The Road and The Ring

[Firefoot]

Fordim, another great thread topic!

I agree with Essex that the story is too complex to call just 'linear' or just 'circular'. I suppose that depending on your perspective it could be either or. But the way I see it is that it is both. It is linear in the fact that the characters go from point A to point B and they take these steps to get there and they change in these ways. However, it is also circular in that points A and B are the same point, for the Hobbits anyway: the Shire (though I suppose for Frodo it is more like a lasso: the Shire.... the Shire, and then the Undying Lands).

Or is the story circular? But if this is so, then is it in some manner like the Ring in that it closes in on itself and “goes nowhere”?

I would say that yes the story is in some respects circular, as I outlined above, but that doesn't mean it "goes nowhere." The characters (I'll stick with the hobbits for now) go on a life-changing journey and come back very different. They have all changed, and grown, from what they were previously. They are not the same hobbits that left a year ago. I don't see how you can call that going nowhere, even if they end at the same spot. If I was to walk around my block, I would end up back at my house. I have gone in a complete circle. Have I gone nowhere? One might argue that I have: I am at the same place I started, and unless something happened on that walk, I have probably not changed a bit. However, the hobbits' journey is not a walk around the block: they have all gone through hardships (some greater than others) and come back stronger from it. Brings to mind the saying "What does not kill us will make us stronger."

is it a linear story that moves from beginning, through the middle, and toward the end? If this is so, then presumably we are working toward some kind of resolution and conclusion. But then, if this is the case, then is it not at the very least ironic that this “straight road” leads back to the very place where it began?

It that way, yes it is linear. You have a beginning, a middle, and an end, each going through several steps to get us there. It does conclude itself with Frodo etc going to the undying lands and Sam returning to the Shire. As you pointed out, the events of the story are also cyclical, so maybe you end up with a figure shaped like a spring? Point A to Point B, but the events in some ways repeating themselves. I suppose you might say that it is ironic that this road goes back to where it started, though perhaps JRRT did that on purpose? In that case, it would be ironic for the characters inside the story, but not necessarily for the story itself.

So in conclusion, I will say that it is impossible to fully describe a complex, 3-dimensional story like LotR with flat figures like circles and lines. There is too much going on, too many characters and events, or "rings and roads" as you so well put it.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Yes, Fordim, you've managed to come up with another interesting discussion topic! Firefoot, I like your use of the picture of a spring, a three-dimensional figure which combines both the circular and linear aspects. The lessons we learn in life tend to take repetition before they sink in, so we seem to come back to the same places. I've often compared it to building a brick house - you go around and around, ending up at the same corner repeatedly. However, each time, the wall is one layer higher. There is progress.

That's how I see the LotR. The cycle of departure, danger and refuge may seem similar, but each time, it escalates. Leaving Rivendell is not the same as leaving Bag End, and the shelter of Ithilien is not the same as Lothlórien. So I would also see the movement of the plot as a spiral, showing the depth of the story.

[Bêthberry]

Sorry, just kidding. Couldn't resist. Will go away now and won't come back until I have something serious to contribute.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmm…my cogitations seem over simplifying? Oops, not quite what I was after – and here I was congratulating myself on rendering such a confusing idea into an actual post that made some sort of sense.

Firefoot and Essex, I see what you mean about the reductionism of “making” LotR into either a circle or a line, but my point is actually that it seems to be both at the same time. Like Estelyn, I very much like the idea of the spring. The other image that came to mind as I was writing the original post was that of W.B.Yeats’ gyres, particularly in that the spiralling action of LotR does seem to move ‘outward’ into ever expanding circles. In the little plot summa I gave above, there is an expansion in each repetition of the pattern. This expansion is, first, temporal – that is, the cycles take place over the course of days, then of weeks, then of months, and finally years – with Frodo’s trip to the Undying lands, these cycles reach even into the Eternal. But the expansion is also, I think, thematic somehow: as Frodo’s ‘awareness’ or conscience or morality or whatever grows throughout his journey, so too does his journey.

