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Applying Geographic Information System Technique
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Habermann and Kuhn discuss J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings is one of the creation texts of fantasy writings and the focus of a number of writings about the history, geography, and mythology of ‘Middle-earth’, which has long become an unusual phenomenon. The authors try to argue that Tolkien texts offer a fictional study of sustainability where they try to combine an application of geographic information system technique with documented analysis and understanding text to show that there is a systematic fluctuating distance between our real world and Tolkien’s secondary world as a respect to climate. The author is describing the Tolkien journey in the British Army during World War I, which may have prejudiced his fiction, mainly The Lord
Throughout his works, Tolkien includes, in varying degrees, every major component of our Primary World: landforms, minerals, weather and climate, natural vegetation, agriculture, political units, population distribution, races, languages, transportation routes, and even house types. “He did more than merely describe these individual comp...
Tolkien, J. R. R., and Douglas A. Anderson. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
Howe, Helen, and Robert T. Howe. A World History: Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Volume 1. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 533.
In the novel, The Hobbit, we find many themes and underlying messages from which useful knowledge and principles can be acquired. As the modern canadian fantasy writer once said, “Fantasy has the capacity to be as important and as thought-provoking as any other form of literature we have.” Tolkien’s work provides readers with challenging and time honoured themes such as: use your unique positive traits for the greater good of the group, power should never be abused and it is important to find your true self in life.
J.R.R. Tolkien can be considered the founding father of the genre fantasy. Most of Tolkien’s texts revolve around the same themes. An author will often write about important messages that pertain to society as a whole. His texts often have hidden messages that relate to his themes. In the fantasy novel The Hobbit and novella “Farmer Giles of Ham”, J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates that possession ears to overconfidence, greed and selfishness.
Dark, imposing, devious, powerful beyond measure, Sauron is evil personified in the Lord of the Rings universe. He is the be all and end all when it comes to villiany in the Lord of the Rings tale. He is a major reason that the Lord of the Rings is regarded as a pinnacle of epic fantasy story telling. But he is not an overly complex villain, with morally gray motivations that some may say are required if an evil character, especially the central one, is to be regarded as important and beneficial to the plot. But the genius of Sauron's villaint is his absence of complex reasoning or motives that could be seen as not entirely evil. His one goal is to destroy the world of men. He can't be reasoned with or sympathized with, and this is what the this insatiable, all powerful, purely destructive nature of his villainy so vital to the Lord of the Rings. Sauron and his purely diabolical nature are the constant that every protagonist is leaned against and tested upon, and the podium on which Tolkien showcases the character growth of the many protagonists in this novel from the beginning of the story until the end.
While it is certainly an exciting and well written work of fantasy, which cannot help but grip the imagination, all this would be for naught except for the poignancy of the themes which serve as its backbone. Foremost of these is Tolkien’s determination to show the natural world as the measure of all things. His world revolves around nature, and his character’s affinity to it determines their place in Middle-Earth.
“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.
It is easy for the reader who enters the enchanted realm of Tolkien's own work to be lost in the magic of the Middle-Earth and to forbear to ask questions. Surrounded by elves, hobbits, dragons and orcs, wandering the pristine fields and woods, described with such loving care they seem almost real, it is easy to forget there is another world outside, the world in which John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, an Oxford don, lived and wrote his monumental series of fantasy novels. It is, after all, natural to want to escape humdrum reality. Literature that offers a simple pleasure of a different time, a different place has nothing to be ashamed of. Tolkien in the same essay describes "escape and consolation" as one of the chief functions of the fairy-tale by which term he understands also what we would call "literary fantasy" today. "Escape and consolation" seem to be self-evident terms. What is there to discuss? Perhaps all that I have to do today is to praise Tolkien's fertile imagination and to step modestly aside.
Shaping of Cultural Values Through Environment in The Left Hand of Darkness, The Fellowship of the Ring, and Dune
The first of the great kingdoms of men is Rohan. The southwestern region of Middle-Earth is the last and greatest bastion of human strength, and Rohan constitutes the northernmost stronghold in this area. The men of Rohan, the Rohirrim, are known throughout Middle-Earth for their courage and skill. They are the firstand usually, the lastline of defense against orc and goblin armies from the north. They have never been defeated in battle, though their trials have at times been very great. At this point in their history, their most immediate enemy is the wizard Saruman.
Standards flapping in the wind as hosts of heavily armed men saddle horses, swords and daggers and bows secured to belts and backs. An enemy lurks in the darkness, a threat to their lords, their land. Suns rise and set on dreaded mornings and blood-soaked battlefields as those that remain strive to carry on. These scenes are reminiscent of the bedtime stories of brave medieval knights riding off on quests and crusades in the name of something greater then themselves. Such sentiments are echoed in the theatrical adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Throughout The Two Towers, the second book and film of the series, Tolkien’s beloved themes of friendship, honor, and hope, reflections of medieval sentiments, are interwoven in the actions of several characters, making The Two Towers a twenty-first century celebration of the stories of old.
In the foreword to the second edition, Tolkien affirmed The Lord of the Rings “was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background or ‘history’ for Elvish tongues” (Tolkien 2004:xxii). Without a doubt, language is the foundation upon which Tolkien defines cultures and individuals: Tolkien’s invented languages, particularly those wholly alien to the Westron or ‘Common Speech,’ vividly reveal and reflect cultural differences in Middle-earth, but it is the manner in which an individual utilizes language that sets him apart from his contemporaries. Complicating Tolkien’s process in the fiction of translation is the need to distinguish closely related language groups; nevertheless, Tolkien adeptly weaves his linguistic web by varying the kind of English used.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2001 epic fantasy film directed by Peter Jackson. The film is an adaptation of a volume of the same name by J.R.R. Tolkien published in 1954. This is the first film of Peter Jackson’s trilogy that adapted J.R.R. Tolkien’s entire Lord of the Rings series into screenplay.
Murray, Roxane Farrell. "The Lord of the Rings as Myth." Unpublished thesis. The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 1974.