Scholars, includingpsychoanalysts, have commented thatJ. R. R. Tolkien'sMiddle-earth stories about bothBilbo Baggins, protagonist ofThe Hobbit, andFrodo Baggins, protagonist ofThe Lord of the Rings, constitute psychological journeys. Bilbo returns from his journey to help recover theDwarves' treasure fromSmaug the dragon's lair in theLonely Mountain changed, but wiser and more experienced. Frodo returns from his journey to destroy theOne Ring in the fires ofMount Doom scarred by multiple weapons, and is unable to settle back into the normal life of his home,the Shire.

Bilbo's journey has been seen as aBildungsroman, a narrative of personal growth and coming-of-age, and inJungian terms as a journey ofindividuation, developing the self. Frodo's journey has been interpreted both as such a Jungian development, and in terms of the psychoanalytic theories ofMelanie Klein andLev Vygotsky. Jungian interpretations have identified numerous figures who correspond to archetypes, such asGandalf andSaruman as the Wise Old Man,Gollum as Frodo's shadow, andDenethor andThéoden as the Old King, while Gandalf,Elrond,Galadriel and Gollum have all been described as guide figures. Several features ofThe Lord of the Rings have been interpreted asJungian mandalas, figures of the self; one such is the group of four Hobbits, who may collectively represent theego with its fourcognitive functions. In Klein's theory, Frodo oscillates between theparanoid-schizoid and depressive positions, striving to resolve internal conflicts. In Vygotsky's theory, the journey is towards death, which Tolkien acknowledged as the theme of his book.

Carl Jung (1875–1961), a Swisspsychiatrist, coined the termanalytical psychology for his approach to the psyche, to distinguish it fromFreud's psychoanalytic theories.^[1][2][3] Concepts specific to Jung's analytical psychology include theanima and animus,archetypes, thecollective unconscious,complexes,extraversion and introversion,individuation, theSelf, theshadow andsynchronicity.^[4][5] The findings of Jungian analysis have been applied in areas of life including social and family relationships,^[6] dreams and nightmares,work–life balance,^[7] architecture and urban planning,^[8] and politics, economics, and conflict.^[9]

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an EnglishRoman Catholic writer, poet,philologist, and academic, best known as the author of twohigh fantasy works set inMiddle-earth,The Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings.^[10]

Tolkien was a member ofThe Inklings, a literary club that included his friendC. S. Lewis, who was interested in Jungian psychology, "enchanted" by the idea of the collective unconscious, and probably shared these ideas with Tolkien.^[11] The Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger states that Tolkien'sThe Lost Road, astory of time-travel by a father-son pair who reappear in different ages in the past, was based on Jungian psychology, in particular the collective unconscious, with a hint of reincarnation. Flieger states that Tolkien'smythology for England was "not simply ... about England ... but ... ingrained in the memory of countless generations of Englishmen, memory revived, reexperienced, and re-possessed ... through the genetic recollections of their ancestors."^[11][12] Flieger comments that inThe Lost Road, Tolkien uses the "recognised psychological phenomenon" of sudden flashbacks "as a psychic gateway into locked-off areas of the soul", extending it from past experience to past lives.^[13] She states that this was wholly compatible withJ. W. Dunne's theory in his 1927An Experiment with Time which allowed the mind to "dream through time in any direction".^[13]The clinical psychologist Nancy Bunting writes inMallorn that Tolkien expressed a Jungian view in several places, such as in a letter toChristopher Tolkien which in her words "sounds the Jungian refrain of linking native soil, race, and language".^[11]

TheHobbitBilbo Baggins, safe in his comfortable home,Bag End, is invited by theWizardGandalf and a party ofDwarves to help recover the Dwarves' treasure fromSmaug the dragon's lair in theLonely Mountain. On the way he faces dangers from a group ofTrolls in a wood,goblins and the monsterGollum – from whom he acquires a magic ring – in the Misty Mountains,Wargs in Wilderland, giant spiders inMirkwood, the imprisonment of the Dwarves by wood-Elves, and finally Smaug himself; and many of the opposing groups meet in the climactic Battle of the Five Armies. He returns from his journey changed, but wiser and more experienced.^[14]

