The Origin of Shelob
The book opens on the image of a very young J.R.R. Tolkien running through the desert grass of Africa and being bitten by a tarantula. He would tell his mother, “It was a spider as big as a dragon!” Even to a three-year-old a tarantula can’t really be so big as to resemble a dragon. The simile reveals the imagination of the future creator of Shelob, a spider as big as a dragon in The Lord of the Rings.
The Forests of Middle-Earth
The woods and forests in The Lord of the Rings are populated by trees that are not exactly like our own. The special magical abilities of these trees trace back to events in Tolkien’s youth in which he accumulated a metaphorical lesson. “The trees, whether in Bloemfontein, King’s Heath, or his beloved Sarehole, were always his friends.” From this belief of a child would grown the multiple instances of trees or tree-like creatures who aid the forces of light in Middle-Earth.
World War I
For the first quarter-century of its existence, what today is known as World War I was known by a metaphorical nickname infused with optimism: “The War to End All Wars.” The biographical portrait of the author of The Lord of the Rings strongly favors viewing its story as an allegory about the forces of good overcoming the forces of evil relative to historical events. The suggestion is that the hope that the earlier war was the one which would bring an end forever to the regular outbreaks of battle between European powers was the primary inspiration behind the origin of Tolkien’s trilogy who took the metaphorical nickname too literally to heart.
The Country Boy
Tolkien at a young age has been whisked from Africa to the rural villages of England and has just been informed his new home is Birmingham. “He stopped walking, as if a dark ocean wave had struck him…He didn’t want the belching factories of a city, its noisiness and grime.” Even a cursory skimming of any single volume comprising Tolkien’s trilogy will reveal a distinct absence of urban spread. Tolkien’s literary world resembles the world he preferred in real life, on which protective trees were more plentiful than bricks and mortar.
It is Accomplished
In 1950, Tolkien finally sends the final completed draft of The Lord of the Rings to his publisher. He had began writing in the late 1930’s. A note attached affirms the reason for the long duration of composition. “It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” The metaphor is divorced from literal reality, of course, in that the manuscript was submitted in ink rather blood. In all over ways, however, the metaphor can be taken almost literally virtually ever minute of his life not committed to work or family was dedicated to writing the epic tale.