All of this seems to me to reinforce the idea that LotR is perhaps more complicated than even the spring (or the brilliant brick-laying analogy!) do it credit. The Road and the Ring are not attempts on my part to explain the whole work, but structural/organisational motifs/devices that Tolkien has used to organise his story. Every story has ‘shape’ – the western story of “our” own culture/civilisation is very much linear (history moves ‘forward’, cultures ‘advance’, generations ‘succeed’ one another), and this is very different from more traditional stories of historical movement (Native Americans, for instance, very much imagine history as circular, with each generation re-placing the former).

So, given the fact that Roads and Rings, linearity and circularity, are so insistently (and consistently) mixed in Middle-Earth, the stories of the characters become very complex. Boromir88 has said that “the Aragorn at the end is very different from the Aragorn at the beginning” – he is therefore ‘circular’ in a sense. Well, I’m not sure I can go along with that simplification. Aragorn does follow a circular Road from houseless wanderer to King – thus completing the historically circular pattern of his people. But his own personal journey is, I think, very much in a straight line. The conditions of his life may change, but I don’t see much by way of personal development or alteration/realisation. When he meets the hobbits in Bree, for example, he announces from the outset “I am Aragorn son of Arathorn. If by my life or death I can serve you, I will!” – this is, I would suggest, very much the kind of man he is for the duration of his life. Frodo, on the other hand, undergoes a profound and complete alteration (under the influence of the Ring) and thus his journey is entirely circular (he ends up where he began: Frodo leaves Aragorn in Minas Tirith – at the end of their shared Road – and goes back to his round hobbit hole) but this is repetition with a difference (he is not the same person). In the end, Frodo leaves Middle-Earth and takes the “straight Road” into the west.

So the journeys of both Frodo and Aragorn are circular and linear; but each of them follows their own Roads for the sake of their own Rings. So (deep breath) what does this all mean?? Are Roads and Rings somehow compatible in LotR (I’m not happy with that one, frankly, since the Fellowship has to follow their Road to destroy the Ring)? This is well beyond simple questions of good and evil – what do Roads represent as compared to Rings (and vice versa), and how can these help our understanding of the characters’ individual journeys, as well as the history of the War of the Ring?

[Kransha]

Ah, at last I find the courage to post in one of Fordim's fantastic threads. Before, I'd considered myself not scholarly enough, but I think I have something to say on this, so here I go. Wish me luck, fellow meek ones...

Alright, a congruence of road and ring. Both fascinating and deceptive in its course. There was the cited fact that a road, or straight objective has a heading, going somewhere, whereas the circular, ring path leads nowhere but into themselves. Now, on a metaphor, one can't say that the Ring Quest leads into itself (excepting another theory 2 paragrahs below this).

There is also the slightly bizarre deduction of mine found through Road and Ring assumptions. In many of the cordoned off sections of the books, there is a recurring line or circle theme, in more than the land lay. Focal points: Minas Tirith, Shire, Isengard, Orodruin, has those themes within, but the similarity is shared by surroundings. Consider the tree to be a representation of road, bearing many straight branches, a road-like trunk, and often pockmarking roadsides. Then, consider the influence of the ring in, say, a pool, usually implied as circular in shape. Focal points are also effected by such things, ala Old Willow, Treebeard, the Lothlorien Mallorns, the White Tree of Gondor to battle the side of the road and Galadriel's Mirror, the Pool at Henneth Annun, the 'Pool' in Mount Doom, the pool in the courtyard of Ecthelion's Tower at Minas Tirith for the rings. Sensible, though a little crackpot in its stating.

Then again, think about the whole road mentality. Roads inevitable go, but do not always remain level. At a certain point, there is a steady beginning of the ascension/descension theme, which is found in both road and ring (ascent to Minas Tirith is a circular path, descent into Moria is a straight one) but always there are ups and downs. As such, one might assume from my above theory that the theme is more natural than related to Fordim's theory, but I stand by my belief that the two are intertwined. There is a steady course of ring ascent, road descent (there's a thought. Notice that most of the ascension is ring-wise, the descension road-wise). You could say it all comes down to advanced geometry. Is it necessary to delve into the third dimension of Arda here...or even the fourth? Speaking of, I may have botched my ME history lessons, but wasn't Arda a plane before the first age? As in, flat like pre-Galilean Earth? Dimensions could be crucial.