Gandalf demonstrates to the HobbitFrodo Baggins that Bilbo's magic ring is the dangerousOne Ring. Frodo, terrified, bravely sets out of the Shire, heading forBree, accompanied by his gardener,Sam Gamgee, and two other Hobbits,Merry Brandybuck andPippin Took, both cousins of Frodo's. They are pursued byBlack Riders. They escape into theOld Forest, where they are nearly trapped byOld Man Willow, but rescued byTom Bombadil, master of the forest. They are captured and put under aspell by thebarrow-wight; Frodo awakens from the spell and summons Tom Bombadil, who frees them a second time. Reaching Bree, Frodo puts on the Ring, causing shock in the inn there. The Black Riders raid the inn during the night, but the party escape, hidden by aRanger,Strider. He leads them across the Wild toRivendell. The Black Riders attack on top ofWeathertop hill, wounding Frodo with a magical Morgul-knife. He starts to fade to invisibility. He reaches Rivendell deathly ill, but is healed byElrond.^[15]

The Council of Elrond decides the Ring must be destroyed in the fires ofMount Doom. Frodo is chosen to bear the Ring; Elrond chooses eight companions to assist Frodo on the quest, forming the Fellowship of the Ring. They set off south, fail to cross the Misty Mountains in the face of a magical snowstorm, and cross beneath the mountains through the tunnels ofMoria. At the entrance, Frodo is seized by the tentacles of theWatcher in the Water. Escaping into the tunnel through the magicalDoors of Durin, the party is attacked by Orcs and then by aBalrog, an ancient fire-demon. Gandalf defends the party from the Balrog, but both he and it fall into a chasm and are killed. The others flee, and take refuge in thetimeless Elven forest ofLothlórien, where they are counselled by the LadyGaladriel. After leaving that land, one of the party, Boromir, tries to take the Ring, but Frodo evades him using the Ring, and sets off for Mordor.^[16]

He and Sam are tracked and then led across the barren hills of the Emyn Muil and theDead Marshes by Gollum, who is enslaved by the Ring. Failing to enter theBlack Gate of Mordor, they travel to the pass ofCirith Ungol, guarded by the giant spiderShelob. Frodo uses the magical light of thePhial of Galadriel to drive Shelob back, and his swordSting to cut through her web. Shelob ambushes and stings Frodo, and trusses him like a fly in a cobweb. Sam, thinking Frodo dead, takes the Phial, Sting, and the Ring.^[17]

Sam rescues Frodo and they cross the wasteland ofMordor. At theCracks of Doom, Frodo claims the Ring for himself, but Gollum bites off Frodo's finger and takes the Ring. Gollum falls into the fire of Mount Doom and the Ring is destroyed. The surviving members of the Fellowship of the Ring return home, and while the others become heroes, Frodo is scarred by multiple weapons, and is unable to settle back into the normal life ofthe Shire.^[18]

The evolution and maturation of the Hobbit protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is central toThe Hobbit. This journey, where Bilbo gains a clear sense of identity and confidence in the outside world, has been viewed as aBildungsroman rather than a traditional quest.^[19] Dorothy Matthews writes inA Tolkien Compass that the Jungian concept of individuation, too, is reflected in this theme of growing maturity and capability, as Tolkien contrasts Bilbo's personal growth with the Dwarves' arrested development.^[20] Thus, while Gandalf exerts a parental influence over Bilbo early on, it is Bilbo who gradually takes over leadership of the party, a fact the dwarves could not bear to acknowledge.^[21] The hero's returning from theunderworld, with a boon (such as the Ring, or an Elvish sword) that benefits his society is seen to fitJoseph Campbell's mythicarchetypes of initiation and malecoming-of-age.^[22] The Tolkien scholarJared Lobdell comments that he is "profoundly unsympathetic" to Matthews's psychological approach, but that she "carries it off well". Lobdell explains, citing C. S. Lewis's essay "Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism", that many different stories could, for instance, have the sameFreudian interpretation, but be quite different as literature. He remarks on the other hand that apsychoanalytic approach is at least richer than a purelymaterialistic one.^[23]

The psychologistTimothy O'Neill comments thatThe Lord of the Rings has the same overall plot and point asThe Hobbit, but is far richer in structure and symbol, something that in his view does not detract from either work.^[24] O'Neill cautions that Tolkien's narrative is "not intended as an explicit description of the process of self-realization."^[25] Instead, asfantasy, it is "a sort of prose dream" where the unconscious has room "to parade its symbols".^[25] Noting that Tolkien is rather more thorough than many other authors "does not weaken its impact on the reader".^[25] He warns that "The unconscious is not educated in analytical psychology—quite the reverse—and we must make do with ready imagery and organization".^[25] Therefore, he writes, one should not "search for archetypes under every stone, behind every tree".^[25] All the same, O'Neill comments, "Tolkien's world ... [and] Jung's theoretical framework ... are waters drawn ... from the same enchanted well."^[26] Whether for that reason or not, Jungian interpretations have been offered for many features of Middle-earth. For instance, the essayist Allison Harl writes that the Watcher in the Water inThe Lord of the Rings represents a gatekeeper whose goal, in the context of the archetypal journey, is to keep the heroes from entering into new territory, psychologically or spiritually. This "guardian theory" has been echoed by writers such as Joseph Campbell andBill Moyers.^[27][28] Among the Jungian archetypes (shown in "Quoted Title Case") identified by scholars in Tolkien's narratives are:

