Negating and Affirming Spirit through Language: The Integration of Character, Magic, and Story in The Lord of the Rings

Authors

Alan McComas

Abstract

Focuses on Tolkien’s narrative treatment in The Lord of the Rings and the “Ring as an emergent symbol of language itself.” Notes that through Tolkien’s “characterization of protagonists and antagonists, his use of sub-texts and ‘sub-authors,’ Tolkien demonstrates the ways in which magic and language are bound up with one another.”