The lord and the ring: morality, ethics and religion in “The lord of the rings”

Abstract

J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings are names that will not only sound familiar, but also inspire a deep feeling of respect to any fantasy fan. It would be rare to find someone who has not heard of Tolkien and his work. With TLOTR being a literary hit and one of the greatest works of the 20th century, there are many interpretations of the work that try to grasp the meaning and the message that the author wanted to convey through it. In this paper, we are to study different aspects of this book on a spiritual level by putting our focus on Tolkien’s personal beliefs from a moral, ethic and religious perspective and how they influenced his work, in order to find at least a part of the message with which he wanted to reach his audience. Regarding Morality, we are going to deal with general aspects of the Good and Evil duality in TLOTR such as religious and individual morality, whereas our point on Ethics is going to tackle issues such as Nature and Rule from Tolkien’s perspective as shown in this book. Finally, we will discuss the concepts of Fate and Growth from a Christian perspective, summarizing a bit of Tolkien’s religious message to be found in TLOTR.