Patrick Grant, a scholar ofRenaissance literature, interpreted the interactions of Frodo with the other characters as fitting theoppositions and other pairwise relationships of Jungian archetypes, recurring psychological symbols proposed by Carl Jung. He stated that the Hero archetype appears inThe Lord of the Rings both in noble and powerful form as the warrior-kingAragorn, and in childlike form asFrodo, whose quest can be interpreted as a personal journey of individuation. They are opposed by the Ringwraiths (the Black Riders). Frodo'sanima is the Elf-queen Galadriel; the Hero is assisted by theWise Old Man archetype in the shape of the Wizard Gandalf. Frodo's Shadow is the monstrous Gollum, appropriately in Grant's view, also a male Hobbit like Frodo. All of these, together with other characters in the book, create an image of the self.^[39]

The psychologist Charles Nelson, analysing the guide figures inThe Lord of the Rings, similarly describes Gandalf as the good and Gollum as the evil guide, noting that both are necessary to thequest. He observes thatThorin actually describes Gandalf as their "counsellor" at the start ofThe Hobbit.^[40] As for Gollum, he says inThe Two Towers "Nice hobbits! We will come with them. Find them safe paths in the dark, yes we will."^[41] Nelson comments that Gollum accidentally served as guide to Bilbo inThe Hobbit, leading him out of the caves under the Misty Mountains "out of ignorance". A third guide figure, Elrond, provides wise guidance both to Bilbo and to Frodo; indeed, he advises Gandalf too, and in The Council of Elrond, he advises the representatives of all theFree Peoples. Other guides along the way include Tom Bombadil and Faramir; Nelson identifies the Elf-queen Galadriel as possibly the most powerful of the Fellowship's guide figures.^[40]

Robin Robertson, a Jungianclinical psychologist, sets out seven separate "paths of the hero" to describe the process of individuation inThe Lord of the Rings. These are the paths of curiosity, for the young Hobbits Merry and Pippin; of opposites, for the Dwarf Gimli and the Elf Legolas; of the wizard, for Gandalf; of the king, for Aragorn; of failed individuation, for the monster Gollum; of love, for Sam; and of transcendence, for Frodo.^[42] Robertson comments that "Frodo's path transcends that of any other hero in literature."^[43] He adds that while Frodo seems to be the least of characters, "always aware of his own fears, his own limitations", he manages to achieve more than any of the great or wise. This accomplishment is balanced by the bitter ending, since Frodo is the one character unable to find peace after the quest, because he cannot be made whole. Robertson likens Frodo toShakespeare'sPrince Hamlet who cannot find peace on Earth.^[43]

The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger compares andcontrasts the journeys of Frodo and Aragorn, showing that while Frodo sets out as the little man of fairytale, it is Aragorn who gets the happy ending, while Frodo gets "defeat and disillusionment—the stark, bitter ending typical of [the heroes of] theIliad,Beowulf, theMorte D'Arthur".^[44]

Anna Caughey, inA Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, notes that in 1961 the poetW. H. Auden calledThe Lord of the Rings a quest-narrative, and argued that fantasy's purpose is to provide a framework for thinking about the worst of human experiences. In Caughey's view, Auden thus anticipated later "psychoanalytical deconstruction of European fairy-tales". She comments that Tolkien provides not a single quest-narrative but several, at different levels. These include Aragorn's quest for kingship, and Merry, Pippin, and Sam's quests for maturity and social identity. Looking at the quests from another perspective, she describes Frodo as the broken hero; Aragorn and Sam as following patriarch's quests, both becoming leaders of their respective realms; and Merry and Pippin, like Bilbo inThe Hobbit, following simple "There and Back Again" quests. Caughey adds that while Tolkien denied writing anallegory, one of the reasons that the book was so popular was that readers liked "engaging with the universal human experiences of failure, sacrifice, redemption and growth to maturity" of a hero's journey.^[45]

