How Tolkien 's The Silmarillion Is Rife With Battles Between Good And Evil

Good v. Evil, it’s way more than just a concept, it’s more of a lifelong struggle inside of you. What more could you do when evil is shown all around you? Many of us may see the struggle between good and evil in the people we come across everyday. Flawed individuals may be perceived as good but are bad in the eyes of someone else; it all comes down to how you see it. The exposure to things and memories you make help impact the good in you. In order to further evaluate the argument of how good can come out of evil and good can show up even when it’s not right in front of you, can be shown in both William Golding’s novel Lord of the flies and the Anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf. This essay asserts that,

The first evil that Bilbo and the dwarves come across is the trolls. Tolkien sets the reader up by saying that trolls and dwarves have a history of not getting along. The dwarves and Bilbo are caught by the trolls and put into sacks. Gandalf, the wizard, comes and instigates a fight between the trolls about how to cook the dwarves and Bilbo. Gandalf

“But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songs of the dwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thror and Dragon, and the fall of the lords of Dale.” (Tolkien 176)

This theme is related to that of when Jesus calls you to do a job are you willing to leave everything behind to accomplish it, even if it means sacrificing your house, possessions, your own life, or even your child ’s. To a degree, one’s reading of The Lord of the Rings, is deepened by a knowledge of The Silmarillion, not just on the level of setting or context, but in terms of literary theme, symbol, and characterization. In terms of symbolism, without reading The Silmarillion beforehand, one would not truly understand the severity of certain character’s explanations.

“The Lord of the Rings is racist. It is soaked in the logic that race determines behavior.” (Ibata 2). Many people have tried to perpetuate the myth that J.R.R. Tolkien was racist. They cite various scenes in The Lord of the Rings, in both the books and in the movies. These people are lying or ignorant. J.R.R. Tolkien was not a racist, nor did he ever intend for his novels to be viewed as such. There is plenty of evidence to defend Tolkien from these claims such as: the themes of his novels, like The Lord of the Rings; the clear messages in his personal writings and his upbringing; and the characters from his novels.

The Hobbit, the literary masterpiece by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, more commonly known as J.R.R Tolkien, is a splendid book with many archetypes to visualize. One of these archetypes is the ruler archetype, a ruler is the leader of a community or group of people. Thorin II Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King under the Mountain is the ruler figure in this book. Thorin represents the ruler archetype well as he is the patriarch of his companions, he keeps order within his group, and he is a courageous leader and fighter.

In the books Beowulf and Grendel, they discuss the meaning of our world, the power of good and evil. Prince of the welders was portrayed as the hero because this spine chilling “immortal” monster was to be slain at the hands of this warrior . The reason that “the slayer” wanted to defeat Grendel was so he could keep the riches and try to fill that void that fuels the greed within him.

If the study of literature shows nothing else, it shows that every author, consciously or subconsciously, creates his (or her) work after his (or her) own worldview. Tolkien is no exception. "I am a Christian..." he writes(1), and his book shows it. Christianity appears not as allegory--Tolkien despises that(2)--nor as analogy, but as deep under girding presuppositions, similarities of pattern, and shared symbols.

“All we have to decide is what we do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, besides the will of evil” (Tolkien 304). Growth and courage are both vital actions in life. One cannot hope to live and thrive without growing both internally and externally, and having the courage to stand up for what one’s beliefs. Courage is directly affected by growth, for without growth, one will never obtain the courage to move on and push forward when times get tough in life. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone takes immense growth and no small amount of courage, but can prove to be a pivotal moment within climactic events. In his epic tale

The trait that Tolkien values is amity. Bilbo shows this when then the dwarves invade his house and he stays peaceful toward them. They were not pleasant house guests but he he stayed nice on the outside. Another example of amity is when the dwarves play their music and everybody has a feeling of peace inside of them.

In The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, Melkor, an evil angel, hurts the world. Eru, the creator of everything, makes a group of angels called the Valar. Eru starts the song of creation to make the world, but a Valar named Melkor wants to supplant everyone, so Melkor sings his own song, which makes bad things in the world. Afterwards, Melkor goes into the world and apprentices someone named Sauron. Later, Sauron makes twenty evil mind-controlling rings, nineteen of the rings go to men, and one goes to Sauron. In the end, Eru sends four wizards to protect everyone. To summarize, Melkor wants to end the world, while Eru tries to stop

In the story Beowulf, there are a lot of conflicts that takes place. This causes a few themes to appear in the story, one of them, good vs evil. Every character is different. Some are good and some are bad. In Beowulf you have two main heroes and a few demons and monsters.

When given, or exposed to power, people may become corrupt. In J. J. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring it is shown that when people are tempted or given power they may become corrupt. We can see this through the characters Frodo Baggins; the bearer of a powerful ring, Gollum, the previous bearer, and lastly it is shown through Bilbo Baggins another bearer.

In Beowulf, the conflict between good and evil is the story’s most universal theme. The storyteller is very clear who is good and who is evil, Beowulf represents the good and the ability to act selflessly when help is needed from others. Good is also shown throughout the epic as having the ability to abolish villainy. Evil is presented by Grendel, his mother, and a dragon, whose purpose in life is to make the lives of humanity a little more miserable.

In “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy there are two characters of similarity that play a key role in both narratives. Thorin II Oakinshield and Aragorn II Elessar are two would be kings who come into their crowns in time for their own respective books or series to end. Both dwarf and man have a journey to their individual thrones and in particular the genesis, the journey and the end of their adventures share a great deal of commonality and precarious differences, variables that with or without their crowns says and awful lot about them.