J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation of Middle-Earth and Peter Jackson’s Film Adaptation
Tom de Jong, 6298001 / 10003709 MA Literary Studies in English Master Thesis
2013 – 2014
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction Page 3
Chapter 2: An Understanding of the Social Context of the Novel Page 6 Chapter 3: Peter Jackson’s Film Adaptation of the Novel Page 13 Chapter 4: Problematic Imagery in the Novel and its Film Adaptation Page 19 Chapter 5: Imagery of the novel and the films explained in relation to their social
context and the process of adaptation Page 31
Chapter 6: Conclusion Page 41
Chapter 1: Introduction:
Surrounding J.R.R. Tolkien’s work on his well-known fictional world, Middle-Earth, there had long been a silence regarding cultural criticism. This silence ended roughly twelve years ago, when Peter Jackson released his film adaptation of Tolkien’s mythology. Prior to the release of Jackson’s films, as Anderson Rearick notes, “the debate [occurred] between fans […], underscoring the fact that Tolkien's work has up until recently been the private domain of a select audience, an audience who by its very nature may have inhibited serious critical examinations of Tolkien's work” (Rearick 862). Therefore, whereas many readers might have noticed the various points in which Tolkien’s novel is prone to literary criticism, the fan-based nature of the readership explains the absence of any serious form thereof. However, when Peter Jackson thus released his film adaptation, Tolkien’s fiction became
considerably more accessible, becoming part of pop culture, thereby exposing itself to contemporary cultural criticism.
After being exposed to a broader audience, the question of race in Tolkien’s fiction became a hotly-debated issue. Criticism on the racist imagery in Peter
Jackson’s film adaptation of the novel started to emerge rapidly. Examples of these are plenty; David Ibata, in his article for the Chicago Tribune, wrote that “like the ghostly faces in the Dead Marshes, that irritating issue of race always lingered just beneath the surface” (Ibata). John Yatt—a vocal supporter of the opinion that The Lord of the Rings is racist, stated that “genetic determinism drives the plot in the most brutal manner. White men are good, “dark” men are bad, orcs are worst of all. While 10,000 orcs are massacred with a kind of […] biological warfare, the wild men left standing at the end of the battle are packed off back to their homes with nothing more than slapped wrists” (Yatt). Another vocal supporter of this claim is scholar Stephen Shapiro, of the University of Warwick. He stated that:
Put simply, Tolkien’s good guys are white and the bad guys are black, slant-eyed, unattractive, inarticulate and a psychologically undeveloped horde. The fellowship is portrayed as über-Aryan, very white, and there is the notion that they are a vanishing group under the advent of other, evil ethnic groups.
Reynolds
Jane Chance, in her Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader, speaks of a Swedish academic paper that ran a series of commentaries in 2001 and 2002, in which David Tjeder defended the same claim previous scholars had done, “[claiming] to find a palpable […] fear of miscegenation interwoven throughout Tolkien’s text” (Chance 112). Moreover, as Chance adds, “he did not hesitate to equate this fear to similar attitudes from the eras of Nazism and European imperialism” (112). As such, the idea Tjeder found most “mortally dangerous [is the idea that] white men are best” (112).
Evidently, the depiction of race in Tolkien’s work received much criticism. However, pointing out problematic imagery in the novel and the films and, on the basis of this imagery, blaming the writer and the adapter to be racist, would not, as Sue Kim states, be “an interesting and productive project” (Kim 884). It would be much more interesting to find out why this imagery is used, why Peter Jackson adapted the novel as he did, and what alternative reasons there could be for the imagery that to us now feels considerably insensitive.
This is then what the aim of this thesis is about: The aim of my research will be to examine how the element and imagery of race is treated in both J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s eponymous film
adaptation, how this is related to the differences in social context of both works, and how the process of adaptation has been of influence on the differences between the novel and the films. In order to find adequate answers to these questions, the
following chapter will aim to present a comprehensive understanding of the social context of the novel. For the time being, this chapter will do that and only that; it will not connect the social context to the imagery in the novel, as firstly, in chapter three, the social context of the films will be explored. In this chapter, the process of
adaptation as well as the adaptation as a product will be examined. Then, in the fourth chapter, there will be an enumeration of examples of problematic imagery in the novel. Moreover, the imagery of the films is explored. It will become clear that the imagery in the novel is considerably different from the imagery in the films in some respects. Then in chapter five, these differences, as well as the reasons for the problematic imagery in both the novel and the films, will be explained. The connection will be made between the imagery and the social context of the time.
Also, the influence of the process of adaptation will be examined, showing how this process has or has not been responsible for the differences between the two. Finally, in the last and sixth chapter of this thesis, there will be the conclusion, answering the questions that were the incentive to this research, and drawing up a theory that explains the problematic imagery, showing how instead of labelling it racist from the first, it is significant to first study the context of both works in order to create an understanding of the imagery.
Chapter 2: An Understanding of the Social Context of the Novel
In order to create an understanding of the influence of the social context on the novel, this chapter will consist of two parts; the first part is dedicated to Tolkien’s life prior to the stage in which he started writing his mythology, the second is dedicated to the period in which Tolkien was writing his works. Whereas taking an author’s personal life into account is a controversial means of analysing a text since the late twentieth century—considering the dominating ideas of “the death of the author” proposed by Barthes and Foucault’s advice to make the text speak for itself—, there is a reason to include Tolkien’s personal life in an evaluation of the social context surrounding the novel. Dimitra Fimi herself encountered this particular problem, and, in reasoning for her approach—which then also includes an analysis of the author’s personal life—she states that “biographical information may not fundamentally alter the way individual readers experience and understand a literary work, nor can it explain a text. But the author is still a central, powerful factor in the modern production and consumption of literature” (Fimi 6).
This idea of the author being a powerful factor in both these processes is especially clear in the case of Tolkien; he ceaselessly edited his works and added stacks of documentation to support his fictional world. Moreover, as Fimi states about Tolkien’s eagerness to write letters, prefaces, introductions to his books, anecdotes on his personal life as well as to have himself interviewed, “[The various] authorial interventions not only justify a biographical and historical approach to his literature, but also provide a vantage point for the reverse process […] [of exploring] history and particularly biographical history in relation to fiction” (7). Tolkien himself in an interview by Henry Resnick found as a transcript in the eighteenth issue of Niekas hinted towards the importance of reference to the author in analysing or studying a text. When discussing the research activities surrounding The Lord of the Rings, Henry Resnick asks Tolkien: “do you approve of this sort of very intensive research?” (Resnick 38). Tolkien answers “I do not while I am alive anyhow. I do not know why they should research without any reference to me; after all, I hold the key” (38). This shows that Tolkien himself, although not fond of the research conducted on his fictional world, emphasizes the importance of taking the author into account in efforts to analysing his texts. Therefore, the considerably biographical nature of the
first part of this chapter seems adequate, as the writer of the fiction at hand advised in favour of this approach.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on the third of January 1892. Although he had lived in South Africa for only three years, this information is valuable, especially concerning the issue of race, as is evident from a family picture of the time. In the picture, as Humphrey Carpenter describes in his J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography:
[J.R.R. Tolkien lay] in the arms of the nurse who had been engaged to look after him. His mother was clearly in excellent health, while Arthur, always something of a dandy, posed in a positively jaunty manner in his white tropical suit and boater. Behind stood two black servants, a maid and a house-boy named Isaak, both looking pleased and a little surprised to be included in the photograph. Mabel found the Boer attitude to the natives objectionable, and in Bank House [where the photo was taken] there was tolerance.