The Jungian analyst and author Pia Skogemann sets out her own Jungian interpretation, with Frodo as hero and Gandalf as an inner guide.^[46] She writes that she sees the quest "as a collective individuation, a confrontation with the collective unconscious and its archetypes. The ego in the shape of the four hobbits has become transformed and expanded through this confrontation."^[46] She states, too, that Frodo repeatedly falls into "a trance or unconsciousness in the confrontation with archetypal figures", including when he is stung by Shelob.^[47] Skogemann interprets numerous characters and events inThe Lord of the Rings in Jungian terms. For example, she describes the scene where Frodo looks into the Mirror of Galadriel and sees theEye of Sauron: "Galadriel pulls Frodo back from his trancelike state".^[48] Galadriel's role as guide is made more explicit when she later gives Frodo a phial containing thelight of Earendil's star, to guide him when all other light fails.^[48] Among the many Jungian themes that Skogemann identifies are:^[49]

Jung observed that people in multiple religions and cultures, including himself, made use of drawings of a circle motif; he described these asmandalas. He hypothesized that these reflected the mind's inner state at the moment of creation, and were a kind of symbolic archetype in the universal subconscious, writing that "I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, [...] which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. [...] Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: [...] the Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious."^[54]

• Pia Skogemann's interpretation of elements ofThe Lord of the Rings asJungian mandalas of the Self
• 
  The Four Hobbits as a mandala
  of the fourcognitive functions of the Self^[55]
• 
  Gandalf's fight with theBalrog as a mandala
  of the fourclassical elements^[56]

Skogemann identifies the capital of Lothlórien,Caras Galadhon, as a Jungian mandala, describing it as a place of self-knowledge.^[57] She further proposes that a 4-fold structure is important throughoutThe Lord of the Rings. She adduces as evidence the mandala-structure ofMinas Tirith, the 4 rivers, the 4 forests, the 4 Hobbits of theFellowship, the 4 other members of the Fellowship (less Boromir, who dies), and finally the 4th Age. The 4 Hobbits, namely Frodo, Pippin, Merry, andSam stand for Jung's 4 psychological (or cognitive) functions: Thinking; Intuition; Sensation; and Feeling.^[55] Crossing the 4 rivers (Brandywine, Bruinen, Celebrant, and Anduin) symbolises the choice ofdestiny in the journey towards individuation, while crossing the 4 forests (the Old Forest, theTrollshaws, the Golden Wood, andFangorn) represents visiting energetic centres in the collective unconscious.^[58] She notes Gandalf's battle with the Balrog using fire, then in deep water, then on stone, then high in mountains, describing these as the 4 classical elements, fire, water, earth, and air.^[56] She interprets the One Ring and theThree Elven-Rings as forming a 4-fold mandala of the collective self.^[c] She interprets the 4-fold structure as the archetype of the Anthropos, the Whole Man. In that scheme, the 4 Hobbits stand for the Ego archetype, whileLegolas andGimli represent the transcending of the old hostility ofDwarf andElf (subterranean vs ethereal). The 4th Age is, she notes, called the age of Man, as Elf, Dwarf, Orc and the rest fade or depart, leaving Middle-earth to Man alone.^[46]

The psychoanalyst Paula Jean Manners applies the theory ofMelanie Klein, an Austrian-Britishpsychotherapist, to Frodo's case. She notes that both Tolkien and Klein's husbandreturned changed from the horrors of theFirst World War. She likens Tolkien's stated theme ofThe Lord of the Rings as death to the Russian psychoanalystLev Vygotsky's view, that "to develop is to die".^[61] Manners states that in Kleinian terms, "development is seen as striving towards resolution of conflicting states, particularly the oscillation betweenparanoid-schizoid and depressive positions."^[61] Further, she writes, Klein described the child's anxiety between the "good breast" and the "bad breast", feeding the child and then leaving the child. Manners suggests that the good breast is the Shire, the safe home, while the bad is whatever is outside the Shire's borders. The world is thussplit into good and bad, "the paranoid-schizoid position".^[61] But Frodo is aware that evil will come into the Shire if he stays, so he sets off on his journey. She likens that to the setting off to war of the young men (including Tolkien) to keep England safe from the enemy. The other side of Klein's theory, the depressive position, appears when Frodo falls into self-pity, and becomes depressed. On the other hand, Manners writes, when Frodo genuinely feels pity for Gollum, Frodo ceases to be split: "he assimilat[es] the good and bad objects internally." She describes this as "essentially a maturing and loss of innocence", calling that a challenging developmental process, and notes that the therapist has to hold together the two halves of their client, the "villain" Gollum and the "victim" Sméagol (Gollum's better side).^[61]

