Polity and Immigration: It all Comes Full Circle

When considering History and Geography, it is important to intertwine the people of a land with the land itself and consider how the attitudes of the people towards their land affect the story overall. In his response to W.H. Auden's review of The Return of the King, Tolkien comments on how characters from different lands view the concept of 'polity', or organized society. Notably, he compares Denethor, Frodo, and the high elves, evaluating their relationship with their own society and discussing their ambitions to make a perfect world. Furthermore, we must consider the geographic history of each race: the elves travelled to Middle Earth to Valinor; the men of Gondor are descended from the original inhabitants of Middle Earth, and the Hobbits are descended from a different genealogy of Middle Earth-dwellers. Since (temporal) history and (spatial) place are interrelated, we can analyze characters' and races' paths through time and space to gain insight on Tolkien's views of the larger story at hand.

We start with Denethor, the lord and steward of Gondor. His "prime motive" (and tragic flaw)  in his role as steward is his desire to "preserve the polity of Gondor, as it was, against another potentate" (Letters 183).  The word 'potentate' is interesting here, since it shows that Denethor's greatest fear is another monarchical leader overthrowing him and plunging Gondor into chaos. Thus, Denethor will do whatever is necessary to prevent such a catastrophe, allowing us to deduce that Denethor sees himself as a monarchical figure, albeit a more benevolent one. Tolkien comments on this in Letters 184, noting that Denethor's fear is stemmed from another monarch being "stronger" than himself, and more "ruthless and wicked" (Letters 184). Shifting focus to the physical trajectory of the men of Gondor, we note that they originate from Middle Earth and remain there after the ring is destroyed. In essence, they have not undergone any significant journey. Thus, we can conclude that, according to Tolkien, being solely concerned with one's people and oneself gets nowhere. 

Second, we consider Frodo and Samwise, the primary Hobbits in the quest of the Ring. Frodo and Sam are primarily residents of the Shire, but Tolkien clarifies Frodo's worldview: Frodo's desire is for "liberation from an evil tyranny" rather than "the preserving of this or that polity" (Letters 183). This shows that Frodo is not primarily concerned with the upkeep of the Shire, although Frodo is not racing out to sacrifice the Shire anytime soon. Frodo's journey begins at the Shire and returns to the Shire, but ends in Valinor when he sails west with Bilbo. Putting two and two together, we see that being undistracted by politics allows Frodo to go on a journey from the Shire to Valinor, although this is not the most perfect journey in Tolkien's eyes.

Finally, we consider the fate of the high elves - namely Elrond and Galadriel in Rivendell and Luthien respectively. After learning the whereabouts of The One Ring, the elves conclude that destroying Sauron once and for all is necessary for the greater good, even at the cost of their own civilization and their own immortality. Tolkien says that this collapse is "inevitable," not a mere "unfortunate damage of war" (Letters 183), meaning that the elves' loss of immortality is an intentional sacrifice. The elves' journey is the most interesting to consider since they travel from Valinor to the forests of Middle Earth, but end up back in Valinor once they realize their residence in Middle Earth is temporary and fleeting. Generalizing slightly, the elves travel a nontrivial distance on a path that ends where it starts. Thus, visually, the path resembles a loop, or in more relevant terms, a ring. 

The elves' journey in the shape of a ring is significant for multiple reasons. First, we can connect the two in analysis similar to the above two scenarios to conclude that the selfless desire to sacrifice one's homeland leads in the most 'perfect' journey possible. Contrasting this to other characters, we see that Denethor is unable to go on any type of journey since he is solely focused on the well-being of his polity, and Frodo is able to go on a journey by leaving his homeland for the greater good, but does not make the best possible journey. One may argue that Frodo managed to make his perfect journey and more by making a ring starting and ending at the Shire, but Frodo's life story ends as he sails west, not as he returns to the shire.

The elves' journey is also significant because of the connection between Tolkien's storytelling structure and the geography at play. The full story of the Legendarium should be the object of consideration since it is the 'True' story here - incorporating the mythology of the Valar and the history of Middle Earth, ending with Legolas sailing the last ship down Anduin in 1541 (LotR Appendix B).

The shape of the journey being a ring adds evidence that Tolkien's story is a scholarly joke, because having his story about rings of power trace out a ring in space is too perfect to be a coincidence, particularly as we have seen that Tolkien scrutinizes every detail of his stories. To be fair, this argument is based on a limited amount of information, but considering paths traced out by characters is a useful window into their role in the story.

-Calder (BP2)

As always, please disagree with me in the comments!