Carpenter 13
The wonder of the African servants betrays the social climate of the South-African city and the relation of the black natives to the white settlers. However, as Carpenter stresses and as the inclusion of the servants in the photograph tells, the Tolkien family objected to the oppressive attitude towards the local indigenous peoples and beheld tolerance as an important quality. This is emphasized once more when Carpenter tells that “Isaak […] one day stole little John Ronald Reuel and took him to his kraal where he showed off with pride the novelty of a white baby. It upset everybody and caused a great turmoil, but Isaak was not dismissed, and in gratitude to his employer he named his own son Isaak Mister Tolkien Victor” (13). As
Anderson Rearick comments on this anecdote, “modern readers are probably uncomfortable that Tolkien lived in a society in which “the novelty of a white baby” should so stir pride among the members of the black staff” (Rearick 866). Whereas the Tolkien family showed tolerance and generosity towards their staff, the society Tolkien grew up in was evidently marked by ideas that would now be labelled racist.
Shortly after the Tolkien family moved back to Birmingham—except for Arthur Tolkien, J.R.R.’s father, who suffered from rheumatic fever and was unable to travel
with his family—Mabel, J.R.R.’s mother, received word that “Arthur was […] still in poor health” (Carpenter 16). Therefore, Mabel decided that she had to travel to Bloemfontein to take care of her husband. However, the fourteenth of February, after Mabel had made all the arrangements to visit her husband in South-Africa, “a
telegram arrived to say that Arthur had suffered a severe haemorrhage and Mabel must expect the worst. Next day, 15 February 1896, he was dead” (16). After having received this news, Mabel lived at her parents’ home for some time, until having found a place for her own that she could afford.
After Arthur Tolkien’s death, “Christianity had played an increasingly important part in Mabel Tolkien’s life” (23), which, as we will see in chapter four, significantly impacted J.R.R. Tolkien, as he rigorously turned to faith later in his life, impacting his writing. Every Sunday, she took her boys to church. At first, similar to her relatives, she went to a high Anglican church. However, “one Sunday Ronald and [his brother] Hilary found that they were going by strange roads to a different place of worship: St Anne’s, Alcester Street, in the slums near the centre of Birmingham. It was a Roman Catholic Church” (23). Upon this move, her entire family turned against her; “their father John Suffield had been brought up at a Methodist school, and was now a Unitarian. That his daughter should turn papist was to him an outrage beyond belief” (24). The Tolkien family also disapproved of Mabel’s sudden conversion as many of them were Baptists and “strongly opposed to Catholicism” (24). Despite the effects of her family’s rejection, Mabel remained loyal to her faith and “[instructed] Ronald and Hilary in the Catholic religion” (24). Approximately four years later, when having moved back to the countryside to be closer to the priests of another Catholic church, “Mabel’s condition began to deteriorate” (30). At the beginning of November that year, 1904, Mabel went into a diabetic coma. Shortly after, on the fourteenth of November, she died. On his mother’s death, as Carpenter quotes, Tolkien wrote “my own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith” (31). Evidently, by this time, Tolkien was a man of faith, which, as will be shown below, significantly influenced his writings. Friend of the family Father Francis, also a priest of their church, was appointed in Mabel’s will to be her sons’ guardian.
Later on, after he had met his future wife Edith, it will become evident that faith played an immensely important role in his life. Edith was a member of the
Church of England, which “was strongly anti-Catholic” (65). In order for them to marry, Edith was to give up her faith and become a Catholic. However, “she was a […] very active member [and] a large proportion of her life had centred on the parish church at her Cheltenham home, [where] she had made herself useful in church affairs. She had in consequence acquired some status in the parish” (65).
Personally, Edith had no problem giving up her faith; however, because of her acquired status, she was afraid that the uncle that housed her “might be very angry, for like many others of his age and class he was strongly anti-Catholic” (65).
Therefore, Edith tried to convince Tolkien to delay the whole affair, which Tolkien refused fiercely. He despised her church, stating it to be “a pathetic and shadowy medley of half-remembered traditions and mutilated beliefs” (65). Finally, Edith became a Catholic, renounced her former faith, and they married.
After having formed a study group with three fellow students at Oxford with whom he could share intellectual ideas and desires, Tolkien decided that he was a poet. He started writing poems, some of which are the very first ideas and sketches of what later would become his fictional universe. However, during this time, the First World War began. Instead of signing up for the army, he signed up for a programme that enabled him to achieve his dream: First Class Honours, which he achieved in 1915 (77). However, “in the meantime, he had to take up his commission as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, [...] [where] he learnt to drill a platoon and attended military lectures” (77). Eventually, on the fourth of June 1916, “he received embarkation orders, and late on [that date] he set off for London and thence to France” (80). Soon, he would experience the horrors of the war first-hand. In the foreword of the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes that:
One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.
Tolkien, LotR xxiv
Undoubtedly, the First World War had an immense impact on the young Tolkien. As Nancy Marie Ott writes in her online paper “JRR Tolkien and World War I”, “World
War I represented everything that Tolkien hated: the destruction of nature, the deadly application of technology, the abuse and corruption of authority, and the triumph of industrialization” (Ott). How precisely the war is likely to have influenced Tolkien’s writing will be explored in chapter five.
In the decades in which Tolkien worked on his mythology—including thus The Lord of the Rings—the ideas about race and the categorisation of human beings were considerably different from the contemporary ideas. As Dimitra Fimi states in her Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits, “when Tolkien started composing his mythology, it was still entirely legitimate and scientifically acceptable to divide humankind into races with fixed physical characteristics and mental abilities” (Fimi 132). As will be shown below, this ordering or even ranking of humankind involving physical and mental characteristics is found in The Lord of the Rings. During the second half of the nineteenth century—the period in which Tolkien was born—Social Darwinism gained much ground with its famous motto “survival of the fittest”. Contemporary belief was that the domination of some races over others was due to the further evolved nature of the dominating race.
