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Back To The Hobbit Research Paper

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Mage against the Machine:
Anti-Industrial and Pro-Environmental Themes in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien It cannot be denied that, in at least some areas, the invention and progression of technology has benefitted the human race. With the growing industrialization of the world in the last centuries the lives of many people have been made easier. But, this growth of technology is not without its consequences and people are not without their concerns. While industrialization has had its benefits, the environmental cost of this progress is immense, and the impact it has on nature can be hard to swallow. It may seem like talk of the environment is something to be left to scientists or activists specializing in that particular field, but they are …show more content…

Tolkien’s perennial protagonists, the hobbits, are described as caring strongly for nature, growing and building, caring for craftsmanship and very rarely doing any harm. They care chiefly for eating and merrymaking, and being, overall, kind and decent creatures (Morgan). According to Arthur W. Hunt III in his paper “Back to the Shire: From English Village to Global Village and Back Again,” Middle Earth itself stands as a representation of the world “before the assembly line,” the healthy, green land of the Shire in which the hobbits dwell being a “pre-industrial English village.” Tolkien himself has more-or-less confirmed this, as he had explained that Bag End had been styled after the countryside of Worcestershire (Hunt). It can be seen that Tolkien holds the Shire very dear to his heart; it is his own “lasting image of home.” Hobbits are, all in all, good. They appreciate nature just for being; they do not seek to get any more out of it than what they need. It is this attitude of the hobbits that best reflect Tolkien’s personal view on nature and its …show more content…

The Shire begins as a safe haven, unpolluted by the outside world, acting as a “foil for other images of home in Lord of the Rings” (Brawley). But it does not manage to fully escape the clutches of the dark shadow that is Mordor. “The subtext of the Ring trilogy is obviously about the violation of the earth,” writes Arthur W. Hunt III, implying that the at least partial destruction of the Shire was necessary to get this point across. Brawley agrees, stating that the Shire, being a symbol embodying both home and the nostalgia for it, “must also undergo change.” It shows that nowhere, even somewhere as supposedly paradisiacal as the Shire, is safe from the encroaching hand of industrialization. The Hobbits return from their lengthy, exhausting journey only to find their home is not as they had left it. Tolkien once again uses powerful description to invoke emotion in those reading, as he described the Hobbits seeing the destruction of their home. “This was Frodo and Sam’s own country, and they found now that they cared about it more than any other place in the world,” Tolkien writes. He describes the wreckage in greater detail, depicting the now abandoned rows of hobbit-holes, the ugly new houses that had been put up, and the dark, menacing chimney spitting out black smoke off in the distance (The Lord of the Rings, 1004). While the Hobbits have finished

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