It goes without saying that the human fascination with myth is an enduring one despite the rise of scientific reasoning over the past three hundred years or so. Today children and adults alike still hurl together in front of camp fires and more recently, their television screens to be transported out of the real world and into more “enchanted” realms where there are no assignments to submit and nomemos from the accounts office. As the world at large becomes ever more ordered and more civilized, many concoct their own kingdoms where even the laws of science fall from their elevated pedestals. Put simply, myth has never been more popular. Whilst it is true that as a tool for explanation of natural phenomena, myth is slowly becoming redundant but as an escape from the daily hustle and bustle of modern life, it has gained new significance. The mythological world created by J.R.R Tolkien is perhaps one of the best known in 20th century literature, a refuge for the modern day dreamer. Tolkien did not take the real world as his backdrop but went about creating his own. He devised new languages, races, territories, cultures and histories and did away with ones that existed in the real world. What resulted from Tolkien’s abour was to become the stage for his now famous sagas: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings has gained immense popularity over the years. Its rebirth as a three part motion picture from 2001-2003, sent the popularity of Tolkien’s work skyrocketing. As a result, the concern that was at first tabled by only a few began to be voiced by a much larger audience: that of racism in Tolkien mythology. Some in the literary world have dubbed Tolkien a racist due to content in his mythology that would be deemed inappropriate in this day and age. However Tolkien’s letters to his friends and his publishers suggest otherwise. Tolkien was not a racist however there is ample evidence to suggest a very strong albeit unintentional Eurocentric bias in his work. The presence of white racial ideals, demonization of aspects of Eastern and South Asian culture and the presence of an East versus West typology suggest that Tolkien was, after all, a product of his culture and his times.
One of the many charges bought up against Tolkien is racism. Indeed, it is true that Tolkien mythology does contain racial hierarchies which conform, at least loosely, to those made by white supremacists in the Modern world. However a close study of some of Tolkien’s letters to his friends and publishers negate the fact that Tolkien was a racist and was using allegory to express his allegedly racist beliefs. For example, one can argue that Tolkien’s battle between the forces of light and darkness is in fact an allegory to the Second World War (Garth, “J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopedia, 455). But Tolkien, in fact, hated the use of allegories and even stated so in one of his letters: “I dislike Allegory-the conscious and intentional allegory-yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language” (Letters1, 145). For Tolkien then, the use of allegorical language was a necessity, something that was required so as to create a worthy mythology.
Similarly there is a criticism that Tolkien echoed the racist sentiments of the Nazis in Germany in his works. Many see Tolkien’s elves and his dwarves as examples of Aryan men and racial Jews respectively. However Tolkien’s letters reveal that Tolkien had little interest in Nazi ideology. After viewing a letter by his German publishers inquiring as to whether Tolkien was of the Aryan race, Tolkien wrote to a friend regarding the issue,
"I must say that the enclosed letter from Rutten & Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of arisch [Aryan] origin from all persons of all countries? ... Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestatigung [Confirmation]…and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such
declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race- doctrine” (Letters, 29).
In fact Tolkien denied that he knew what his German publishers meant by the term Aryan. He replied that he was unaware of the definition of the word as used by the Nazis and was only familiar with the meaning ascribed to it by scholars of eastern civilizations .In response to his German publishers he wrote,
“Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch [Aryan]. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people” (Letters, 30).
The text also clearly hints at Tolkien’s admiration for the Jewish race. However many have still raised charges of anti-Semitism on Tolkien based on his comparison of the Dwarves in his works to the Jewish race. Tolkien is known to have said in an interview, “The dwarves of course are quite obviously - wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic” (“Interview”). The criticism is that Dwarves, in Tolkien mythology, are known to have a love for riches and precious metals. Many have hinted this quality of the Dwarves to be a symbolic representation of the “money hungry” Jewish stereotype. Although the point raised is an interesting one, Tolkien clearly hinted towards a similarity between Semitic languages and the language he created for the Dwarves. In another letter Tolkien highlights that both Dwarves and the Jews were similar as both had been stripped of their homelands and forced to adopt an alien language: “I do think of the 'Dwarves' like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue.....” (Letters, 176). There is no evidence to support that there was any intentional linking between the Dwarves love of precious metals and the Jewish stereotype.