In Britain, “such attitudes were represented by [the] description of the European and Negro as two distinct types of man, by [Herbert] Spencer’s superior and inferior races and by Knox’s famous quotation: “with me, race, or hereditary descent, is everything; it stamps the man”” (133). Hanna Franziska Augstein, in her Race: The Origins of an Idea, names the three major characteristics of nineteenth-century’s ideas on race; firstly, as quoted by Fimi, “the divisibility of humankind into a number of races with permanent and non-externally modified traits; secondly the difference of intellectual and moral capacities between this set of races; and thirdly the belief in the association of certain physiognomic traits with the mental abilities” (133).
This idea was carried forth into the beginning of the twentieth century, which is marked by the birth of the Eugenic movement in Britain. Francis Galton, in a book called Hereditary Genesis: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences, argued for the comparative worth of different races, which allowed the white race to progress morally and culturally (Galton 325-337). Moreover, he claimed that the aim set by eugenics was such a high ambition that it could even become a religious dogma (Fimi 133). Finally, the experience of World War II and the scientific racial theories used to support Nazi-Germany changed the view on racialism. Franz Boas and
others started to attempt restricting the notion of race to a strictly biological category, opening the road for others to diminish the impactful nature of the contemporary ideas on race. However, prior to World War II race was still a validated and generally accepted means of categorisation; Tolkien, as expected, also held this belief, which is evident from a remark Tolkien had made during a speech at the Annual Open Debate at King Edward’s School. Here, in a debate concerning the works of Shakespeare and authorship, Tolkien is said to have stated “a sudden flood of unqualified abuse upon Shakespeare, his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings and his sordid character. He declared that to believe that so great a genius arose in such circumstances commits us to the belief that a fair-haired European infant could have a woolly-haired prognathous Papuan parent” (Tolkien, “Annual” 43). This, which to a nowadays audience seems quite insulting and offensive, was a normal thing to state in the time. Moreover, Dimitra Fimi even states that the statements made during that period that would be offensive to a nowadays readers—such as this one by Tolkien—is to be blamed on the social context; “at that time [these things] are natural things to say—backed not only by contemporary popular ideas and stereotypes, but also by science” (Fimi 134). This science is characterized by the image that was established of the “Negoid race”; “characterized by dark skin, protruding jaws and woolly hair; [associated with] a lower level of development, closer to a primitive stage of human civilisation” (135).
As stated above, World War II changed the view on race as a means of categorisation. It is in this period that there are glimpses available into Tolkien’s thoughts and ideas concerning the issue. In 1938, Allen & Unwin had negotiated a German translation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit with Rütten & Loening of Potsdam. The firm wrote to Tolkien to ask whether he was of Aryan origin. In response, Tolkien wrote a letter to Stanley Unwin, stating:
Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries? Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any ‘bestätigung’ (although it happens that I can), and let a
German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have
many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
Letters 45
However, understanding that a German translation of his book would be desirable, he wrote two draft responses and sent them to Allen & Unwin, so they could decide which one to send. The first draft evidently contained Tolkien’s strong feelings; Tolkien even seems to make a fool out of his addressees, writing that “I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestor spoke Flindustani, Persian, Gypsy or any related dialects” (Letters 46). Clearly, Tolkien mocks the German firm, emphasizing the misuse of the word “arisch”. Tolkien continues, “but if I am to
understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people” (46). Moreover, Tolkien criticizes the firm’s inquiry, stating that “if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this son are to become the rule in manners of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride” (46). The first draft was the only draft available in the Allen & Unwin files; therefore it is considerably probable that the second draft—which is thus unavailable—was the draft Allen & Unwin decided to forward.
From the above quotations of Tolkien’s draft letters it is clear that Tolkien had strong feelings of disagreement towards Nazi-Germany’s supposed scientific race doctrine and their political situation. However, despite this strong rejection, Tolkien’s literature does show a hierarchical ordering of the races in his fictional world on several occasions. Thus, this chapter has presented several key periods in Tolkien's life that will be proven to have been of significant influence on his writing: the
increasingly important role of Christianity in Tolkien's life, the Social Darwinist thought of the time, the First World War and his later rejection of Nazi-Germany's doctrine will all be shown—in chapter four—to have been of influence on his writing. However, in order to maintain a more logical chronology, after having created a coherent image of the social context of Tolkien's time, it is important that the next chapter will focus on the social context of the film adaptation.
Chapter 3: Peter Jackson’s Film Adaptation of the Novel
This chapter will then focus on the social context of Jackson's film adaptation as well as the influence of the process of adaptation itself. The film adaptation of The Lord of The Rings, as noted above, exposed Tolkien’s fictional mythology to a broader audience. As the aim of this thesis involves the exploration of the influence of both the social context and the process of adaptation on the differences in the depiction of race, it is of considerable significance to first define what an adaptation is and what the process of adaptation entails. The central concern here, as Linda Hutcheon states in her A Theory of Adaptation, “being shown a story is not the same as being told it” (Hutcheon 12). However, defining what an adaptation is proves to be
considerably more complex than the simplicity of the word makes it seem. According to Hutcheon, the difficulty lies in the fact that “we use the same word for the process and the product” (15). Therefore, the definition has to be drawn up as a two-sided coin; at the one hand, the product has to be defined, and at the other hand the process, which will prove to be rather complex.
Adaptation as a product as implied above is the more facile side to define. Adaptations are often compared to translation, but as “adaptations are to a different medium, they are re-mediations, that is, specifically translations in the form of intersemiotic transpositions from one sign system to another” (16). An example of this could thus be a film adaptation of a novel, translating the words of the novel into imagery in film. Adaptations are also compared to the idea of paraphrase; the Oxford English Dictionary Online firstly defines paraphrase as “a rewording of something written or spoken by someone else […]; a free rendering of a passage”
(“paraphrase”). This is precisely what an adaptation as a product consists of. Adaptation as a process is somewhat harder to pin down. The process of adaptation is marked by obstacles. As Hutcheon states, “it is when adaptations make the move across modes of engagement and thus across media […] that they find themselves most enmeshed in the intricacies of the medium-specificity debates” (35). Each medium has its own components and limitations, or, as Gaudreault and Marion state, “each medium, according to the way in which it exploits, combines, and multiplies the familiar materials of expression—rhythm, movement, gesture, music, speech, image, writing—each medium […] possesses its own communicational
energetics” (Gaudreault 65). Also, the process of adaptation is known for “their mixture of repetition and difference, of familiarity and novelty” (Hutcheon 114). These contrasting qualities together, according to Hutcheon, is where “the comfort lies; in the simple act of almost but not quite repeating, in the revisiting of a theme with variations” (115). There has to be a balance between the old and the new; too much of the same is seen as “a too conservative familiarity” (116), whereas too much novelizations “for many […] are simply commercial grabs, unmitigated
commodifications, or inflationary recyclings” (119).