Scholars have evaluated the validity of a psychological approach to Tolkien. Some reject it altogether: the biographer and literary theoristJoanny Moulin [fr] comments that Tolkien's "determined resistance" to allegory makes "theories of the fairy-tale which bear heavily on psychology or psychoanalysis ... of no avail for Tolkien, because these are inherently allegorical modes of interpretation."^[62] Others are more open to its possibilities: the Tolkien scholarThomas Honegger records that Tolkien mentioned Jung in his notes for his essay "On Fairy-Stories", and that other members of The Inklings, an Oxford discussion group, especiallyOwen Barfield and C. S. Lewis, were familiar with Jung's writings. He comments that while Skogemann's book introduces key Jungian terms like archetype and archetypal image, she does not work within the framework of Jungian studies; nor does she use many Tolkien studies. As a result, in his view, Skogemann identifies instances of archetypal images inThe Lord of the Rings, but does little to interpret them, producing a "rather mechanistic" application of a "Jungian grid" to Tolkien's text.^[63]

Edith L. Crowe, inMythlore, writes that Jungian interpretation had been fashionable among literary scholars, but asGergely Nagy had written, it had come to be seen as a "mystical ... paradigm" which was "hopelessly dated".^[64] All the same, Crowe states, the way fiction illustrates Jungian archetypes remains "irresistibly fascinating". She notes that Skogemann was correct, if "dismissive", to say of O'Neill that he was untrained in Jungian analytical psychology, but that she omits to mention that he was a psychology professor (in another field). Crowe writes that Skogemann, an experienced Jungian analyst and co-founder of Copenhagen's Jung Institute, might have been expected to provide a much richer analysis of Tolkien than O'Neill, but disappointingly spent some 80-90% of her text quoting or paraphrasing Tolkien. She notes thatTom Shippey is the only Tolkien scholar that Skogemann cites frequently, and that she shares his view that Tolkien's writings reflect the 20th century's collective unconscious. Crowe calls the identification of the "thoroughly evil" Ring with the Self a "serious misstep in O'Neill's otherwise enjoyable and readable book". She states that Skogemann's account of the One Ring and the Three Elven-rings is "a useful correction to this", adding that Skogemann "relates the three Elven rings plus the One Ring to Jung's 'analysis of the Christian age in the light of alchemical symbolism, with the Good Trinity and Satan or the Antichrist as the hidden fourth'."^[64] On the other hand, she adds that Skogemann's failure to consider Jungian analysis of Tolkien by other authors in journal articles and dissertations, "even to refute it", is "a significant weakness".^[64]

• Skogemann's 'alchemical' interpretation of her own reading of some elements from Tolkien
• 
  Skogemann's reading of the 4 Rings as a mandala of the self, with the 4classical elements, related to Jung's "alchemical" analysis of the Christian age.Sauron is linked toSatan, while the 3 bearers of theElven Rings are linked to theTrinity.^[60][65]

Honegger states that O'Neill's 1979The Individuated Hobbit^[66][63] clearly and succinctly introduces theories of mind and situates Jung's work among them. O'Neill then outlines Jung's framework and defines the key terms that Jung uses, including archetype, anima, shadow, collective unconscious, and individuation, where (he writes) Skogemann relies on web links. Further, the book analysesThe Lord of the Rings inThe Silmarillion's framework of myth, thereby reaching effectively (in Honegger's view) into the "archetypal dimension".^[63]

Dorothy Matthews's 1975 "The Psychological Journey of Bilbo Baggins",^[69] one of the first studies of Tolkien and Jung, in Honegger's view helpfully interprets some features of the story, such as seeing Bilbo's Mirkwood spiders "as psychic fixations that have to be resisted", or arguing that Tolkien does not have Bilbo kill Smaug the dragon, because Tolkien did not want to position him as an epic hero, but rather to leave him as "Everyman". Matthews shows, Honegger writes, that a Jungian approach can offer new insights and highlight archetypal motifs found both in Middle-earth and in folklore or fairytales. But against this, in his view, she falls into the trap of "uncritical[ly]" identifying a string "of archetypal images and motifs": Gandalf embodies Jung's Wise Old Man, or "debatably", Gollum as the nightmarish Devouring Mother. Like other critics, Honegger argues, Matthews appears to believe that identifying archetypal images is an end in itself, though the question it answers, perhaps why the book has such an emotional impact, remains unstated. He notes that "emotional involvement and its explanation do not constitute legitimate literary criticism," even though Tolkien's power is not explainable by literary features like style or plot structure. He concludes that Jungian approaches to Tolkien need to go further than just arguing that "a halfling ... with some helper-figures, became a wiser and more individuated hobbit", no matter how true that is.^[63]

• Themes of The Lord of the Rings
• The Hobbit
• Literary criticism

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