A Decolonial View

By Dimitris Diamantis

The trilogy of The Lord of the Rings is a tale about the fight between good and evil. The Dark Lord Sauron has created an army to conquer the world. He needs the Ring of Power to accomplish his goal of obtaining the power he desires. At the same time, Frodo, the protagonist who has acquired the Ruling Ring, starts his journey to destroy it, accompanied by the Fellowship of the Ring, a small group of warriors.

Interestingly, we can trace some features of colonial narratives in this tale by examining the poem that is engraved on the Ring:

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.” [i]

By analyzing the poem, the reader can comprehend the purpose of the Ring. The Ring can give its owner the absolute power to dominate others. Hence, it can be seen as a metaphor for colonial rule, describing the domination of Europeans over the rest of the world. The Ring, as a symbol of absolute power, gives its creator the ability to conquer the world. Similarly, European nations relied on their weapons, economy, and civilization to dominate the rest of the world. [ii]

At the same time, they gave the illusion that others had a share of power, but they operated as Europe’s vassals. In other words, we could read this poem as a metaphor for European dominance over the world. Indeed, it is no coincidence that three of the main heroes come from the races being ruled. Thus, we could say that the three races in Tolkien’s work represent the populations and cultures of the continents that came under European rule and now try to oppose it by destroying the source of its power.

We can trace Mignolo’s concept of decolonialism within the tale of The Lord of the Rings. Mignolo claims that decolonialism not only refers to the independence movements of colonies, but also to the task of decoloniality: to decolonize knowledge and to delink it from the notion of European dominance. [iii] Furthermore, the distinction among races should not be overlooked, as the one assigned to destroy the Ring does not belong to those races. It is implied that these races have been corrupted by power. Thus, the hobbits could function as a symbol for the native populations who are often labeled as uncivilized [vi], whose existence and way of life are often ignored by dominant sources [v], just as the existence of hobbits is unknown even to the older and wiser beings such as the Ents:

“What are you, I wonder? I cannot place you. You do not seem to come in the old lists that I learned when I was young.”[vi]

[i] J. R. R. Tolkien and J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2. ed.,
[renewed], The Lord of the Rings / by J. R. R. Tolkien 1 (Boston, Mass:
Houghton Mifflin, 1993). P. 66

[ii] Bill Ashcroft author, Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts, Third
edition, Routledge Key Guides (London; New York, New York:
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge, 2013).P. 140

[iii] Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality:
Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham, UNITED STATES: Duke
University Press, 2018),http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/linne-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5400137. P. 121

[iv] Bill Ashcroft author, Postcolonial Studies. P.174

[v] Diana Brydon, Peter Forsgren, and Gonlüg Fur, Concurrent
Imaginaries, Postcolonial Worlds: Toward Revised Histories (Boston,
UNITED STATES: BRILL, 2017),
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/linne-ebooks/detail.action?
docID=5024368. Pp. 40-41

[vi] J R R Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel), The Two Towers: Being the
Second Part of The Lord of the Rings, 2. ed.., Tolkien, J. R. R. (John
Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. Lord of the Rings (1986) ; Pt. 2 (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co, 1993). Pp. 67-8