However, the adaptation from one medium to another comes with a number of difficulties. Hutcheon tells of Peter Brook who made a film adaptation of Peter Wess’ play, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats:
He sought a totally cinematic translation of what he had previously done on stage, knowing that spectators of live drama are free to
choose at any moment, in any scene, what to look at, whereas with the film he would only be able to show one thing at a time […]. He
attempted to break down this limitation by deploying three or four cameras, using twists, advances, and retreats and trying to behave what goes on in a spectator’s head and simulate this experience.
Hutcheon 128 However, as Hutcheon comments, “camera work […] would not do what a stage production does: engage the viewer’s imagination in a way that film, because of its realism, cannot” (129). According to Malcolm LeGrice, this is due to theatre’s nature, as “in theatre, the conflict of the hard, undeniable presence of actors together with the conventional artifice of scenery and stage required a suspension of disbelief” (LeGrice 230). The realistic nature of film requires this much less so. Like stage and cinema, the limitations of the novel and film are considerably different as well. Whereas the narration of a story requires the active imagination of the reader, with film “our imaginations are pre-empted as we perceive and then give meaning to a world of images, sounds, and words seen and heard on the […] screen” (Hutcheon 130).
Another important aspect according to Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation is that of immersion. On this aspect, Hutcheon suggests that “all three models of
engagement can be considered immersive: the act of reading a print text immerses us through imagination in another world [and] seeing a play or film immerses us visually and aurally” (133). Immersion into a fictional world requires not only the writer or composer of the work to do their job well; the reader must also engage actively. In the process of adaptation then, this also poses a problem. In order to present the audience with an immersive experience, some, such as Christian Metz, argue that the spectator should be viewed as “all-perceiving and all-powerful” (Metz 173). However, others, such as LeGrice, suggest that the spectator will always be in collusion, desiring magic transport and so resisting “recognition of the artifice in favour of immersion in the illusion” (LeGrice 230).
Another element that plays a crucial role in adapting a work is the aspect of context; “an adaptation, like the work it adapts, is always framed in a context—a time and place, a society and a culture; it does not exist in a vacuum” (Hutcheon 142). Evidently, both the adaptation and the original work have their own context, and the process of adaptation proves to be a process of transportation. According to
Hutcheon, in the process of adaptation and therefore in transporting a work into a different context, “not only […] change is inevitable but […] there will also be multiple possible causes of change in the process of adapting made by the demands of form, the individual adapter, the particular audience, and the contexts of reception and creation” (142). In other words, shifts in time and place bring about changes in cultural associations; the element of race and gender politics, for instance. These transcultural adaptations are often purged of their controversial elements in order to fit into the context of the adapter. Whereas the adaptation at hand—from Tolkien’s novel to Peter Jackson’s films—is not so much a transcultural adaptation, Hutcheon states that “even within a single culture, the changes can be so great that they can in fact be considered transcultural, on a micro- rather than macrolevel” (147).
Therefore, these cultural changes that occur in the process of adaptation must be taken into account.
Another important factor that plays a role in the process of adaptation is an element that is often called the “spirit” of a text. Linda Seger, in her The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film, argued that the classic form/content dichotomy should be renamed into a form/spirit dichotomy, as “the adapter looks for the balance between preserving the spirit of the original and creating a new form” (Seger 9). Thus, the adapter should be faithful to the spirit of the original instead of
the content of the original; Kamilla Elliott argued that “fidelity to the spirit of a text is almost always accompanied by an insistence on the necessity of infidelity to its letter or form” (Elliott 224). For instance, an opera adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet does not involve the usage of every single sentence Shakespeare has written; the spirit of the text, psychological of nature, can still be delivered. As Elliott states, “the form can change; the spirit remains constant. The spirit of the text thus maintains a life beyond form that is not constrained by or dependent on form” (223).
Later, Elliott compares the process of adaptation to the practices of a
ventriloquist. Here, she states that “the process of adaptation under the ventriloquist concept resembles Roland Barthes’s theory of metalanguage, in which what passes between two signifying systems is figured as an empty form, subsequently filled with the content of the second system” (226). This view on the process is linked to what has been stated above on the aspect of context in that it emphasizes the switch of social context that takes place between the adaptation and the original.
The social context of the films involves both modernism and postmodernism. As Sue Kim states, “although Tolkien’s novels were indeed written in the 1950s, the films themselves are most definitely a modern/postmodern phenomenon” (Kim 882). However, she notes that “too often discussions of representation and politics,
particularly in terms of race, have become confused—explicitly or not—by
postmodernism” (882). Patrick Curry, in his Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity, draws heavily on the aspect of relativity that is central to
postmodernism in order to dismiss a race analysis of the novel or the films. According to Curry, as quoted in Kim:
Postmodernism expresses the exhaustion of modernity, which includes modern science, a global capitalist economy, and the political power of the nation-state, characterized by 'grand narratives' and a kind of deranged, totalizing rationality in science and other fields that produces disenchantment […] whereas the modernist relies on the myth of a singular universal truth that is somehow directly accessible to those with the 'correct' understanding. Postmodernists understand that meaning is tied to shared linguistic and cultural understandings, on the one hand—so that not anything goes—yet meanings are always open,
in principle, to reinterpretation along new and different lines, including ones unsuspected by the author.
Kim 882 Curry thus relates meaning to cultural understandings, emphasizing the
postmodernist presumption that meaning is not absolute, but rather open to different interpretations and reinterpretations.
Moreover, Curry states that as postmodernism questions the legitimacy and desirability of the values of modernism, it also fights what Zygmunt Bauman called “a war against mystery and magic […]. It is against such a disenchanted world that the postmodern re-enchantment is aimed” (quoted in Curry 23). In other words, to Curry, postmodernism entails two understandings; the first is that, as Curry explicitly states, “the contents of books cannot be separated from the sense that particular readers make of them” (Curry 21). The second understanding is that with postmodernism, there is a return to the “enchantment”. (Kim 883). The postmodernist idea that there is not one “correct” reading or interpretation of a novel or film is what Curry employs to dismiss any charges of racism towards Tolkien or Peter Jackson. Therefore, because of postmodern attitude of relativity, the imagery used in the films that is potentially racist because of the connotations of that imagery, the accusations are dismissed and the imagery’s connection to racism effectively buried. As Kim states:
The films function on willful repression. The experience is that our "selves" are okay because the kind of racial strife between the elves and the dwarves is, for us, a relic of the past. We are okay not only because it is "just a movie," but also because its production, marketing, and distribution is transnational and multicultural.