Therefore the claims that Tolkien’s elves were a symbolic representation of the blue eyed, blonde haired, Nordic torch-bearer of Nazi Ideology and that the dwarves were a symbolic representation of the Jews are unfounded. Though Tolkien was greatly inspired by Scandinavian folk lore, he viewed its use to support the Nazi race doctrine as deplorable. In a letter to his son Michael Tolkien he said,
“Anyway, I have in this War a burning private grudge – which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler…Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit [referring here to Nordic culture that Hitler marketed as the culture of the Aryan master race], a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light” (Letters, 45).
Also he had referred to Jews as a “gifted people” and was friends with many people of Jewish descent. The argument that Tolkien was a racist thus does not have weight.
However does that mean that the clear indications of unintentional Eurocentrism in Tolkien mythology be ignored? Where there is ample evidence to absolve Tolkien from the heinous racism of the early 20th century, there is also strong evidence to suggest that Tolkien viewed the notions of beauty, wisdom and goodness in purely European terms. It is no crime on Tolkien’s part since he was but a product of his own culture and his own times. What is reflected n his works is a mindset that is no way intentional and is not reproduced consciously. In fact Tolkien’s world view has been ingrained in him by the larger society in which he lived (Chism, “J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopaedia”, 558). He, of course, does not intentionally try and cast European characteristics in a good light whilst demonizing those of oriental cultures for that would mean conforming to the race doctrines that he so often expressed a hatred for but indeed does so without realizing the implications of his attributions. Emile Durkheim was the sociologist who suggested that religion (and perhaps myth) is often constructed by civilizations around their own horizons and in their own image (Paden). Myth is but a reflection of the society that valorizes it. Or in other words, there is a reason why Zeus, the King of Gods in Greek mythology, resides in Mount Olympus in Greece and not on Everest in Nepal, the tallest peak in the world. Thus it is definitely not farfetched to suggest that Tolkien mythology, quite apart from the fact that it was always intended to be an addition to Anglo-Saxon mythology, is a reflection of European conceptions not uncommon in that time.
The first of these conceptions is the view that European racial characteristics are heroic characteristics. Indeed a reading of The Lord of the Rings shows how all heroes in this epic are white. From the Elves and Men to the Dwarves and Hobbits that constitute the forces of light all are racially white. Elves, in particular, are described as the fairest of the creatures of the creator and are the “firstborn” race of Middle-Earth (Tolkien, “Silmarillion”, 35). Their characteristics are very European in nature: fair, tall and slender, with grey eyes and hair that could be silver, golden or dark. They were also custodians of “greater wisdom, and skill, and beauty” than men
(Tolkien, “The Silmarillion”, 117). On the other end of the spectrum the forces of darkness are comprised of Orcs and of evil men from the south-eastern lands of Middle-Earth. The Orcs in Tolkien mythology are beastly beings that service the forces of darkness and originated from elves that were captured and then corrupted by “slow acts of cruelty” by a sinister spirit (Tolkien, “The Silmarillion”, 50). They are described as “black” and “black-skinned” by Tolkien (“The
return of the King”, 408 and 237, “The fellowship of the Ring”, 425). The evil men of the Haradrim and the Easterlings are also dark-skinned men (“Silmarillion”, 391). Tolkien describes Haradrim soldiers as “swarthy men in red” (“The two towers”, 331) and also provides a description of a dead one: “He came to rest in the fern a few feet away; face downward, green
arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar…His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword” (“The two towers”, 332). At one place the men of Far Harad are also described as, “black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues” (“The return of the King”, 136). It would thus appears that heroes and the forces of light are “white” and “fair” whilst the forces of evil are “black”, “swarthy” and “brown”. These attributes are probably not given with the intention that they symbolize anything in the real world but do provide a glimpse into Tolkien’s perceptions of what heroism and goodness should look like.
