A/N : I wrote this as my end-of-term research paper for Humanities class. It's the first essay of this kind I've written,
so any constructive criticism would be great (no flames though, please)! Also, to my fellow nerds...er I mean scholars,
this was originally written in MLA format. Unfortunately, Fanfiction.net isn't very MLA-friendly, so I had to change it.
Also, it's late, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post the works cited. Sorry about that.

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Tolkien's experiences during World War I influenced the themes and descriptions in The Lord of the Rings. It
was not, however, an allegory for World War I. That distinction must be made for Tolkien hated allegory and
definitely did not consider his works as such. J.R.R. Tolkien served as a second lieutenant with the 11th
Lancashire Fusiliers during World War I (Kessler). World War I had an extreme psychological impact on
Tolkien (Rogers 21). The Lord of the Rings expresses faith in a Higher Power alongside disillusionment and
pessimism (Shippey 156).

Tolkien expressly denied that World War II and the Cold War influenced his writings. However, he did not say
the same for World War I (Kessler). Tolkien once said, An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected
by his experience (Shippey 164), and he also said his real taste for fairy stories was awakened by philology
on the threshold of manhood, and quickened to full life by war. Tolkien began to write The Silmarillion while
still in the trenches, and many parts of The Lord of the Rings contain direct references to this early work
(Rogers).

Hobbits, the most important race in The Lord of the Rings, have their origins in pre-World War I English
peasants (Stimpson). Like the young soldiers, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are thrust out of their idealized,
comfortable world into a terrifying experience which would rob them of their innocence. Tolkien said, The
Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their
imagination (Rogers).

His descriptions of Mordor and its surrounds closely resemble contemporary descriptions of the Battle of
Sommes, in which he took part (Kessler). While Tolkien said World War I did not influence the plot, he
admitted that it definitely had an effect on the landscape. The desert approaching Mordor closely resembles
the area between enemy trenches known as the no man's land, with which Tolkien would have been very
familiar (Kessler). The name Tolkien gave Mordor's surrounds, (III 302), adds to the evidence
of World War I influence on this important aspect of The Lord of the Rings. Most obvious are the parallels
between the Passages of the Dead Marshes and other authors' descriptions of the Battle of Sommes. Frodo
cries, There are dead things, dead faces in the water ... dead faces. This is eerily similar to Siegfried
Sassoon's account in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, where he states, Floating on the surface of the flooded
trench ... the mask of a human face ... detached ... from the skull. Several other authors, such as Masefield
and Plowman, give similar accounts (Kessler). Bodies would lie unburied for years in the trenches and all
rotted the same, regardless of side. This may have also contributed to the Dead Marshes, in which the bodies
of Elves and Men, as well as those of Orcs, are and After death, they are all ... the same
(Shippey 217).

The Nazgûl, who at first seem more like the Grim Reaper than anything, become suggestive of incoming
rounds once they assume their winged mounts. Tolkien wrote, Out of the black sky there came dropping like
a bolt a winged shape, rending the clouds with a ghastly shriek. The Nazgûl have an effect on the men
similar to that of the shocking new weapons used in World War I. Its defenders throw themselves to the
ground, or stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands, wrote Tolkien (Kessler).

Other, less noticeable, examples of the war's influence occur in details throughout the novel. On the far side
of the Noman-lands, in the depths of Mordor, Sauron, the Enemy, musters his forces at night instead of during
the day, an action almost unheard of in older mythologies. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes, Neither
man nor orc moved along its grey stretches for the Dark Lord had almost completed the movement of his
forces, and even in the fastness of his own realm he sough the secrecy of night. He has an Orc snarl to his
comrade, Don't you know we're at war? A similar admonition (Don't you know there's a war on?) was
common during Tolkien's time. A demonizing of technology took place during Tolkien's lifetime, through the
creation and use of weapons such as tanks and machine guns. His writings reflect his dislike of such
machines. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes of the Goblins, a terrible demon-like species, wheels and
engines and explosions always delighted them. The fall of Sauron marks the beginning of the novel's
resolution, and the descriptions of his death are more like the bursts of a powerful shell than the fall of evil
beings in the myths Tolkien drew from (Kessler).