Kim 887
However, whereas I do argue that the films function on wilful repression, it is
important to question who is considered to be included in this notion of "selves", or, in other words, the audience. It is vital to interrogate critically whose past is meant by Kim. For instance, the visual representation of the Uruk-hai—which will be
elaborated upon in the fourth chapter that concerns the contextualisation of the imagery in the film—might be offensive to certain ethnic groups. Therefore, whereas
Kim here describes the willful repression as something that is relied upon because there is a certain distance between the audience and the images on the screen, this might only hold up for a Caucasian, West-European audience. However, the
statement made by Kim as cited above still stands in that there is a distance between the picture and its audience, as there is also, as will be elaborated upon below, the postmodernist assumption there is not one correct interpretation. This issue, however, will be explored more thoroughly in chapter five.
Chapter 4 – Problematic Imagery in the Novel and its Film Adaptation
Now that the social context of the novel has been explored, as well as the notion of a film adaptation as both a product and a process, it is possible to move on to the imagery in the novel and in the film adaptation. Firstly, this chapter will deal with the imagery in the novel. As Tolkien started to write his novel, as stated above, he had already been writing and thinking a considerable lot about his fictional world. In his early writings, as is stated in Parma Eldalamberon, one can find a “hierarchical reordering of the seven categories of beings” (Parma 7). In this hierarchical order the Valar and their folk are found at the top, followed by the Fays, the Elves and Fairies, the Children of Men, the Earthlings—better known as dwarves—, beasts and
creatures, and finally the monsters, which is a group comprised by Orcs, demons and the like. Also, in The Lord of the Rings, the character Treebeard recites an ancient poem to Merry and Pippin that contains a considerably clear ordering of the species, “Learn now the lore of Living Creatures! / First name the four, the free peoples: / Eldest of all, the elf-children; / Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses; Ent the earthborn, old as mountains; / Man the mortal, master of horses” (Tolkien, LotR 464). In this ordering, the Elves of his mythology take up the highest place and mankind is found lower down the chain. This leads us to arguably the most striking hierarchical ordering in Tolkien’s mythology: the hierarchical order of Elves, men, and other human-like creatures. As Dimitra Fimi states, “the Elves’ supremacy over the other anthropomorphic Middle-earth beings is taken for granted. Their awe-inspiring and even supernatural presence is constantly underlined” (Fimi 142). Even as the race of men became increasingly important to Tolkien’s mythology, it is in their relation to the Elves that they are defined. In a letter to Naomi Mitchison, who had been reading Tolkien’s works as he had been writing them, he states that:
[The Elves] are represented as a race similar in appearance to Men, and in former days of the same stature. […] I suppose that the Quendi, [the Elven word for Elves], represent Men with greatly enhanced
aesthetic and creative faculties, greater beauty and longer life, and nobility, […] doomed to fade before the Followers (Men), and to live
ultimately only by the thin line of their blood that was mingled with that of Men, among whom it was the only real claim to ‘nobility’.
Letters 194 In other words, Tolkien here explicitly states his Elves to be superior to mankind. This is stated once more in a passage found in The Lost Road and other Writings: Language and Legend before The Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien provides a description of the first men:
Greatest was the house of Hador, and most beloved by the Elves. His folk were yellow-haired and blue-eyed for the most part […]. They were of greater strength and statue in body than the Elves; quick to wrath and laughter, fierce in battle, generous to friends, swift in resolve, fast in loyalty, young in heart […]. Like to them were the woodland folk of Haleth, but they were not so tall; their backs were broader and their legs shorter and less swift. Less fiery were their spirits; slower but more deep was the movement of their thought; their words were fewer, for they had joy in silence […]. But the people of Bëor were dark or brown of hair, their eyes were grey, and their faces fair to look upon; shapely were they of form, yet hardy and long-enduring. Their height was no greater than that of the Elves of that day, and they were like to the Gnomes; for they were eager of mind […]. But they were short-lived, and their fates were unhappy, and their joy was blended with sorrow.
Tolkien, The Lost Road 144
The link Tolkien here makes between the physiognomic traits and mental ability is— as will be expanded on in chapter five—characteristic of the time Tolkien was born into; the people of the House of Hador’s height and fair faces, Elven-like colours here coincides with their strength and their daring nature, whereas the shorter people from the House of Haleth with their darker colours and silent nature coincides with their “lesser aptitude for learning and socializing” (Fimi 144). The classifying of different “Houses of Men” reminds one of the prologue to Tolkien’s novel, in which he presents the reader with a similar discussion, only then concerning the race of
Hobbits. On the three different “breeds” of Hobbits, as Tolkien names it, he states that:
The Hobbits had […] become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browners of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred
highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger; and they preferred flat lands and
riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.
Tolkien, LotR 3
Another element from the novel that is often stated to be a considerably racist element is that of the Haradrim from the South. The first time they are named in the novel, they are described by the author as “swarthy men in red” (660). In the novel, the Haradrim are firstly described by Gollum, who states them to have “dark faces […]. They are fierce. They have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears; yes, lots of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks […]. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger” (646). This stereotype of the exotic foreigner is enhanced as the passage from The Lord of the Rings continues, describing one of the Haradrim that has fallen from a slope after having been hit by numerous arrows, stating that “he came to rest in a fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feather sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plate were rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood” (661). This passage serves to emphasize the exotic qualities inherent to the Haradrim, stating them to have hair braided with gold, wearing scarlet robes and gold jewellery. However, the description turns increasingly exotic, as the beast that is rode upon by the Haradrim is introduced in the same scene:
Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to [Sam], a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit’s
eyes, but the Mymak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-Earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty. […] His great legs like trees, enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like a huge serpent about to strike, his small red eyes raging. His upturned hornlike tusks were bound with bands of gold and dripped with blood. His trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters.
The beast described here will later on be identified as an Oliphaunt, which, as the name suggests, is the Middle-Earth giant version of an elephant. Not only does Tolkien emphasize the Haradrim’s exotic nature by having them dress in red robes and their hair braided with gold, he then also introduces them as riding on giant elephants, which they seem to be able to enslave or tame, as the beast is decorated according to the red and gold characteristic of the Haradrim style.
Additionally, the other name that has been used in the novel to signify the Haradrim is the Swertings, as Sam states in the third chapter of the third book (647). As Margaret Sinex explains in her ““Monsterized Saracens,” Tolkien’s Haradrim, and Other Medieval “Fantasy Product””, there are numerous racial connotations with the etymology of this term: “the root of Swertings derives from OE sweart an adjective meaning swart, swarthy, black, dark. In a figurative sense sweart could also suggest the absence of good, [or] crime” (Sinex 180). Moreover, Sinex shows how the term is linked to the Ethiopians, explaining how Tolkien drew from different texts such as Beowulf and De Laudibus Virginitatis in order to draw up his definition of Swertings (180). Tolkien wrote an essay, “Sigelwara Land”, in which he states that:
As it has come down to us the word is used in translations (the accuracy of which cannot be determined) of Ethiopia, as a vaguely conceived geographical term, or else in passages descriptive of devils, the details of which may owe something to vulgar tradition, but are not necessarily in any case old. They are of a medieval kind, and
paralleled elsewhere […] Ethiopia was hot and its people black. That Hell was similar in both respects would occur to many.
