The Lord of the Rings is an extremely valuable pedagogical instrument for heightening students' awareness of concepts and values which are difficult to grasp in the modern environment, but which are essential for full response to literary works we must teach them. (p. 819)

The central values of the book are thoroughly traditional, and the direct, immediate style and tone reinforce the fact that, however applicable they may be to our own age, these are the things that have always been true. It is curious that in an age so bound to "realism" and "verisimilitude" we should find the great truths of human nature so fully embodied in a fantasy. No student who has read it is likely to deride products of creative imagination as insignificant because they are "unscientific." The relevance of this story to real life is inescapable, and it will win a far more respectful and attentive reading of "fantasy," whether it be A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Even the nature of actual sociological and international conflict is presented with vivid clarity, as Tolkien amplifies social, national, and racial differences into differences of species. Trolls are opposed to Ents, Orcs to Elves and Dwarves. Suspicions and hostilities between Elves and Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls, even Men and Hobbits, are laid aside in the face of the common enemy or for the achievement of common aspirations. Alliances, intermarriage, defections, all reflect the real world on which the fantasy is based. It is this aspect of the book which has tumbled so many critics into allegorical interpretations—the Crack of Doom itself for anyone trying to understand the work.

All who have tried to teach such books as The Scarlet Letter or Moby Dick are well aware that the present generation of high school students has a very weak concept of evil. It is extremely difficult to communicate to them the substance of these works, because they simply lack the emotional apparatus to respond to the forces of evil and corruption. I do not think there is another book available to us that will develop this sensitivity as fully as The Lord of the Rings…. One of Tolkien's greatest strengths as a novelist is his incredible sense of evil, and no reader can escape being affected by it.

Equally powerful is his presentation of the changes that occur in the human personality through contact with evil, even when that evil is not victorious. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins does not slay the dragon—that is accomplished by a minor character—but he does confront the dragon, and he is not the same person after the experience. On an epic scale, and with vastly amplified ramifications, The Lord of the Rings treats the same phenomenon. (pp. 819-20)

The arena in which the immense conflict between virtue and the corruptive forces of evil is fought, the lands of Gondor and Mordor and even all of Middle-earth, is somehow progressively condensed into the remarkably durable soul of little Frodo, the Hobbit, and at the moment of greatest violence, the entire drama is enacted in a little cave in the side of Mount Doom. These parallels between internal violence, character conflict, and cosmic turmoil can render a student far more likely to grasp the relation-ship between the personal drives of the characters and the primal forces of the universe in such works as Wuthering Heights or Moby Dick. Evil seems to be far more powerful than Good in The Lord of the Rings, and yet, somehow, Good triumphs, apparently because, as Gandalf says, it was meant to be. A strong sense of Fate colors the entire story, and though it seems to be a benevolent force, at least for the time being, it can give the student a far better grasp of Destiny as it functions in Greek drama or the novels of Thomas Hardy. And since its origin is the Wyrd of Germanic mythology, it bears directly upon Beowulf, a story which almost all high school students read and almost none appreciate….

The key to Beowulf and all heroic literature lies in this modern fantasy. (p. 820)

The characters in The Lord of the Rings are strongly drawn with simple, bold strokes, and are fine exemplars of the value as well as the limitations of character interpretation. Gandalf may well represent Hope, perhaps Conscience, but no one is in danger of forgetting that he is first of all that highly individual and vivid personality, Gandalf the Grey. His resurrection is an excellent instance of how a writer may use symbolism in a partial and restrictive way; the parallel to the resurrection of Christ is not maintained, and does not function at all at the conclusion of the story. Whatever Gandalf is, he is not a Christ-figure.

Many of the characters are valuably prototypic. For example, young readers often find Uriah Heep in David Copper-field too incredible to accept, but they may well look again when they realize his striking similarities to the possessed, maddened villain who won their complete belief, the astonishing creature, Gollum. Or again, no one has ever counted the protagonists in fiction who are supported by a loyal friend, but of them all, few are more winning than the lovable, plain-spoken Sam Gamgee, and few illustrate the structural function of the role so clearly.

Finally, there is the tiny heart of the entire massive creation, Frodo Baggins, the Hobbit. We rarely find characters in fiction who demonstrate so thoroughly the ability of a fine writer to force his audience into identification with his protagonist. We face Frodo's trials; we suffer Frodo's agonies; his life is ours. We identify unquestioningly—with a Hobbit. Tolkien has provided us an excellent demonstration of the powers of our own imagination caught up in creative fiction.

The book has its weaknesses, it is true. Tolkien's sense of the ugly and the evil far surpasses his sense of the beautiful and the good. His description of the lovely forest of Lothlórien falls short of the magical quality he aims at, while the desert surrounding Mount Doom veritably exhales the vapors of evil from every crevice in the devastated land. In details as well, there are flaws, such as the inadequate explanation given for the dark power known as the Balrog. But the virtues of the work overwhelm its deficiencies, and beyond the various pedagogical uses which I have pointed out, the book is a valuable literary experience in itself, of a sort we rarely see well executed. (p. 821)