How Cultural Barriers are Overcome in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring by Christopher Boa
At the onset of the 1920s in England, a freshly graduated English Literature major, J. R. R. Tolkien, had just served four years and a day fighting in the deadliest war of his time, a consequence of the volatile borders and geopolitical alliances of early 20th century Europe. There is little doubt that Tolkien’s passion for philology, his fascination with different cultures, and his experiences witnessing the sheer atrocities spawned by diplomatic conflicts had an impact on the narrative of his eventual literary masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. Through his elaborate construction of the geopolitics, legends, and languages of several mythological peoples in The Fellowship of the Ring, the author demonstrates how xenophobia is embedded within one’s learned culture and how the very differences that divide humanity are also the key to mutual understanding.