What is the One Ring and what does it do?

The subject of the meaning of the One Ring is perhaps the most important and widely debated topic among those who take an interest in the symbolism in Tolkien’s stories. Does it represent power, since those who gain it never wish to give it up and will devote their entire energies (and the fate of their souls and minds) into getting it back? Does it represent a drug of some kind, since it has an intoxicating and negative effect on its ‘users’ and is highly addictive? Is it perhaps suggesting that there is evil in all of us - with the chief protagonists of the story carrying a piece of Tolkien’s Satan with them at all times, both literally and symbolically? What do we actually know about this mysterious object? I will attempt to deal with these questions in this blog post.

Is the One Ring a representation of power itself? While this theory seems plausible at first (and is the one I held to until quite recently) a closer examination reveals it to be unlikely. First, the Ring (with a notable exception - Smeagol) seems to wield greatest power over those who are already powerful. The men of Gondor, particularly Faramir and Boromir (who are powerful within Gondor) are more affected than the Hobbits, and among the Hobbits it is the lowly Sam who is less affected than the high-born Frodo. Sauron is the most affected and he is the lord of arguably the most powerful realm in Middle Earth. The theory that the One Ring is power could still make sense, since often those with the most power are those who desire more. However, the Ring does not actually seem to offer power, merely the illusion of power. In practice it weakens, both mentally and physically, its users (see Smeagol, Sauron, Frodo). It offers delusions of grandeur, as with Boromir and Faramir, who both imagine that with the Ring they could do extraordinary things (despite no evidence that the Ring can do anything especially great besides turn its wearer invisible) but yields no tangible power to its users.

So, since the interpretation of the Ring as power seems to be weakened, perhaps we can understand it as a drug? We must consider two facts here. First, in the time at which Tolkien was writing The Lord of The Rings drug use was not nearly the issue it is today - with the obvious exception of alcohol. Therefore, unless the One Ring is specifically about alcohol, which seems unlikely given the total lack of comparison between the two and the fact that ‘users’ of the Ring experience something very unlike inebriation or drunkenness, it is not plausible that the LOTR was ultimately a diatribe against drugs. Second, the Ring does not seem to have any drawing power besides its literal drawn power - there is no good feeling or ‘high’ which it causes and which prompts further use, creating an addiction. It attracts its ‘users’ through attracting them, if that makes sense - St. Augustine said he stole fruit not because he enjoyed eating it or wanted it for any particular reason, but only because he felt the desire to commit an evil act. Similarly, the Ring offers no tangible positive outcome for its users, only pure attraction. It is also prudent to mention that the One Ring actually lengthens its users’ lives, it doesn’t shorten them.

Now let us consider the notion that the One Ring, having been forged by Sauron, is meant to be in essence a piece of him which the Hobbits carry around with them. What could this mean? This could be commentary on the part of Tolkien that the Hobbits, despite being the protagonists fighting for what is right, carry evil even within themselves. Unfortunately, this theory fails in a couple different ways. First, the notion that evil can be purged and destroyed, or perhaps more accurately ‘returned to Hell’ (the Ring is thrown downwards into a pit of fire), does not seem to agree with Tolkien’s Christian conception of evil, which sees evil as omnipresent in the world and not something which can be gotten rid of. Furthermore, if the One Ring represents the evil within each character, then why represent it as a single physical object which passes between numerous characters? 

While the above theory may not have succeeded in explaining the role of the One Ring, part of it may prove to be accurate: namely, that the Ring is a piece of Sauron which the characters carry with them and which infects them with his presence. Perhaps the best understanding of the Ring is as propaganda. The Ring acts as a piece of Sauron’s will not by physically forcing characters to do anything but to convince them through lies and deception. This interpretation helps to tie up the loose ends brought up earlier. The Ring works best on the men of Gondor because they come from a more sophisticated society which may leave them more detached from common sense and more susceptible to propaganda. Additionally, the One Ring offers power while giving none, clearly paralleling propaganda in that way. Like propaganda, and unlike drugs, there is no positive feeling originating from it, it uses negative manipulation in order to persuade or to call to action. The fact that Sauron himself is persuaded by and obsessed with his own propaganda can be seen as Tolkien’s suggestion that those who traffic in propaganda are often convinced by their own nonsense and that propaganda takes on a life of its own.

-LM