In this passage, Tolkien evidently equates an African region with hell, excusing himself in the form of suggesting he would not be the only one to note the similarities.
The Easterlings are another point of critique on the imagery in the novel. These are a folk from the lands east of Mordor and have pledged their allegiance to Sauron. The first characters to encounter the Easterlings are Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. This account of the Easterling army marching their way describes them as “Men of other race, out of the wide Eastlands, gathering to the summons of their Overlord” (639). The land of this people is described by Gollum as “the Yellow Face is very hot there […] and the men are fierce and have dark faces. We do not want to see that land” (641).
It is clear that in Tolkien’s mythology, as Dimitra Fimi states, “[there are] quite elaborate racial divisions and characteristics […] attached to the Men of Middle-Earth” (Fimi 147). This applies not only to the Haradrim or the three different “houses of men” as described above, but also to an entirely different bloodline introduced together with The Lord of the Rings: the Númenóreans. As Tolkien writes in a letter to Christopher Bretherton, the storyline on the Númenóreans was an “ingredient […] in my need to provide a great function for Strider-Aragorn” (Tolkien, Letters 365). This house of men was identified by their “names that could be interpreted as Bliss-friend and Elf-Bliss-friend” (365). Thus, this royal bloodline, as the other important
bloodlines of Men as described above, is identified by their relation to the Elves. Elendil, one of the “leaders of the loyal party in Númenor” (365), was the founder of Gondor, which is the last great kingdom of men in Tolkien’s novel. As Fimi states, “out of the twenty-two times that the term ‘race’ is used in The Lord of the Rings, nine refer to the ‘race’ of Númenór” (Fimi 147). Moreover, when the term is used in relation to the Númenórean bloodline, it is stated to have “the connotation of a higher status, which the Númenóreans could claim over the rest of Men in Middle-Earth” (147). And indeed, when the term is used in connection to the Númenóreans, it is linked to a higher status; for instance, when Gandalf is asked questions about Aragorn’s connection to the line of kings, Gandalf states that Aragorn, together with the few others left of Númenórean descent, are “the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West” (Tolkien, LotR 221). Also, the prince of Dol Amroth and his knights, also of Númenórean blood, are described in the novel as “lords in whom the race of Númenór ran true” (824). Moreover, here again is their
relation to the Elves emphasized, as Tolkien writes that “there is Elvish blood in the veins of that folk” (824).
In a letter to Milton Waldman of the Collins publishing firm, hoping that they would publish his Silmarillion, Tolkien describes the Númenóreans as the only men “to speak an Elvish tongue, [constantly] in communication with their ancient friends and allies […]. They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves—but they remained mortal, even though rewarded by a triple, or more than triple, span of years” (Tolkien, Letters 174). Again, biological characteristics and suggestions of superiority are made about the Númenórean men, and again, these traits are linked to their relation to the Elves. This superiority is emphasized explicitly in the novel when Elrond tells about Isildur’s refusal to destroy the ring, choosing to keet it for himself. On the Númenórean men, Elrond then states that ever since the alliance between men and Elves was brought to an end and the Númenóreans and the Elves became estranged, “the race of Númenór has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened” (Tolkien, LotR 244). Somewhat later, Elrond tells that another reason for their decay is that “the blood of the Númenóreans became mingled with that of lesser men” (244).
Another strongly criticized element of the novel is the division of good and evil and the role of related colours to this division. As Stephen Shapiro critically stated, “put simply, Tolkien’s good guys are white and the bad guys are black, slant-eyed, unattractive, inarticulate and a psychologically undeveloped horde. The fellowship is portrayed as über-Aryan, very white, and there is the notion that they are a vanishing group under the advent of other, evil ethnic groups” (Reynolds). Dimitra Fimi also discusses this point of critique, stating that “during the Third Age of Middle-Earth the Men allied to the good side were still fair-skinned and descendants of the same primordial races, while the evil Men were dark-skinned and came from a completely different background” (Fimi 150). Anderson Rearick also comments on the
discussion, stating that “it is undeniable that darkness and the color black are continually associated throughout Tolkien’s universe with unredeemable evil,
specifically Orcs and the Dark Lord Sauron” (Rearick 862). The first description of an Orc in The Lord of the Rings states that “his broad face was swart, his eyes were like coals, and his tongue was red” (Tolkien, LotR 325). Another description is found later in the novel and describes the Orcs to be “swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands” (415). Also, one description again states them to be “large, swart, […] and
slant-eyed” (451). In a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman, who proposed a film version of Tolkien’s novel which eventually was turned down, Tolkien writes that “[the Orcs] are squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types” (Tolkien, Letters 293). This matter of comparison to “Mongol-types” will be further explored in chapter five, as for now it suffices as an example of problematic imagery in Tolkien’s novel.
As has been shown in chapter three, a film adaptation of a novel, like any other adaptation, has its own social context and thus is to be seen as an
independent product. Therefore, after having explored the problematic imagery in the novel, the films will be analysed. However, due to the many parallels between the two, an occasional comparison is present.
In the essay “Beyond Black and White: Race and Postmodernism in The Lord of the Rings Films”, Sue Kim states that The Lord of the Rings is “cringe-inducing […] in terms of racial coding” (Kim 875). Similar to the criticism on the novel as explored above, she goes on to claim that “in the films, goodness correlates to whiteness, both racially and as color scheme, and is associated with Europe,
particularly England and the Scandinavian countries, the West, and the North” (875). In other words, the same notion of a division of good and evil takes place in the films. However, Kim goes on to state how the cast of the films emphasizes this division, stating that “all racially white actors, whether from New Zealand, Australia, the US, Ireland, or England, are assimilable as Middle-Earth heroes (although they must adopt British accents), and the “good” display a heterogeneous mix of European (mostly British and Scandinavian) cultural references” (875). In other words, the benevolent forces in the films are all white and civilized, which is—similar to the division in the novel—in stark contrast with the malignant forces in the novel, which are portrayed in the films to be dark or black, underdeveloped, and inarticulate.
