J. R. R. Tolkien's best-known novels,The Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, both have the structure ofquests, with a hero setting out, facing dangers, achieving a goal, and returning home. WhereThe Hobbit is a children's story with the simple goal of treasure,The Lord of the Rings is a more complex narrative with multiple quests. Its main quest, to destroy theOne Ring, has been described as a reversed quest – starting with a much-desired treasure, and getting rid of it. That quest, too, is balanced against a moral quest, toscour the Shire and return it to its original state.

Tolkien superimposed multiple meanings on the basic quest, for example embedding a hidden Christian message in the story, and marking the protagonistsFrodo andAragorn outas heroes by giving them magic swords in the epic tradition ofSigurd andArthur.

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an EnglishRoman Catholic writer, poet,philologist, and academic, best known as the author of thehigh fantasy worksThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, both set inMiddle-earth.^[1]

Aquest is a difficult journey with a specific goal. It serves as a plot device inmythology andfiction, and is oftensymbolic orallegorical. The quest, in the form of thehero's journey, plays a central role in whatJoseph Campbell called the monomyth: the hero sets forth from the world of common day into a land of adventures, tests, and magical rewards. In a conventional heroic romance quest, theknight-errant in shining armour overcomes obstacles to win the heart of a beautiful princess.^[2][3][4]

The Hobbit and its sequelThe Lord of the Rings can both, the scholar of literaturePaul Kocher writes, be viewed as quest narratives, with parallel structures: the stories begin atBag End, the home ofBilbo Baggins; Bilbo hosts a party; the WizardGandalf sends the protagonist on a quest eastward; the wiseHalf-ElfElrond offers a haven and advice; the adventurers escape dangerous creatures underground (Goblin Town/Moria); they meet another group of Elves (Mirkwood/Lothlórien); they traverse a desolate region (Desolation of Smaug/theDead Marshes); they are received by a small settlement of men (Esgaroth/Ithilien); they fight in a massive battle (The Battle of Five Armies/Battle of Pelennor Fields); their journey climaxes within an infamous mountain peak (Lonely Mountain/Mount Doom); a descendant of kings is restored to his ancestral throne (Bard/Aragorn); and the questing party returns home to find it in a deteriorated condition (having possessions auctioned off/the Scouring of the Shire).^[5]

Randel Helms, a scholar of literature including Tolkien, comments that the two novels have the same story and the same theme, "a quest on which a most unheroic hobbitachieves heroic stature". Further, Helms writes, both have the "there and back again" quest romance format, and both quests have a timescale of one year (spring to spring, and autumn to autumn, respectively).^[6] He comments that while the two novels are thus structurally similar, "the natures of the two quests and the reasons for beginning them are strikingly different," Bilbo's being "at first little more than a lark with venal motives" whereas Frodo's quest "goes with the pain of a sad but noble decision".^[7]

The Silmarillion is not a quest novel, but it contains quests of its own.Lúthien and Beren, royal Elf and Man, are sent on a quest by Lúthien's fatherThingol who is opposed to her marrying a mortal Man. He sets a seemingly impossible task as thebride price: Beren has to bring him one of theSilmarils from the Dark LordMorgoth's Iron Crown.^[9][10]

The scholar of humanitiesBrian Rosebury writes thatThe Lord of the Rings combines a slow, descriptive series of scenes or tableaux illustrating Middle-earth with a unifying plotline in the shape of the quest to destroy theOne Ring. The Ring needs to be destroyed to save Middle-earth itself from destruction or domination by Sauron. The work builds up Middle-earth as a place that readers come to love, shows that it is under dire threat, and – with the destruction of the Ring – provides the "eucatastrophe" for a happy ending. The work is thus, Rosebury asserts, very tightly constructed, the expansive descriptions and the Ring-based plot fitting together exactly.^[11]

Tolkien scholars and critics have noted that the penultimate chapter ofThe Lord of the Rings, "The Scouring of the Shire", with its separate quest to save the Shire, implies some kind offormal structure for the whole work. The critic Bernhard Hirsch accepts Tolkien's statement in the foreword to theFellowship of the Ring that the formal structure ofThe Lord of the Rings, namely a journey outward for the main quest and a journey home for the Shire quest, was "foreseen from the outset".^[12] Another critic,Nicholas Birns, notes approvingly David Waito's argument that the chapter is as important morally as the Fellowship's main quest to destroy the One Ring, "but applies [the morals] to daily life".^[13][14] Birns argues that the chapter has an important formal role in the overall composition ofThe Lord of the Rings, as Tolkien had stated.^[13] Kocher writes that Frodo, having thrown aside his weapons and armour on Mount Doom, chooses to fight "only on the moral plane" in the Shire.^[15]

The Tolkien scholarRichard C. West writes that the story ofThe Lord of the Rings is basically simple: the hobbitFrodo Baggins's quest is to take the Dark LordSauron's Ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. He calls the quest "primary", along with the war against Sauron.^[16] The critic David M. Miller agrees that the quest is the "most important narrative device" in the book, but adds that it is reversed from the conventional structure: the hero is not seeking a treasure, but is hoping to destroy one. He notes that from Sauron's point of view, the tale is indeed a quest, and his evilBlack Riders replace the traditional "errant knights seeking the holy of holies", while the Fellowship keeping the Ring from him cannot use it: thus there are multiple reversals.^[17] Other authors such asJared Lobdell and Lori M. Campbell agree that it is a "reverse quest" or "inverted quest"; Campbell wrote that "the mission is to destroy rather than to find something, what [Michael N.] Stanton calls an 'inverted quest' in which 'Evil struggles to gain power; Good to relinquish it'".^[18][19][20] The Tolkien criticTom Shippey concurs that it is "an anti-quest", a story of renunciation. He writes that Tolkien had lived through twoworld wars, the "routinebombardment" of civilians, the use of famine for political gain,concentration camps andgenocide, and the development and use ofchemical andnuclear weapons. Shippey states that the book raises the question of whether, if the ability of humans to produce that kind of evil could somehow be destroyed, even at the cost of sacrificing something, this would be worth doing.^[21]

Mason Harris, inMythlore, contrasts Frodo's "renunciatory" quest with Bilbo's. In his view,The Hobbit represents Tolkien's ideal journey as Bilbo's "curiosity overcomes his Hobbitish fear of the unknown, while Frodo wishes that he had never seen the Ring, but also, because of the Ring's influence, would like to keep it, and thus both dreads his journey and is reluctant to fulfill its object."^[22]

Shippey remarks thatThe Lord of the Rings contains meanings of different kinds beneath the immediate quest story. Thus, Tolkien, aChristian, makes the newly-assembledFellowship set out on its quest fromRivendell on 25 December, the date ofChristmas. He similarly has the Fellowship destroy the Ring and cause the fall of the enemy, Sauron, on 25 March, the date in Anglo-Saxon tradition for theCrucifixion. Tolkien thus embedded asubtle reference to the life of Christ in the narrative, one that Shippey notes almost no readers actually observe.^[23]

The Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger writes that both Frodo and Aragorn receive their renewedmagic swords in Rivendell,marking them out as heroes in the epic tradition ofSigurd andArthur, at the start of their quest.^[24]

• Themes of The Lord of the Rings

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