Secondly, Tolkien mythology does not only attribute qualities of good and evil to certain racial characteristics but also to certain cultures. The forces of light, for example, are heavily influenced by Norse4 and Anglo-Saxon5 mythology. For example, Anglo-Saxon epics such as the epic of Beowulf have been a great source of inspiration for Tolkien’s heroic epics, The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Colbert, 22) and the wizard Gandalf the grey is described by Tolkien as very much like the Norse god of thunder, Odin (Letters, 107). The languages of the elves, namely High-elven (Quenya) and Grey-elven (Sindarin) are also based on Finnish and Welsh respectively (Colbert, 85) and their most beloved star, Earendel, is inspired from an Anglo-Saxon star of the same name (“J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopaedia”, 490). Similarly, the language of the hobbits, namely Westron, is basically English. Regarding poems and the oral traditions of elves, men and dwarves, David D. Oberhelman notes, “Tolkien’s expertise in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and even Finnish sagas and alliterative verse shaped the poetic forms and depiction of oral cultures found in his legendarium” (“J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopaedia”, 484). These European influences are not found in the cultures of the “swarthy” men of the Haradrim and the Easterlings. The portrayals of their culture are unmistakably eastern in nature. The brown men of the Haradrim for example conduct war on elephants called Oliphaunts in Tolkien mythology and are undoubtedly inspired from Indian culture. Concerning the Easterlings,
Straubhaar notes, “As (sometimes) mounted tribal invaders out of the east, and the harriers of western, more urbanized peoples, the Easterlings are probably based partly on historical and legendry images of the Huns” (“J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopaedia”, 140, 141). Thus what one observes is a valorization of European culture and the demonization of South Asian and Eastern
cultures, though perhaps not intentionally.
Thirdly, Tolkien’s assignment of good and evil is not only done on a racial and cultural basis but a geographical one as well. The presence of an East versus West typology is strong in his works. This typology is definitely not something new. Clashes between the civilizations of the East with those of the West have been constant throughout human history. Events like the Crusades or Holy wars, fought between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle-East over the possession of the holy land from the 9th to the 12th centuries AD, may have proven to be an inspiration for Tolkien given the fact that as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, he would have spent a great deal of time sifting through Medieval writings on the subject (Straubhaar, “J.R.R Tolkien Encyclopaedia”, 558). Therefore, it would come as no surprise that Middle-Earth is also the stage of an epic confrontation between East and West. The forces of Evil, namely “the black land of Mordor” as well as the lands of the evil men of the Haradrim and the Easterlings lies to the Eastern side of Middle-Earth. The lands of the free peoples of Middle-Earth, namely the Mannish Kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan, the elven realms of Rivendell and Lothlorien as well as the dominion of the Hobbits, all lie in the western regions. These kingdoms, in the story, are forever haunted by the “menace of the East” (“The return of the King”, 18) and “for the Hobbits of Middle-Earth, as for western Europeans in real life, east came to mean danger because that’s where foreign enemies and armies lived” (Colbert, 95). However there is a lot more to Tolkien mythology than references to suspicion and fear of the East. There is also active aggrandizement and canonization of the West with phrases like, “And so, since many men had already been left at the Cross-roads, it was with less than six thousands that the Captains of the West came at last to challenge the Black Gate and the might of Mordor” and “The men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times and more than ten times their match would ring them in a sea of enemies” (“The return of the King”, 189 and 195). Even the sword of Aragorn, heir to the throne of Gondor, was called Anduril, “flame of the West” “The return of the King, 138). This separation of East and West is also not intentional but represents the natural orientation of any writer or any common European of the time, to associate himself with West and see the East as a mystery at best. These characterizations are harmless in
themselves but indeed do point to Tolkien’s cultural influences.
Reading the works of J.R.R Tolkien, one is introduced to many tales, tales of love and hate, of kin and country and of war and blood. One is constantly reminded of the power of dark and sinister forces only then to be reminded of the resilience of those who remain steadfast to the cause of peace and justice. But most of all what the keen reader would observe is how all men are shaped by the world around them, how they are but lumps of soft clay, easily beaten into shapes and forms of varying beauty. Tolkien was such a lump. He was not a racist and there is no evidence to prove that he was. He was only a product of the colonial era and thus thought differently than those who reside in today’s multicultural and highly globalized world. It is thus only fair that Tolkien’s work is viewed on less harsher terms and that it is not associated with something that Tolkien would not have had it associated with. Defending this literary masterpiece from defamation as racist is vital. Indeed, how can a dead writer leap out of his grave to defend his life’s work?
Written By: Rao Mohsin Ali Noor ( LUMS )
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