The appendices included in the special extended editions of the films shed extra light on the choices of the director in terms of the imagery. In the audio
commentary of The Two Towers, for instance, it is stated that the city of Rohan was designed after Scandinavian design (“audio”, The Two Towers). The lament sung by Éowyn, which is not to be found in the book at all, is based on Old English (“audio”, The Two Towers). Moreover, the special extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring included a DVD with appendices, presenting the viewer with more of the
director’s personal choices. In “Designing and Building Middle-Earth”, the
architectural designer states that “the style of Hobbiton was first and foremost to be homely and familiar, so it has a kind of Englishness to it” (“Designing”). Somewhat later, the art director states the Elven culture to be represented on screen with Celtic elements (“Designing”). In other words, the benevolent forces in the book are
constructed in a way that would radiate “Englishness”. This is emphasized even by their clothing, as the costume designer states in the “Costume Design” appendices. Here, she tells about the Hobbit clothing design that “all of these [details] are really quite English” (“Costume”). Apart from their Anglophonic character, the costumes of the “good” in the films are also aligned according to the colour scheme as discussed above. For instance, Galadriel’s clothing, according to the costume designer, had to be “most white, most beautiful, and most elegant” (“Costume”).
On this colour scheme, Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky have a dialogue, found on the formerly unused audio commentary of the platinum series of the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring. Here, Zinn asks Chomsky whether he has noticed that “Black Riders have been released, and they’re going after Frodo. The Black Riders. Of course they’re black. Everything evil is always black. And later Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White” (Zinn). Noam Chomsky responds to his partner in dialogue by only stating “the most simplistic colour symbolism” (Zinn). Sue Kim also mentions this symbolism concerning the villains of the story, stating that “"black" signifies evil, particularly the faceless Black Riders with black hoods and horses. Although Saruman the White […] is one of the chief villains, he proves to be merely "passing"; his castle of black obsidian and black chamber and palantir tip off viewers to his black heart” (Kim 876). As in the novels, the countless of servants of the Dark Lord Sauron exhibit numerous typically racial characteristics; they stoop, they are inarticulate, they have slanted eyes, and blunt noses. However, the Uruk-hai prove to be a problematic point here. In the novel their origins are described considerably vaguely; it is only stated that they are the result of cross-breeding between the race of men and Orcs.
However, Peter Jackson, in his film adaptation, decided to use a completely different approach towards revealing the origins of the Uruk-hai. In the films, they are shown to be bred from pits in the earth, effectively depicting them as mud men, already implying an inferior nature. A second feature that has been implemented by the director which is nowhere to be found in the novel is that of the Uruk-hai’s hair
style. As Sue Kim notes, “the Uruk-hai are tall, black, and muscular with long, coarse hair that resembles dreadlocks” (Kim 877). However, the most alarming difference in the visualisation of the Uruk-hai is Peter Jackson’s addition of face paint. In the films, the Uruk-hai have Saruman’s mark, a white hand, painted on their black faces, whereas in the novel, this mark is painted merely on their armour: “upon their shields they wore a strange device: a small white hand in the center of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal” (Tolkien, LotR 415). This seemingly unnecessary addition, according to Kim, makes them “strongly resemble Māori warriors” (Kim 877). This reminds one of the film Utu; as Sue Kim elaborates:
In the New Zealand film Utu (1983), the Māori warrior Te Wheke, played by Anzac Wallace (a former convict, labor organizer and arbitrator of Māori descent), seeks revenge ("utu") for the betrayals by the British. […] Te Wheke's trenchant, militant rage is contrasted to his brother Wiremu's decision to pursue biculturalism. Wiremu is played by Wi Kuki Kaa, who although also ethnically Māori, appears more
westernized and thereby symbolizes a rational, liberal multicultural society. "By the end of the film," Blythe notes, "Te Wheke has been executed for his transgressions against Māori and Pakeha" (247). In other words, Te Wheke represents the irrational hatred of the savage other.
Kim 877 The similarities between the character of Te Wheke—played by Anzac Wallace— and the that of Lurtz—played by Lawrence Makoare, whose descent is Māori—are many; as Kim notes, “they share brown skin, thick, wiry, black, almost dreadlocked hair, facial tattoos, a hulking physique, and an implacable, primordial desire to destroy (white) people” (877). Moreover, concerning the reason why a Māori actor was to play the role of Lurtz, a character that, as stated above, bears a number of similarities to the Māori people, Kim states that “it is curious and bizarre that […] while all the actors playing monsters are completely covered by prosthetics and makeup, a Māori actor was cast in the role of Lurtz and the Witch-King” (881).
Another problematic point in the adaption of the novel involves the Easterlings and the Haradrim. Firstly, the visual representation of these peoples is somewhat more aligned to the colour scheme than the novel had described; in the films, the Easterlings, for instance, are characterized by their almond-shaped eyes, their habit to wear eyeliner, and the wearing of turbans; all traits that are not mentioned in the novel. Moreover, during the scene in which the Easterlings are first introduced to the viewer, the audio commentary included with the special extended edition is
performed by Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis and Sean Astin. During this scene, as the army of Easterlings marches in, Sean Astin immediately identifies them as “those South-Asians” (“Audio”). Consequently, Elijah Wood comments jokingly that “soldiers do use eyeliner” (“Audio”), on which Andy Serkis responds “Easterlings particularly”. In other words, the South-Asian connotations of the Easterlings was consciously noticed, as well as the eyeliner which only serves to emphasize these racial connotations.
Also included with the special extended edition is a gallery of all the peoples of Middle-Earth that play their part in the film, thus including the Easterlings. This gallery is mostly a collection of drawings from the various stages of the films'
development. Several drawings are accompanied by voiced commentary; one of the various sketches of the Easterlings was commented upon by Warren Mahy, designer and sculptor of artwork for the film. On the drawing, he stated that in finding a way to visually represent the Easterlings which Peter Jackson would approve of, they had to “look for something with a Middle-Eastern feel to [it]” (“Gallery”). Moreover, there was another sketch of an Easterling Ben Wootten—also a designer and sculptor of artwork—commented upon; in this commentary, he stated that the Easterlings were visualized with “a strong Middle-Eastern influence ” (“Gallery”). In this drawing, the face of the Easterling was covered by a piece of cloth attached to his helmet, which Mootten explained by stating that their “face is covered to keep them quite
impersonal [and also because of] them coming from a sandy region” (“Gallery”). These comments only reaffirm the conclusion that the Easterlings were consciously visualized in such a way that would be reminiscent of Middle-Eastern culture.
Another point of interest for the discussion concerning the humanity of the Easterlings and the Haradrim and the omission of a considerably important decision of Aragorn in the story is that in the novel, there is a passage that is often quoted in defense of Tolkien to the critics that call him racist. After one of the Haradrim has
been shot from his giant elephant, it lands right next to Sam, who is hiding from the sudden clamour of battle:
It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face [as the body lay on the ground face-down]. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.
