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Post #1
1 reply
This book is pretty racist, but in an interesting way. Tolkien makes the bad races like orcs and goblins dark-skinned and the good races like elves pale and blond, as is unfortunately true in most fantasies written for children. Logically, if you think about where these humanoids live, you would have to conclude that the elves, who live outside in the forest, would probably be darkly pigmented, while the orcs and goblins who live in underground caves would lose their pigment and become pale and blond.
More interestingly, though, the roles of the evil races in the overall story are pretty analogous to the role of Europeans in dominating non-white cultures all over the planet. Sauron's master plan is basically to industrialize the world and subjugate the various "good" races to serve the state in what amounts to a colonial economy. The series is at its heart a fantasy envisioning the peoples of the world uniting and successfully resisting the advances of "civilized" Europe. Tolkien would have naturally internalized this narrative as a citizen of the British Empire at the height of its colonial extent and at a time when people were beginning to question the utility and morality of colonial expansion. Maybe these books even helped shape public opinion against the exploitation of other lands. The author, probably subconsciously, just could not seem to reconcile his view of European industrial society as "bad" with his view of light-skinned people as inherently "good."
More interestingly, though, the roles of the evil races in the overall story are pretty analogous to the role of Europeans in dominating non-white cultures all over the planet. Sauron's master plan is basically to industrialize the world and subjugate the various "good" races to serve the state in what amounts to a colonial economy. The series is at its heart a fantasy envisioning the peoples of the world uniting and successfully resisting the advances of "civilized" Europe. Tolkien would have naturally internalized this narrative as a citizen of the British Empire at the height of its colonial extent and at a time when people were beginning to question the utility and morality of colonial expansion. Maybe these books even helped shape public opinion against the exploitation of other lands. The author, probably subconsciously, just could not seem to reconcile his view of European industrial society as "bad" with his view of light-skinned people as inherently "good."
Post #2
1 reply
I didn't though about this...
maybe it's correct, but if so,we would have to say that the whole fairy world is racist...I mean: how many different creatures you can meet there?i'm thinking about fairies, witches, elves,dwarfs..but they are different like wolves from cats and bears etc..and so someone could say that this book- and Fairy world- is various like nature..
maybe it's correct, but if so,we would have to say that the whole fairy world is racist...I mean: how many different creatures you can meet there?i'm thinking about fairies, witches, elves,dwarfs..but they are different like wolves from cats and bears etc..and so someone could say that this book- and Fairy world- is various like nature..
Post #3
1 reply
To think of this book as Racist is to put our own Cultural prism into the Authors motivation when he wrote it. Tolkien was a man of his time and England was not considered a heterogeneous melting-pot society back then. They where a Colonial Power and these traditions inadvertantily found there way into the manuscript...
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