J. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien was a was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Lord of the Rings in 1955. Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892 Tolkien was raised by his mother until her death in his early teens, where he was then placed in the care of a Friar who heavily influenced him with the Catholic faith. Tolkien continued with his faith until his death in 1972 after living through two world wars and fighting in the Great War himself. J. R. R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a product of the Second World War.
No one wishes to live through dark times. No one wishes to live through struggle

R. R. Tolkien saw World War Two is vital to the understanding of the Lord of the Rings as a whole. As a soldier and a scholar, Tolkien holds a specific wisdom that he shares throughout the novel. In the Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien includes this exchange between Frodo ad Gandalf. “‘I wish it need not happen in my time’ said Frodo. ‘So do I’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given.’”(51 Tolkien). What we can see exemplified in this exchange is the very wisdom Tolkien wishes to dispel on his readers as someone who had already been through the First World War. That we do not have a choice in what happens to us, but in how we choose to see it. Tolkien wholly disagreed with the fascist outlooks of Eastern Europe. He had also seen the horrors of war up close and personal, losing all but one of his close childhood friends in the First World War. How Tolkien chose to see the war affected his writing heavily, and is very noticeable in the Lord of the Rings. However, during World War Two Tolkien was no longer a lieutenant, but instead a civilian. The public was also shocked by World War Two. Many attempted to help the war efforts from home or to soldiers in their own countries. Tolkien added this sort of hospitality in the novel. We can see the Elfish people providing room and board to the Fellowship for months, contributing food and weapons to the soldiers as well as their own wisdom and counseling. Meanwhile Tolik added in different visual aides to help put the reader in the position of an onlooker. Such as the description provided in The Return of the King, “The world was darkling. The air seemed brown, and all the things about were black and grey and shadowless; there was a great stillness. No shape of cloud could be seen, unless it were far away westward, where the furthest groping fingers of the great gloom still crawled onward and a little