Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

So begins The Lord of the Rings, “Nine [Rings] for Mortal Men doomed to die.”

In years long ago, some suggested that Power or Domination was the central theme of The Lord of the Rings. In an April 1956 letter, Tolkien wrote in answer to that very suggestion, “I do not think that…Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly ‘a setting’ for characters to show themselves” (Letter 186).

Yes, it is “a theme” but not “the theme.” According to Tolkien himself, power is a theme that necessarily provides the setting in which Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, et al. may reveal themselves.

But if Power is not the central theme of Tolkien’s epic work, what is? Tolkien answers that question for us in the very next sentence of the same letter:

“The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult [than Power or Domination]: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete” (Letter 186).

Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die

So begins The Lord of the Rings, “Nine [Rings] for Mortal Men doomed to die.”

In years long ago, some suggested that Power or Domination was the central theme of The Lord of the Rings. In an April 1956 letter, Tolkien wrote in answer to that very suggestion, “I do not think that…Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly ‘a setting’ for characters to show themselves” (Letter 186).

Yes, it is “a theme” but not “the theme.” According to Tolkien himself, power is a theme that necessarily provides the setting in which Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, et al. may reveal themselves.

But if Power is not the central theme of Tolkien’s epic work, what is? Tolkien answers that question for us in the very next sentence of the same letter:

“The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult [than Power or Domination]: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete” (Letter 186).

The Lord of the Rings’ real theme is Death and Immortality. Did you notice the word “doomed” in the paragraph above? It’s used twice. The first is with reference to Men: “the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race ‘doomed‘ to leave and seemingly lose it.” The second is with reference to Elves: “the anguish in the hearts of a race ‘doomed‘ not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.” The doom for Men is to die and leave the world (mortality); and the doom for Elves is not to leave it (immortality). According to Tolkien, the contrast between the death of Men and the immortality of Elves is the organizing theme of his masterpiece.

In LotR, it’s important to understand that immortality does not mean eternal. In Tolkien’s mythology, to be immortal means that you are confined to the long passage of time within Arda Marred. To be immortal means you cannot be released from the weariness of Time until history has run its entire course. As an immortal race, Elves must wait through the long, ever passing centuries of history as all other races around them die and depart Middle-earth. Elves, then, are concerned not with death but with the griefs and burdens that accompany deathlessness over thousands of years (Letter 131). Therefore, when Elves reflect upon the fact that Men die, they consider death to be a gift—the gift of being released from the weariness and ever-increasing burden of time. And so when they consider the gift of Men—to die and be released from unending weariness—they are brought to grief and envy.

In her book Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty, Lisa Coutras helpfully describes this central contrast between Men and Elves:

“While Elves are immortal and essentially ‘unfallen’ in the flesh, they are bound to a world of decay, death, and sorrow. Men, on the other hand, are mortal and fallen, subject to frailty, old age, and a brief life span. By setting these two races in contrast to one another, Tolkien searches out the complexities and sorrows of the human condition” (Coutras, 70).

To read LotR is to be confronted with death and its accompanying sorrows, even if not explicitly. From the Dead Marshes, to the Oathbreakers, to the Barrow-downs, to the Dark Riders, death casts its shadows on LotR’s pages.

In his book J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality and Religion, Richard Purtill provides helpful insight into understanding Death and Immorality as the overarching theme of LotR:

“This statement by the author of the story must be taken seriously, but it is surprising, and at first we are inclined to resist accepting it. Very few of the characters die in the story. There is little talk of death or immorality, and there is certainly no description of or reflection on a life after death. Once we start thinking along these lines, however, we can see that there is perhaps more emphasis on death than we thought at first: the Barrow-wights, the Dead Aragorn leads from the Paths of the Dead, the dead Elves and Men Frodo and Sam see in the Dead Marsches, and even the Black Riders are all reminders of death. Boromir, Denethor, Théoden, and Gollum all die in scenes important to the plot; Gandalf and Frodo both seem to have died at key points in the action. Furthermore, some of the important images in the story could be taken as death images: the blasted land of Mordor, the destruction of the Ring, the passage over the Western Sea.

“About immortality, however, Tolkien at first seems to have almost nothing to say. …But we should be aware by now that Tolkien is a writer who achieves many of his most important effects by indirection, and what is most important to him is often not stated but underlies the whole story. As he says of religion, ‘the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism’” (175, 176).

Real World Shadows

Given LotR’s theme of Death and Immortality, it would be surprising if Tolkien wasn’t in some small measure influenced by his experience of death’s shadows in the Real World. By 1918, Tolkien had lost all of his close friends but one to the horrors of the Great War. Even before the war, Tolkien was well acquainted with death, having lost both of his parents. In his most formative years, death was the darkest of shadows.

