Re-reading the Lord of the Rings, Chapter 9
Film and book meet again. At the Sign of The Prancing Pony revolves around different aspects of alieness and it even does so in the film, although the book is much more balanced than Jackson's pool of rough- and dreariness.
The people of Bree are a little shorter than usual, friendly, they have botanical family names and live in peaceful co-existence with Hobbits.
The excellence of the caste system, from a long-term point of view, lies in its rigidity, its extreme resistance to any reforms or revolutions, in particular also the industrial revolution, and perhaps Tolkien implicitly declares himself a Luddite here, but I consider it more likely that he refers to the excellence of the caste system in its nascent state of development when compared to its alternative, that is genocide. There are of course those who argue for the excellence of genocide by refering to the long-term effects of its alternative, that is the caste system, but I think the proper course of development is the abolishment of the caste system at the proper state of assimilation.
Anyway, naturally these are the worries of invaders and not those who are being invaded and it raises an interesting point concerning the question who came first to Bree, the Big Folk or the Little Folk?
According to their own account, it was the Big Folk...
But enough of these considerations. Tolkien was in all likeliness making another point, one which by my blatant avoidance of it might by now have been sufficiently emphasised. But no matter how stiffly you deal with it, the co-existence of Big and Little Folks in Bree is unity in difference, whereas Hobbits living in both Bree and the Shire is difference in unity, and Tolkien emphasises this alot, with both groups calling each other outsiders and so on.
In this field of slightly confusing polarities the party steers from one extreme to the other and it is actually quite interesting to observe the change of mind that takes hold of the four Hobbits.
It ends of course in catastrophe, with (almost) everybody shunning Frodo, Pippin and Sam as the truly alien ones around, but plotwise that is convenient enough, giving Strider the chance to prove his trustworthiness.
The people of Bree are a little shorter than usual, friendly, they have botanical family names and live in peaceful co-existence with Hobbits.
The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called one another) were on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found.I'm quoting this here, because the only place in the world, where this excellent arrangement is to be found is India and
minding their own affairs in their own ways, but [...] rightly regarding themselves as necessary partsis the standard formulation of defenders of the caste system to this day.
The excellence of the caste system, from a long-term point of view, lies in its rigidity, its extreme resistance to any reforms or revolutions, in particular also the industrial revolution, and perhaps Tolkien implicitly declares himself a Luddite here, but I consider it more likely that he refers to the excellence of the caste system in its nascent state of development when compared to its alternative, that is genocide. There are of course those who argue for the excellence of genocide by refering to the long-term effects of its alternative, that is the caste system, but I think the proper course of development is the abolishment of the caste system at the proper state of assimilation.
Anyway, naturally these are the worries of invaders and not those who are being invaded and it raises an interesting point concerning the question who came first to Bree, the Big Folk or the Little Folk?
According to their own account, it was the Big Folk...
But enough of these considerations. Tolkien was in all likeliness making another point, one which by my blatant avoidance of it might by now have been sufficiently emphasised. But no matter how stiffly you deal with it, the co-existence of Big and Little Folks in Bree is unity in difference, whereas Hobbits living in both Bree and the Shire is difference in unity, and Tolkien emphasises this alot, with both groups calling each other outsiders and so on.
In this field of slightly confusing polarities the party steers from one extreme to the other and it is actually quite interesting to observe the change of mind that takes hold of the four Hobbits.
It ends of course in catastrophe, with (almost) everybody shunning Frodo, Pippin and Sam as the truly alien ones around, but plotwise that is convenient enough, giving Strider the chance to prove his trustworthiness.
Eingetragen Am/um
11:19