Tolkien, LotR 661 Another instance of this sentiment of sympathy is found after the battle for Minas Tirith in the novel, when Aragorn calls in a host of ghosts that has been bound to follow up his command as the rightful king. Gimli describes the event as following:
To every ship they came that was drawn up, and then they passed over the water to those that were anchored; and all the mariners were filled with a madness of terror and leaped overboard, save the slaves chained to the oars. Reckless we rode among our fleeing foes, driving them like leaves, until we came to the shore. And then to each of the great ships that remained Aragorn sent one of the Dúnedain, and they comforted the captives that were aboard, and bade them put aside fear and be free.
Tolkien, LotR 876 Sam’s sympathy for the Haradrim ranger as well as Aragorn’s merciful gesture is not included in the film. Instead, in the film, the host of ghosts simply swarms into the land, striking down their foes as they move through the enemy’s forces. As altering the storyline of the novel that is being adapted is evidently a conscious choice, this change is telling of the priorities made by Peter Jackson; action in the films is preferred over mercy towards the Easterlings.
Another issue that has raised concern involving the depiction of the Orcs is found in the scene that presents the battle for Helms Deep in the second film, The Two Towers. In one of the chapters of the appendices of the special extended
edition of this film, “From Book to Script: Finding the Story”, Peter Jackson tells that his visualisation of thousands of Orcs crawling over the walls of Helms Deep—which is the fictional fortress defended by the race of men—was inspired by the film Zulu directed by Cy Endfield. This 1964 film is a historical film depicting the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, where only 150 British soldiers were able to withstand the assault of four thousand Zulu warriors. According to Peter Jackson, the building of tension in his The Two Towers was inspired by Zulu, as for the first hour, this was all that happened (“From Book to Script”). Moreover, Tolkien liked how “all hell breaks loose as the first arrow is fired” (“From Book to Script”). This is then effectively used in the starting of the battle in Peter Jackson’s adaption, as the fighting only starts after one of the men defending the keep accidentally fires an arrow into the horde of Orcs below. As Sue Kim describes the consequent battle, “in The Two Towers, tens of thousands of Orcs and Uruks amass at Orthanc and then attack the small Rohan band at Helm's Deep; like beetles or cockroaches, they swarm over the landscape, scale the walls, and spill over (and destroy) the battlements” (Kim 880). This insect-like swarming then is reminiscent of how John Howe, lead designer and artist for the films, describes the physique of the villains. In “Designing and Building Middle-Earth”—part of the appendices discussed above, he states that in the stages of the visual rendering of the Orcs from Tolkien’s novel, “[they were] imagined as some sort of insect-like creatures” (“Designing”). Moreover, on the armour of the Orcs that was created for the films, he states that “Peter wanted them to look like cockroaches, scuttling and crawling in their black, dark, nasty suits of armour” (“Designing”). Therefore, the Orcs in the films are effectively reduced to a horde of insects, characterized by their indefinite, impersonal, and insect-like nature.
Now that the problematic imagery of the novel and the film adaptation has been thoroughly explored and presented, the following chapter will contextualize this imagery, offering an explanation concerning why the author and adapter used this imagery.
Chapter 5: Imagery of the novel and the films explained in relation to their social context and the process of adaptation
The previous chapter has provided many examples of problematic imagery in both the novel and the films. However, simply pointing out their problematic connotations or the seemingly racist ideas behind the imagery and blaming either J.R.R. Tolkien or Peter Jackson to be racist would not, as Sue Kim states, be “an interesting and productive project” (Kim 884). However, she argues that a much more productive and interesting project would be to explore why certain kinds of culturally-created racial codings are used, and how they function within larger contexts. This is then precisely the aim of this chapter: to connect the provided problematic imagery to their social context, providing a possible understanding or reasoning for the question as to why this particular imagery has been used in the way it has been.
The first element criticized in chapter four was that of a “hierarchical
reordering of the seven categories of beings” (Tolkien, Palma 7). As stated above in the fourth chapter, Tolkien created a hierarchical reordering of the beings in his mythology, effectively making his race of Elves superior to the other races. Then, as the discussion above has shown, Tolkien repeatedly emphasizes this superiority, for instance, in the fact that the race of men in the novel is defined in their relation to the Elves. However, instead of a racial issue, this can be a spiritual issue as well. As Dimitra Fimi states, “[The Elves’] main difference to Men is spiritual” (Fimi 142). Whereas the considerably taller stature and impressive physique of the Elves then seems to remain a problem, this could as well be explained in a different way; “the way races were classified in Victorian and early twentieth-century anthropology was by the association of physical characteristics with (supposedly related) mental
abilities” (142). In other words, the stature of the Elves could be related to their great wisdom.
The main trait that differentiates the Elves from the race of Men is that of their immortality and their immunity to diseases. In a draft letter to Robert Murray, who had provided commentary on Tolkien’s novel as Tolkien requested, Tolkien, on the immortality of the Elves, states that:
[The immortality] or an indefinite span was part of what we might call the biological and spiritual nature of the Children of God, […] and would not be altered by the One, except perhaps by one of those strange exceptions to all rules and ordinances which seem to crop up in the history of the Universe, and show the Finger of God, as the one wholly free Will and Agent.
Tolkien, Letters 218 Moreover, in this letter, Tolkien emphasizes the Elves’ close connectedness to the God, stating that they are “from the Blessed Realms of the Gods […], praising and adoring Eru, ‘The One’, Ilúvatar the Father of All” (218).
The notion that the biological and spiritual distinction between Elves and Men is due to the Elves’ closer relation to God is one that the novel seems to support. In the novel, the race of Elves is divided in three peoples: the Avari, the High Elves and the Sindar. The latter two are often called by the same common denominator, the Eldar. Tolkien, in a letter to Noami Mitchison, explains the difference, stating that:
[The Elves] are represented as having become early divided in two, or three, varieties. 1. The Eldar who heard the summons of the Valar or Powers to pass from Middle-earth over the Sea to the West; and 2. The Lesser Elves who did not answer it. Most of the Eldar after a great march reached the Western Shores and passed over Sea; these were the High Elves, who became immensely enhanced in powers and knowledge. But part of them in the event remained in the coast-lands of the North-west: these were the Sindar or Grey-elves. The lesser Elves hardly appear, except as part of the people of The Elf-realm; of
Northern Mirkwood, and of Lorien, ruled by Eldar.
Tolkien, Letters 194
This passage evidently shows that the division of the three different peoples of Elves is not a division based on either physical or mental capability, but rather based on choice concerning fidelity to their religion. That religion is an important part of
Tolkien’s life has become evident in chapter two; his mother had gone through great trouble to become a Catholic, thereby suffering the wrath of her entire family, as they
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