Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Shire Quest: The 'Scouring of the Shire' as the Narrative and Thematic Focus of the Lord of the Rings

2010; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

0146-9339

David M. Waito,

Comics and Graphic Narratives

An Introduction to the Quests THE QUEST NARRATIVE OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS (LotR) has been a thoroughly discussed, analyzed, and deconstructed element of Tolkien's epic novel since its first publication in 1954. Critics and essayists have carefully critiqued the quest to destroy the Ring (the Ring Quest), assuming it to be the central conflict of the story. Admittedly, the Ring Quest seems to be the driving force of the narrative, and the most climactic narrative action occurs when Frodo and Gollum wrestle greedily for possession of the Ring of Power on the brink of Mount Doom. Yet it is somewhat suspicious that the climax of such a carefully constructed narrative as LotR occurs less than halfway through Book Six, with a significant portion of narrative action still to follow. This fact prompts us to ask the following questions: Why does Tolkien take such care in detailing Scouring of the Shire? And, for that matter, why does he spend so much time describing hobbits and the Shire during the first five chapters of Book One? Clearly Tolkien believes this detail to be vital to his story. As dominating as the Ring Quest seems, we cannot underestimate the significance of Tolkien's specificity in the Prologue: Concerning Hobbits or chapters like Scouring of the In this paper, I propose that Tolkien provides this detailed backdrop of the Shire because there is another quest, a quest to save the Shire (the Shire Quest), which overarches the Ring Quest in the narrative. Although it appears blissful through much of its introductory descriptions, the Shire is an unhealthy community from the outset of Book One. Significant power struggles and issues lurk beneath the Shire's surface, inhibiting its healthy growth and mirroring many of the same power struggles and issues of the Ring Quest. By undertaking the Ring Quest, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin gain experience that enables them to become cognizant of problems that exist in the Shire, and equip themselves with the necessary skills to cleanse the Shire of its destructive tendencies. I argue that the Ring Quest serves merely as a means for the four hobbits to acquire what is necessary to complete the Shire Quest, and that the main conflict of Tolkien's novel is not to destroy the Ring, but to scour or save the Shire. This need to cleanse the Shire community resonates with much of the premise of John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett's The Myth of the American Superhero. Lawrence and Jewett discuss the problematic nature of American culture's infatuation with the redemptive tales of superheroes, wherein the members of a society inhabit a spectator democracy in which they passively witness their by a (29; emphasis original). Their study adapts the schema of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but suggests that a fundamental shift has occurred in the Americanizing of this monomyth: while Campbell's classical monomyth seemed to reflect rites of initiation, the American monomyth derives from tales of redemption (Lawrence and Jewett 6). The following is the basic plot structure of the American monomyth: A community in a harmonious paradise is threatened by evil; normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out the redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory restores the community to its paradisiacal condition; the superhero then recedes into obscurity. (Lawrence and Jewett 6) Janet Brennan Croft has applied Lawrence and Jewett's American monomythic framework to LotR through an analysis of Peter interpretation of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Croft draws on increased emphasis on Aragorn's uniqueness as the lone hero and examines his fitness as the typical American superhero (Croft, Jackson's Aragorn and the American Superhero Monomyth [Jackson's Aragorn] 12). …