The Lord of the Rings touches on universal themes that continue to surface in literature, film, art, music and every medium that has been used to tell stories since civilisation began. Here are just a few...
Good vs Evil
In The Lord of the Rings, the simple, kindly goodness of the Hobbits is threatened by the power-hungry cruelty of the dark forces. There is no room for confusion here - the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. Only Gollum, the deranged Hobbit, exists somewhere between the two realms - he is capable of goodness, but the Ring has corrupted him. He is like Judas in the Bible or Tony Soprano. He struggles with his demons.
Mythology
Myths grow from specific cultures, but they relate to all societies. Adam and Eve come from a different cultural source than Prometheus, but both stories warn of the risk of men trying to be like gods. (The Greek Prometheus is punished by the gods for creating fire, Adam and Eve are punished by God for eating from the Tree of Knowledge). In the Dark Lord Sauron, Tolkien returns to this universal mythological theme.
Dystopia
Authors sometimes create visions of worlds worse than our own to show us where we are heading if we don't change our ways. These worlds are known as dystopias. Tolkien's dystopia is the land of Mordor. Other famous dystopian worlds are described in George Orwell's book 1984, Ridley Scott's film Bladerunner and Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later.
Pastoral/Utopia
A pastoral story depicts an apparently simple, natural or ideal way of life, and contrasts it with our complex, anxious world of today. A utopia is an ideal world. Tolkien's Shire, where the Hobbits live, is a pastoral utopia. Sometimes filmmakers and authors write about the past as though it was utopian. Films that depict nostalgic or pastoral utopias are Cinema Paradiso and Straight Story.
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