J.R.R. Tolkien trained in signaling before being sent to the Somme from July 1916 to October of the same
year (Rogers 20, Shippey x). The battlefield was horrifically different from signaling school and from what the
commanding officers expected. There Tolkien became painfully familiar with some of the evils of the 20th century,
such as industrialized war, carpet bombing, use of chemical weapons, and the massacre of noncombatants
(Shippey 158).

Battle also caused him to ponder the concept of heroism and courage. For him, danger had no allure because if
one does not overcome the danger, it will continue to injure, if not physically, then spiritually or socially (Rogers
46). Defeatism in its original sense, war-weariness combined with the feeling that the sacrifices already made
should be abandoned for an inconclusive peace, angered Tolkien. He believed victory or defeat have nothing to
do with right and wrong, (Shippey 150) a concept that many would do well to remember.

Tolkien combined the characteristics of modern war heroes with ancient ones. One of the biggest differences
between the two is camaraderie. Ancient heroes never receive praise for and rarely think about aiding their friends
in battle. Tolkien's heroes, however, think of their friends first and their own renown second, like the soldiers
alongside whom Tolkien fought (Shippey 41). In the trenches, Tolkien saw perseverance, both grim and
humorous, among the lower ranks (Rogers 20). All this carried over into The Lord of the Rings as the theme of
camaraderie and its importance. Tolkien said of Samwise Gamgee, the faithful servant of the main character, My
Sam Gamgee' is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and
recognized as so far superior to myself (Kessler). In The Two Towers, the Fellowship is reunited at the ruin of
Isengard, where they smoke, eat, and trade news. According to C.S. Lewis, a close friend of Tolkien and a fellow
veteran, this little island of relaxation and plenty in the devastated landscape was true to the World War I
experience (Rogers 110). Gimli pushes aside his terror and continues on the Paths of the Dead for the sake of his
friends, especially Aragorn. In the chapter The Last Debate Gimli says, For upon that road I was put to shame ...
and I was held to the road only by the will of Aragorn, to which his companion Legolas replies, And by the love of
him also ... for all those who come to know him come to love him after their own fashion (Tolkien II 184).

Tolkien said that by 1918, all but one of my closest friends were dead (Rogers chronology). This leads to the
sense of the passing of good times and the loss of good people (Rogers 21). This sense is personified by the
departure of the Elves to Valinor and makes the entire novel rather melancholy and sad. Partly because of the loss
of his friends, death is a major theme in The Lord of the Rings, but not always in the way one suspects. The Elves,
unless slain by steel or grief, escape from death through their immortality. However, their immortality causes them
much sorrow, and the Elves envy the mortality of the Men, seeing it as a gift while Men see it as a curse.
Throughout The Lord of the Rings, as well as many of his other works, Tolkien expresses an unusual literary
concept - escape to death. Several characters choose mortality over unceasing life in Valinor. Arwen Undómiel is
the most famous example.

In The Lord of the Rings, the characters refer to the War of the Ring as the war to end all wars. This same phrase
was used to describe World War I. Most of the characters feel that once Sauron has been defeated, evil has been
destroyed forever, too. However, Elrond remembers that long ago the Elves had thought the exact same thing, and
it was not so. The inhabitants of Middle Earth, just like the inhabitants of Earth, learn that evil cannot be wiped out
forever (Shippey 165).

Though not often recognized, The Lord of the Rings expresses the theme of love despite conflict. In 1916 Tolkien
caught trench fever and was sent away from the Sommes. He spent much of his convalescence with his wife and
son, and the sight of his wife dancing with his son in a glade during this time inspired the Lay of Lúthien (Rogers
20). The poem of Beren and Lúthien influenced the similar story of Aragorn and Arwen, the best known couple in
The Lord of the Rings. Also, in The Return of the King, Faramir and Éowyn fall in love while in the Houses of
Healing, the Middle Earth equivalent of a battlefield hospital.

World War I influenced the themes and descriptions in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien served in the
first World War, and fought in the Battle of Sommes. The horror of the Sommes, combined with the deaths of his
closest friends, had a deep impact on Tolkien, and The Lord of the Rings reflects this impact.