There is, then, the matter of character and the journey. Journeys lead 'somewhere' but the journey of the 4 hobbits takes them eventually back where they were once, the Shire. Unlike other journeys in literature, the story doesn't end with victory, and then some epilogue delving into the future. The journey ends 'when the road is travelled,' and 'when the ring is complete.' The character paths are often ring-ular (i.e. Frodo, Aragorn, etc) but there is a difference. Only one of the Fellowship actually travels in a ring, who is, most interestingly, Samwise Gamgee, who ends up closest in personage to where he began the books, still in love with his gardening and a hobbit of the simple life. All other Fellows of the Fellowship have gone on roads and rings, returning PHYSICALLY to where they began, but not MENTALLY. Frodo has the scar of the Ring (read: circle) on him, Aragorn is of kingly stature, with new duties, Merry and Pippin are revered as heroes with new following in Rohan and Gondor, Gimli and Legolas have found a friendship for each other utterly unexpected before hand. For all those uber-Sam lovers out there, revel in this moment, as Sam has a peculiar uniqueness compared to the other road travellers. Of Gandalf I cannot say. but wizards work in mysterious ways, so I shan't be the one to try and fathom them.

[Boromir88]

I'll bring up some Geometry, ok so you have a circle, ring 360 degrees. Which means a 360 is that you end up back where you started. This is similar to most characters, Sam, Merry, Pippin all returned back to the Shire. Aragorn, if I can still remember correctly, fought alongside Denethor in their early ages then he returns to be the King. Legolas and Gimli I will have to look at more closely to be able to make a decision. Some of the supporting Characters, for instance, Theoden, Eomer, Imrahil, all went out and off their "road" to aid Gondor then they returned back. For Theoden he went back dead, but went back none the less.

I left out Frodo since someone mentioned his Journey was more of a lasso, which makes sense. I would like to talk about Frodo's "spiritual" change. It's like he did a 180, he's not the same anymore. If you read "The Scouring" it just seems like Frodo, doesn't love the shire that he once did. Frodo, sought healing and was a ring-bearer, but it just didn't seem like he loved the Shire as he once did. Sort of like Celebrian after she was wounded she didn't care for Middle-Earth like she did and went to Valinor to seek healing. Frodo didn't do to much to help save the Shire, Sam, Farmer Cotton, and Merry were really the one's who rallied the Halflings. Frodo still had love for his hobbits and fellow companions but as for the Shire I can't decide. Frodo suffered a wound (many) and when returning home after all this time of wanting to he seems to have lost his love. I will have to get back to you on some clues from the book that I noticed for this. I compare Frodo's journey similar but much more difficult then Celebrian.

Kransha tree trunks are straight but they are also circular, which if I understand you correctly that will only help support your theories.

[tar-ancalime]

I really like the gyre analogy. It seems to work better than roads and rings as separate ideas--the gyre allows for, as Boromir88 said, characters returning to their homes but still being changed.

Also, I think you were right on in bringing up Yeats, Fordim. The Second Coming is very like the Lord of the Rings in a way--it's about the end of an age. Just as at the end of the Third Age the situation for Middle Earth seemed desperate and many people lost hope, so in the poem "the falcon cannot hear the falconer." And what's more, is Sauron the "rough beast"? (Sorry, I'm quoting from memory, always a dangerous proposition and especially in the morning--I apologize if I'm getting it wrong.) I think he wanted to be. I think he would have been at the (new) center of things if the Ring had not been destroyed.

[Lyta_Underhill]

Since we're all doing moving or structure metaphors for the for the path of Frodo's journey, perhaps I can throw in another odd one--a magnetic flow. This allows for an angular flow of electrons, either clockwise or counterclockwise in a circular path, creating either an upwards direction of electronic flow or a downwards direction of electronic flow. Thus, also, the tie-in with the clockwise path taken by Frodo from Hobbiton to Mordor to Minas Tirith and back (positive flow-the upright path) and also his pretty much clockwise path inside the Land of Shadow, starting at the entrance road to Minas Morgul, to Cirith Ungol, the Morgai, around to Udun, through the Plain of Gorgoroth and thence to Mount Doom (then out of the realm through the air). How's that for crackpot theories? The Road can be either upwards or downwards, metaphorically, towards the Light and positive flow or towards the Darkness and negative flow. I'm sure this metaphor doesn't hold with everyone for everything, but the spring theory made me think of it.

Cheers!
Lyta