A question about class in Middle Earth

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

May I ask a question here? It seems to an American that the British are absolutely obsessed with the idea of social class and where one stands on the class structure. Could someone explain this? Over the years, it seems that every other British film, or films set in British life, have class as its central or one of its more important themes. Here in the States, class is nothing important. It is understood that you will rise or fall on the basis of yourself and your abilities.

I think of the excellent film REMAINS OF THE DAY and its fixation on the roles of the classes and I could come up with hundreds of other examples.

I do not mean to hijack this thread and do not want to do so... but the topic introduced here seems central to this understanding.

Thank you.

A risky business, to equate a man's literary work with his political stances. But then, you may also argue that no literary work is not political.

In my experience, class has everything to do with one's life. A man from the lower classes strives to get up the social ladder, while those in the upper echelons (who aren't Paris Hiltons) strive to keep their place. That is in the Philippines.

Being a former American colony, I can say from our history books (those written by Filipino and American scholars), class is also valuable to the latter. Why else would they suppress the ilustrado class during the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century?

But good point, Mansun. You barely hear of any little one from a nobody-family doing great things. Radagast was an exception, but how was he looked upon by Saruman? Beren had to be descended from Beor. Erendis from Beor's sister (unmentioned anywhere else except UT). Even the hobbits in the quest were descended from the "noble" families of the Shire--Brandybucks and Tooks. Sam only became a part of it because he was... at the right place at the right time, but he became a sort of "noble" after returning.