Humble Heroism: Frodo Baggins as Christian Hero in The Lord of the Rings

Notes
¹Shippey calls this a “distinctively modern” idea, but in fact Tolkien would have been able to trace it back to the Bible and its pattern of rulers who became too powerful, forgot God, and became corrupt. See 1 Kings 10 and 11, Daniel 4.28–37, and Acts 12.20–23 for examples.

²This is based on the traditional Christian analysis of Isaiah 53, among other biblical passages.

³Schlobin uses a different edition of Return of the King, but the same edition of the Letters as this author.

⁴See for example Matthew 5.5 and Luke 1.51-2.

⁵Of interest here is an analysis by academic Barry Gordon that portrays Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn in the biblical roles of priest, prophet, and king. “Tolkien admitted . . . that the Gordon thesis was true, but that such a scheme had been unconscious on Tolkien’s part” (Sanctifying Myth 69-70).

Works Cited and Consulted
Note: Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings as six books, even though it was published in three volumes. Thus, each volume contains two books. To make the paper easier to follow, however, I have ignored the “books” and referred only to the three volumes.

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Helms, Randel. “Frodo Anti-Faust: The Lord of the Rings as Contemporary Mythology.” Modern Critical Interpretations: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 37-49.

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Pearce, Joseph. Tolkien: Man and Myth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998.

Schlobin, Roger. “The Monsters Are Talismans and Transgressions: Tolkien and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth. Ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. 71-81.

Senior, W. A. “Loss Eternal in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth. Ed. George Clark and Daniel Timmons. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. 173-182.

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