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Tolkien rejected the idea to compare Sauron and Hitler. He rejected that LOTR was his way to handle his war trauma. His biggest argument is that most ideas exis
by qznc 6y ago
Tolkien rejected the idea to compare Sauron and Hitler. He rejected that LOTR was his way to handle his war trauma. His biggest argument is that most ideas existed before WW2.
- jacobush 6y agoWouldn't it have been WW1 he would have processed? Both because he was in it and because it was the first industrialised war. Mordor makes one think of trenches and devilish factories.
- goto11 6y ago> Mordor makes one think of trenches and devilish factories. Tolkien hates you now! But seriously, he was open about how WWI influenced his writing. I think his rant against allegories is more about direct allegorical reading like "Mordor is supposed to symbolize WWI trenches etc."
- eredengrin 6y agoI totally agree here. I think there's a difference between recognizing where Tolkien's inspiration came from vs saying that an element which took inspiration from elsewhere was necessarily meant to specifically represent that thing in his work.
- pvaldes 6y agoMaybe, but Lord of the Rings is still basically a 1000 pages metaphor about experiencing "The War" and homesick. If is is so good is because all is mounted over a frame of reality that makes all to fall in place and supports the action A few examples can be seen when characters walking for days start walking by the grass at the borders of the path, or to describe fields without cattle in wartime.