This is the first real adventure chapter in the book; so far we have had the Black Riders appear threateningly from time to time, but that threat has not yet been realized. It is something of a twist, then, to more or less forget the Black Riders for a chapter (indeed, for three chapters) and to suddenly put the Hobbits into an unrelated bit of trouble. In fact there is something rather odd about it, I think. Few authors would so carefully build up the threat of the Nazgul, and go to great lengths to illustrate the nature of the Ring and get its story started, only to drop these threads almost completely after just five chapters and present us with a three-chapter interlude concerning other things. One could (as Ralph Bakshi and Peter Jackson know very well) simply cut these three chapters out without creating many problems for the later narrative.
Why does Tolkien do this? I think the real answer is simply that, at the time he wrote these chapters, he didn't know any better. That is to say, he had not yet worked out the whole plot and in fact had not yet realized that LotR was going to be much different from
The Hobbit. The Old Forest was conceived of as just an adventure that Frodo has along the way, for originally it was simply to be a story about Frodo's adventures. But of course later, when Tolkien did understand what LotR was going to be, he retained these chapters. I would guess that this was partly just habit - once the narrative got going, he never made any huge changes to parts he'd already written. A more commercially-minded author would probably have deleted the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow-downs since they don't directly concern the main plot of the book.
But I think that there is value in these chapters as they are, as Tolkien must have realized. First of all, they are simply interesting in themselves. But that's not quite a sufficient explanation, for one can imagine any number of miscellaneous adventures that are interesting in themselves and yet were not and should not have been added to the text.
I think one virtue of these chapters is that identified by Tuor of Gondolin:
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One observation here: the Old Forest trees enmity illustrates a depth brought to Middle-earth which PJ's movies missed, that there are autonomous forces for good and ill operating.
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That is, it would be unrealistic for the Hobbits only to encounter upon their journey servants of Sauron, or people and things relating directly to the central plot. To give them a few unrelated adventures adds a lot to the realism of Middle-earth.
Another thing this interlude does is to extend the threat of the Nazgul by delaying its resolution. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 have set up the Black Riders as a threat and we know that it will only be a matter of time before they begin to do more than simply sniff and scream. The reader anticipates some kind of confrontation with the Black Riders. That anticipation is firmly in place by the end of chapter 5. So through chapters 6, 7, and 8, on top of everything else, the reader is thinking about the Black Riders and still anticipating an eventual confrontation. To illustrate this point, imagine how much poorer Book I would be if these three chapters were placed after the Weathertop encounter.
And a final justification for not excising these chapters: while they are
almost unrelated to the central plot, they are not completely so. There is the obvious relation, for example, between the Old Forest and Fangorn.
As for chapter 6 itself, what struck me on rereading it was the way Tolkien slowly builds up the tension right to the climax of the chapter. This is one of his chief strengths, I think; it's already been noted in relation to the Black Riders in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Here, we begin with the Old Forest being more or less just a forest, if one which, according to Merry, has queer things living in it. Then we find that the trees bar their way and make Pippin uneasy. Then Frodo's song seems to disturb them. Then briefly the tension is eased when they stand at the top of the hill and look out across the forest. Then they go on, making good progress at first, but slowly finding that the forest is forcing them in its desired direction. Then they become completely lost and unable to choose their own direction at all. Finally they arrive in the Withywindle valley itself and struggle with a strange drowsiness. Then suddenly Old Man Willow strikes, and in a brief space we have some minor heroics by Sam and the appearance of Tom Bombadil.
Looking at it this way, what Tolkien does is present a series of minor incidents each of which alters the tension in some way. Most add to it, a little bit at a time. One detracts from it - which only makes its eventual reappearance more striking. And only at the very climax does anything actually
happen. A mistake too many authors make is to think that the reader is conscious only of what is happening at the moment, so that they think a constant level of action must be maintained for the story to be interesting. Tolkien realizes that readers have a memory and also a sense of anticipation, so that each of the little incidents he presents adds to the tension.
Davem wrote:
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We have to face the fact that the trees the hobbits cut down & burned also ‘had voices of their own that are lost forever now’ & that OMW’s anger & desire for revenge is no less understandable than Treebeard’s. Of course, it can be argued that OMW is ‘evil’ because, rather than seeking revenge against the particular hobbits responsible for the hacking & burning, he seeks to revenge himself on all who go on two legs. But Treebeard also revenges himself against all orcs, without interrogating each of them to find out if they were involved in cutting down ‘his’ trees. But perhaps OMW’s irrational anger is more understandable, as he, unlike Treebeard, cannot move, & simply has to remain where he is, at the heart of the Old Forest, aware of the destruction of ‘his’ trees, the loss of their voices forever, unable to come to their defence. Treebeard could have gone to the defence of ‘his’ trees, but didn’t, OMW, rooted to the earth, simply had to remain where he was, earthbound.
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This is a good point. It seems that Old Man Willow and Treebeard may not be as different as one would, at first glance, believe. But I am not sure that it is correct to see the trees in all cases as representing Tolkien's sympathies. I've always thought that the Old Forest shows, contrary to what one might get from the rest of the book, that nature is not all "good". Nature is a force of its own and not necessarily allied with the good incarnates. This is complicated, though, by Tom Bombadil, who is clearly to be associated with nature but is quick to condemn Old Man Willow's assault on the Hobbits.