In a letter to his son Christopher during World War II, Tolkien wrote:

“A small knowledge of history depresses one with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human iniquity: old, old, dreary, endless repetitive unchanging incurable wickedness. All towns, all villages, all habitations of men — sinks! And at the same time one knows that there is always good: much more hidden, much less clearly discerned, seldom breaking out into recognizable, visible, beauties of word or deed” (Letter 69).

Tolkien is describing our world, but he may as well be describing “the long defeat” of Middle-earth. (As we will see a little later, this hiddenness of good and beauty in LotR can be seen when the importance of the date Tolkien chose for the destruction of the Ring is considered.) In another letter to Christopher, Tolkien once again describes our world in a way that could easily be taken as a description of life in Middle-earth:

“I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days – quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens!” (Letter 64).

If the real theme of LotR is Death and Immortality, both of which are defined in terms their respective relationships to the fallenness of Arda Marred, Middle-earth is certainly the place where “Tolkien searches out the complexities and sorrows of the human condition” (Coutras). Yet Tolkien does not search these things out without providing glimpses of good and hope.

We get such a wonderful glimpse as Frodo and Sam make their way through the appalling desolation of Mordor. When it seemed as though all hope was lost, hidden beauty breaks through for Sam in this wonderful scene:

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, and he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach…Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep” (RotK, 199).

In Tolkien’s mythology, good and high beauty are always there, they are just hidden from sight, “enveloped in a dense dark vapor.” That’s why scenes like the one above evoke such wonder and delight in us. When we arrive with Frodo and Sam in the desolation of Mordor, we feel depressed with a sense of the everlasting mass and weight of Sauron’s evil. We find ourselves longing for some sense of hope, some inkling that there is good in this world after all. And with the simple twinkling of a white star, we are pierced with a profound and hope-giving thought: there is a light and high beauty for ever beyond the dense dark vapor’s reach.

“Yes,” someone might say, “but that’s Tolkien’s mythological world. I just can’t see how that can also be true in our world where history often depresses us with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human evil.” For those of us who think this way (or at least are sometimes tempted to feel this way), Tolkien has provided us with his own redemptive signature within LotR’s pages.

In The Return of the King, we have this beautiful and climactic conversation between Sam and Gandalf after the destruction of the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

“‘Noon? Said Sam, trying to calculate. ‘Noon of what day?’

‘The fourteenth of the New Year,’ said Gandalf; ‘or if you like, the eighth day of April in the Shire reckoning. But in Gondor the New Year will always now begin upon the twenty-fifth of March when Sauron fell, and when you were brought out of the fire to the King. He has tended you, and now he awaits you. You shall eat and drink with him. When you are ready I will lead you to him’” (230).

On the significance of Tolkien’s words above, Tom Shippey writes in his book J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century:

“No one any longer celebrates the twenty-fifth of March, and Tolkien’s point is accordingly missed, as I think he intended. He inserted it only as a kind of signature, a personal mark of piety. However, as he knew perfectly well, in old English tradition, 25th March is the date of the Crucifixion, of the first Good Friday. As Good Friday is celebrated on a different day each year, Easter being a mobile date defined by the phases of the moon, the connection has been lost, except for one thing. In Gondor the New Year will always begin on 25th March…One might note in the Calendar of dates which Tolkien so carefully wrote out in Appendix B, December 25th is the day on which the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell. The main action of The Lord of the Rings takes place, then, in the mythic space between Christmas, Christ’s brith, and the crucifixion, Christ’s death” (208, 209).

Before the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, Christians assigned the crucifixion to 25 March, which was also the first day of each new year. One date with a two-fold significance. For Christians, it was the date that death was dealt a mortal wound. For everyone, it was also the beginning of a new year. With death came a new beginning.

As you read this article, the Coronavirus is likely still casting its dark shadow over our world. People are living in fear. What people desire is to see a white star twinkle through a pin-hole in “the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains.” And we want the beauty of that twinkling star to smite our hearts as we look up out of a world that has been smitten by the Coronavirus. We want hope returned to us. Like a shaft, clear and cold, we want to be pierced by the thought that in the end this current dark shadow is only a small and passing thing. We desire to be assured that there is a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

So why did Tolkien choose the 25th of March to be both the day the Ring was destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom and the beginning of the Gondorian New Year? Well, as far as I’m aware, he never tells us. But here’s my best educated guess. Tolkien chose a date that for over a millennia had real world significance. In the Christian tradition, it is the day that death died; and the day that life and hope bursted forth into a world marked by death and its many sorrows. If we are able to see as Tolkien saw, maybe, just maybe, we will realized that there is indeed light and high beauty for ever beyond Shadow’s reach.