If Tolkien disliked allegory, why are there so many allegorical readings of The Lord of the Rings?

Question

There is a famous quote from J.R.R. Tolkien in which he states his hatred of allegorical writing.

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

Yet many people have found The Lord of the Rings to be a very obvious allegory for the First World War, or less obviously for the industrial revolution, the atomic age or for the Christian faith.

It's possible that people may be putting a meaning onto the work that was not in the author's intention. But this seems unlikely given Tolkien's level of learning and the very clear parallels with the world war. Did he really not intend it as an allegory? If so, how does this square with his dislike of allegory?

Answer 1

It was an allegory because, in spite of his dislike, Tolkien felt it was necessary and inevitable that it should be one.

In several lesser-known quotes, the author freely admits that the tale is allegorical. Most clearly he states:

"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power."

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #186

He also claims it is a religious work which, given that it has no connection to any real-life religion, can only be true if it can be read as an allegory of religion.

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #142

So how do we square this circle?

The first is that another quote from Tolkien shows that he believed all myth was fundamentally allegorical in nature. Since one of his key purposes in constructing the legendarium around Lord of the Rings was to rebuild a lost English mythology it would be difficult for him not to write an allegory if this was his belief.

"I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #131

He also believed that it was, to some extent, inevitable in the work of any author because it would surface through the subconscious. Or to put it another way, that allegory in literature was a failure only if it was created deliberately.

"The only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it."

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #109

So what are we to make of this in relation to The Lord of the Rings? His admission that the book was an allegory of power, while denying that it is one of atomic power offers a clue. In stating his dislike of allegory, he is using the term to mean a literal reading: that he dislikes stories which offer only a single, specific political or moral interpretation.

So, The Lord of the Rings can be read vaguely as an allegory of power, but not specifically of atomic power. Similarly, it can be read as an allegory of warfare, or of the struggle against evil, but not specifically of one of the World Wars. He wants his readers to relate to wide themes of human experience and not to narrow lessons on distinct events.

Answer 2

You're confusing allegory with applicability. Allegory implies authorial intent while applicability is up to the reader. Tolkien understood that applicability was out of his control. Readers can see things in writings that the author maybe never considered. But he was annoyed when people tried to read into his work and make out what kind of person he was.

Answer 3

There are different types or "levels" of allegory. Some are stricter, and others are looser.

A frequently cited example of the strict type of allegory is The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678).

The Pilgrim's Progress is a story about a man named Christian who is trying to get to the Celestial City. He takes directions from a man named Evangelist, is almost led astray by Mr. Worldly Wiseman, teams up with Faithful and Hopeful, gets captured by the giant Despair who traps him in the Doubting Castle for a while, etc., etc.

Every person and event in the book is a stand-in for one particular thing or concept, and nothing else. It's like one of those political cartoons where everything is labeled. Bunyan wants the readers to know exactly what he is getting at in every scene, no more and no less.

This, I believe, is the kind of "purposed domination of the author" that Tolkien rejected.

Certainly, you can draw connections between the Lord of the Rings and, say, Christianity or the World Wars. There are parallels: some were conscious on Tolkien's part, some were presumably unconscious, and some were completely accidental. But the story can stand on its own two feet without them. Gandalf may be like Jesus, in that he sacrifices himself and is resurrected, but he is not a stand-in for Jesus; the Ring might be like an atom bomb, in the sense that it is a unique and dangerous weapon that could turn the tide of a war, but it is not meant to represent The Bomb and nothing else. (Actually, it wasn't meant to represent The Bomb at all. That's one of the accidental ones.)

The point is that you don't have to be "in on the joke", so to speak, to appreciate Tolkien's work.

I prefer history – true or feigned – with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.

History doesn't demand you read it in one particular way, even if the people living it out had some very definite interpretations in mind. It is complex enough to allow for analysis and debate and multiple interpretations, as opposed to a dreary game of "Oh, X is meant to represent Y." The Lord of the Rings is very much a "feigned history", which is what makes it so enduring. With a work like Pilgrim's Progress, the reader gets the distinct impression that nothing exists, or can exist, outside the immediate demands of the author's symbolic scheme. The Lord of the Rings, quite simply, feels more real than that.

Answer 4

The Lord of the Rings is only an allegory in the eyes of (some) readers and critics; JRRT himself set out to write an adventure, a sequel to The Hobbit, in fact, a story for children. This is still very visible in the early chapters "An Unexpected Party" and "Three's Company" - that damn fox is a prime example.

But, as he himself wrote, the "tale grew in the telling," and became the masterpiece we have today. But at no point did he intend anything specific the Third Age of Middle-earth to "stand for" anything in specific in the modern age (which he referred to as the Sixth or Seventh in his correspondence).

As someone who believes that the Author has no privileged position in interpreting a text, I hold that anything a reader in good faith finds in the text is a legitimate interpretation.

But it is only an interpretation, and should not be confused with the text itself, or with the Author's intentions.

Answer 5

After listening to Jordan B. Peterson’s critique of later Disney movies I wonder if the answer is allegory is necessary but mustn’t be intensed or propaganda. For example he lives and breathes Catholicism so it comes out of his writing but maybe he wasn’t writing it with the purpose of convincing people to believe or do certain things. He didn’t write it to manipulate but to inspire. Maybe it is kind of a paradox. For in theology of the Body the purpose is freedom and redemption of the body but it’s not to manipulate or control or even tell people what to do with their bodies but to free them so that they may choose to love with the love that God intends. Maybe his stories too are not to tell us what to do but inspire reveal the deeper meaning of life... meaning that we will only discover by living the adventure.

Answer 6

I think it is clear that Tolkien did not dislike allegory at all. It follows that the comment in a later foreword was made after pressure from his publishers because, of course, German people were great fans of the trilogy and he needed to be distanced from been seen as criticizing their culture.