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Nature in Tolkien's Writing Essays

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While reading any of J. R. R. Tolkien’s major works, be it The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, or The Lord of the Rings, one cannot help but notice the amount of attention that is given to nature. There are numerous details given to describe each location, each character, even each tree. Tolkien did not claim to be an environmentalist, but by spending so much time in his books explaining the importance of nature, it is hard to say that he did not care about it. About the fantasy world that Tolkien recreated, Sherry Turkle argues, “The question is whether that prepares us to live in a world that's complex, where we need to be able to work in a structure where there are no rules and where we have to be really attentive to other people's cultures …show more content…

Sauron, on the other hand, resides in Mordor, a barren wasteland that is dark, and full of evil creatures, such as Orcs and Trolls. Tolkien developed the inhabitants to mirror their homeland: the Hobbits, being simple and provincial, living in a quiet town on the outskirts of everything to Sauron, being dark and evil, living in a black, volcanic land. My goal in this paper is to explore the character of Frodo Baggins, and I will show how Tolkien incorporated ecological qualities into this character.
I. An Introduction to Frodo Baggins Frodo Baggins is probably one of the most recognizable names from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He is a hobbit from The Shire, a land on the edge of Middle-earth. Tolkien was interested in the etymology of words, so he put great thought into the naming of each of the characters and locations; Frodo is no exception. Frodo’s name comes from the Old English form of Fróda. Tolkien states in one of his letters “its obvious connexion is with the old word fród meaning entomologically ‘wise by experience’, but it had mythological connexions with legends of the Golden Age in the North” (168). This name was perfect for Frodo because at the beginning of his quest, he was young, inexperienced, and had never before left The Shire. His name can be seen as a type of foreshadowing. To have a name that means ‘wise by

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