Religion and Morality in Tolkien's the Hobbit

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark Volume 3 Article 2 April 2017 Religion and Morality in Tolkien's The obbitH Sophia Friedman Clark University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Friedman, Sophia (2017) "Religion and Morality in Tolkien's The oH bbit," Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark: Vol. 3 , Article 2. Available at: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj/vol3/iss1/2 This Manuscript is brought to you for free and open access by the Scholarly Collections & Academic Work at Clark Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark by an authorized editor of Clark Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. MANUSCRIPT Religion and Morality in Tolkien’s The Hobbit Sophia Friedman ‘16 | Comparative Literature ABSTRACT Much research has been done on J. R. R. Tolkien’s works, but The Hobbit has been overlooked. Because of the time in his life that it was written, this particular novel can offer unique insight into the questions of religion in Middle Earth that have been continuously raised. The first half of this essay will seek to answer these questions. Though most scholars look for an allegorical representation of the author’s Catholic faith in the novel, it is not there. Instead, Tolkien found spirituality in the process of writing and in creating a believable Secondary World. Rather than trying to convert his readers to Christianity like some of his contemporaries, Tolkien asked his readers something more founda- tional: to practice spiritual growth by choosing good over evil. Through this plea and because of historical contexts, he used his didactic novel to promote moral absolutism simultaneously with multiculturalism. The second part of this paper delves into the contentious battle between Tolkien and his narrator, a character who agrees with Tolkien’s views on moral absolutism, but proves to discourage multiculturalism. The narrator flatly and irresponsibly organizes the spectrum of characters into a Good/Evil binary, to Tolkien’s displeasure. Though this article lays the groundwork, more scholarship is warranted on this novel. INTRODUCTION of religious content in his longer Earth novels. John Ronald Reuel Tolk- works. The supposedly young ien’s Middle Earth started as a few target audience for this novel PART ONE poems, and grew to encompass is both a boon and a curse to Scholars have scoured an entire universe, becoming a scholars. In one sense, it clarifies Tolkien’s work for religious cultural fixture in his native many of Tolkien’s motives, yet in symbolism. Many have ascribed England and throughout the another it obfuscates his morals. metaphorical meaning to morsels world as he had intended. Because This essay, in trying to clarify the from the trilogy, often overlook- of the books’ popularity, many questions of religion and morality ing the act of writing itself as critics have dismissed them as in Tolkien’s work, has two sections. a spiritual undertaking. The having no real literary value. For The first explores the motivation author spent his life as a devout a time, the fantasy genre also behind the writing of the novel Catholic, never wavering from precluded many scholars from and the inherent Catholicism that his faith. His motivation was not taking them seriously. Yet, as suffuses it. The work is inextricable to convert his readers. He instead academia warmed to Tolkien’s from the author’s religion, though intended to create a “mirror of work, The Hobbit remains under- the relationship between the the national soul,”1 a national epic studied, and a dearth of academic novel and Christianity is complex. that would reflect and crystalize discourse continues to surround The second section will explore the morals of the British Empire. it. Dismissed as children’s morality in the work through the However, this motivation was fiction, the story’s importance is lens of the unreliable and abso- not a fully realized idea when he often overshadowed by Tolkien’s lutist narrator. The Hobbit is an wrote The Hobbit. Because of the more “adult” works. Of course, intrinsically Catholic book in time in his life that he wrote it the novel is important to which Tolkien’s narrator imposes and its intended readership, the understanding Tolkien and the his morally absolutist views on novel does not so much “mirror” creation of Middle Earth. Because this world in opposition to some contemporary morals, as try to The Hobbit was written before of Tolkien’s own views. Together, mold them. His novel is written Tolkien’s narrative style was fully these parts will create an overall with a Catholic world view, and developed, it can offer important understanding of the role of the thus defines the notions of good insight into the ongoing debates author’s religion in his Middle and evil through that lens. 23 RELIGION AND MORALITY IN TOLKIEN’S THE HOBBIT: Sophia Friedman Rather than trying to convert mythology of its own that could to take the novel seriously was his Protestant-majority country, preserve her “cultural identity.”5 further compounded by the fact Tolkien presents his readers with He dismissed the Arthurian that the narrative is explicitly a choice between good and evil, legends as tied to “the soil of moralizing in a way that many hoping that their choice will Britain but not with [the] English” adults and even children find prompt spiritual growth in an and strove to create his own that patronizing. The employment increasingly secular and difficult he could dedicate “to England; to of the narrator as a character, world. The novel is innately Chris- my country.”6 When he penned which will be much more fully tian, even if its purpose was more The Hobbit in the late 1930’s, this discussed in Section Two, is one fundamental than conversion. idea had not yet crystalized in notable example. The novel’s his mind. Though the workings overtly didactic qualities, while Why The Hobbit? of the concept were still present, extremely important for this Being one of the most he was instead preoccupied with essay, were another reason that it popular authors in the second the idea of fairy stories, on which was overlooked so often. half of the twentieth-century, he gave a seminal lecture in 1939. Tolkien has garnered much criti- The Hobbit is a mixture of both: a Writing as a Christian Act cal attention, mostly in the past fairy story that creates a moral for The moral paradigm that few decades. The legendarium, its readers, and a mythology that Tolkien propagates to his young his term for writings about Middle works to “reflect basic behavioral audience is one that is based in Earth,2 has been labeled both structures related to values, morals Christian values. The actual writing Christian and secular, with much or attitudes.”7 Because it was of the novel was, for Tolkien, ink being spilled on each side of more didactic and came so long inherently spiritual as every act the debate. His shorter works of before Middle Earth was expanded, in his life was. His practice of fiction, Leaf by Niggle for example, the work reflects England’s secular religion with a conviction akin to accumulate less controversy morality and actively hones it his mother’s was paramount to because of the all but explicit into a more explicitly Catholic him. Tolkien’s mother Mabel was Christian symbolism. The Hobbit one. The novel guides its readers to a convert to Roman Catholicism. is unique from these shorter works. moral truths with a heavier hand This left her alone, shunned by It was the first installment of his than Tolkien’s other works. her presumably Protestant family. legendarium and is, by virtue of Tolkien’s four children Poverty contributed to her early being first, quite different from were all under the age of thir- death in 1904, after which Tolk- the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A teen when he wrote The Hobbit. ien and his brother were then left small, critical vacuum exists This was not new for them: their in the care of a Catholic priest, around this novel, even in relating father often made up both oral Father Francis Xavier Morgan for it to his later work. and written stories.8 His children nine years. They each considered The novel was written at were his “immediate audience”9 F. Morgan tantamount to their a time in the author’s life when and the work contains effective actual father, who had died in his motives had not yet concre- attempts at humor and silliness South Africa.12 Tolkien believed tized. J. R. R. Tolkien moved to to amuse them. In the opening his mother to have been a Birmingham from South Africa chapter, a tangential story martyr for Catholicism, and his when he was a child.3 His love illustrates the creation of the continued devotion to the faith for England blossomed over game of golf, which supposedly was his way of honoring the decades as he fought for her in started when King Golfimbul’s sacrifice that she had made for World War One and then became head was knocked off in a battle, him and his brother. It was omni- a professor of Anglo-Saxon at “sailed a hundred yards through present in his life, and his writing Oxford.4 In his studies and his the air and went down a rabbit was no exception. The content of personal reading, he admired hole.”10 This comical aspect, the book and the ethos of the the longstanding mythology of called “Hobbitry”11 by Tolkien’s characters are not the only the Greeks, the Norse, and the friend C.

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