{The Lord of the Rings [continued (3)]}[20th June 1988]

[Redbook5:188][19880620:1040e]{The Lord of the Rings [continued (3)]}[20^th June 1988]

19880620.1040

[continued]

The journey* itself has some indications of Circle symbolism: the major 'mythic' points being perhaps:

[Text of ms diagram shown above:]

Return to →	Hobbiton Bywater	{→} – Leave
Mordor: The Land of Shadows. The Grey Company (Living Dead) (Much death)	C	** Strider?
End of the Ring	Frodo crosses the Sea	The Black Riders
The White Rider
(Hemisphere of Galadriel in Lothlorien) Battle	+	(Hemisphere of Elrond at Rivendell)
The King of the Golden Hall + Eowyn
Fragmentation of Fellowship.		Complication (Wolves &c; Mt. Caradhras)
	A
	The Mines of Moria. The Bridge of Khazad-dûm. The Balrog of Morgoth. Loss of Gandalf	([–]though water and tunnels)

**(The Old Forest was sufficiently self-contained/isolated to have been omitted from one film)***

****

There are, of course, many symbols etc. which do not fit.

#

*[See last two previous entries]

***[Presumably the unfinished 1978 animated version by Ralph Bakshi; but also now the 2001 version directed by Peter Jackson.]

****The whole mythology, too, is filled with symbols or archetypes of different types if development, themes of (Spiritual) exile, etc.

#In this, the sad story of the Ents' loss of their womenfolk may be significant: another of those curious loose ends, having no real function in the Lord of the Rings and no great significance (or explanation or resolution) in the mythology of Tolkien's world, but clearly important to him; we should perhaps seek its cause with the help of the teasing identification I once read of Treebeard with Tolkien himself. The story of the departure and disappearance (without trace) of the Entwives is a perfect allegory for the loss or suppression of the romantic side of the mind, a state of mind which must have been acutely felt at times by an Oxford Don who could write The Lord of the Rings. <881023>

In fact, the Ent-moot might have been rather like an all-male Oxford senior common room of the time.... <920920>

[continues]

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