Love the way that all the non-Brits are arguing about class but agreeing that we are obsessed about it
. I just think that the great social mobility of the last century provided a rich seam for drama and humour which many writers and film makers have exploited. And the social mobility is reflected in LOTR particularly of Tolkien's works. Think of Faramir talking about Gondor and Rohan and Sam rising to be Mayor and his daughter marrying the Thain's son.
The Shire was changing just as England was. It is a very different place to when (at about the time of Tolkien's birth) that one of my great grandmothers was disowned by her family for marrying into trade and caused scandal by riding a bicycle. The former seems just as ludicrous as the latter now.
Another great-grandmother was an illiterate Irish immigrant so I owe my existance to a degree of social mobility! Certainly my parents had very different backgrounds - my father's feet are crumpled because his widowed mother couldn't afford shoes for him as soon as he needed them, but at least at the time it was possible for a poor boy with a good brain to get an education and a scholarship to university which had a ripple effect throughout the rest of his family.
If there are three classes in Britain now I would say they are those who don't work, those who work and those who don't need to work. The type of work people do is rather more significant these days than accent or the words you use for rooms or meals. And I have to say that I notice plenty of "class" distinction in American programmes and books - anything set in New York seems chocabloc with it for starters, let alone Desperate Housewives, Shark, The Riches, all those films where the girl from the trailer park fights it out with the rich girl to be Prom queen or whatever... And the most class conscious film I ever saw was French (Priez pour Nous) but heigh ho... you keep you national stereotypes and we'll keep ours
To get back to Tolkien, there is a clear hierachy between the kindred of the Elves, and with Men there is an even more refined hierachy - the purer Numenoreans being a cut above even within the superior realm of Gondor. With the Dwarves the line of Durin is top and even the Orcs make distinctions from the Uruk-hai down to the snufflers. It is clearly a very hierachical world from the Valar down... but that is hardly suprising for a mythology which concern generally the great and the good (and the great at being bad), the powers of the world not the "poor ****** infantry".
So having had the first version of this lost in a computer crash,I shall post and wait for the gauntlet... (fish knives at dawn no doubt)....