One metaphor to rule them all? ‘Objects’ as tests of character in The Lord of the Rings

Language and Literature22(1) 77 –94

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One metaphor to rule them all? ‘Objects’ as tests of character in The Lord of the Rings

Karen SullivanUniversity of Queensland, Australia

AbstractThis quantitative and qualitative study argues that the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings (LotR) is based on a metaphoric blend, which is echoed in related metaphors for power throughout the trilogy. Particular metaphors may be repeated in a literary work to achieve a stylistic effect (Ben-Porat, 1992; Crisp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2007; Werth, 1994). This article suggests that the One Ring, and other powers conceptualized as objects, repeatedly test the mettle and morality of characters throughout the LotR trilogy. The current study examines the One Ring as a metaphoric blend (in the sense of Fauconnier, 1997) based on the Object Event-Structure (OES) metaphor, in which abstract goals are conceptualized as physical objects (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), and compares the structure of this blend with all other OES metaphors for power throughout LotR. The study finds that just as good characters are ‘weighed down’ by the Ring, they feel ‘burdened’ by other forms of power and authority, whereas evil characters do not feel that power is a ‘burden’. Similarly, the manner in which the Ring is acquired is indicative of character quality, a trend shared by other metaphors for power and authority. Finally, the Ring is a non-living object; and throughout the trilogy, other metaphoric ‘objects’ are found to be more likely to be evil, whereas plants and growing things are more likely to map metaphorically onto the forces of good.

KeywordsBlending theory, cognitive poetics, cognitive stylistics, conceptual integration, mental spaces, metaphor, Tolkien

1 Introduction

Sauron’s ‘arm has grown long’, the wizard Gandalf warns in The Fellowship of the Ring (FotR: 377), a message repeated throughout The Lord of the Rings (LotR) trilogy by JRR

Corresponding author:Karen Sullivan, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected]

462949 LAL22110.1177/0963947012462949Language and LiteratureSullivan2012

Article

78 Language and Literature 22(1)

Tolkien. Metaphorically, Sauron is reaching over Middle-earth, meddling and influenc-ing, and trying to grasp the all-powerful One Ring. Frodo, on the other hand, possesses the Ring but feels weighed down by the responsibility of bearing it: ‘It’s heavy on me, Sam lad, very heavy’, he says in The Two Towers (TT: 399),1 a description repeated with increasing persistence as Frodo and Sam approach Mount Doom, where they hope to destroy the Ring. Both the reach of Sauron (metaphorically, his influence), and the weight of the Ring (the responsibility associated with it) can be ascribed to mappings in the Object Event-Structure (OES) metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999).

The current study investigates Tolkien’s employment of the OES metaphor through-out the LotR trilogy by considering all instances of OES metaphors for power, leadership roles and abilities, plus selected other metaphors in the three LotR books. The OES, though most evident in the One Ring, also consistently describes other sources of power and influence, such as kingship, command, and fighting prowess. Throughout the trilogy, Tolkien appears to characterize good and evil by the use of particular mappings in the OES to make a statement about power, corruption and morality. For example, Frodo’s complaint mentioned earlier is characteristic of OES in LotR in that the Ring, like other forms of power in LotR, is only a burden to the characters with a conscience. Gandalf’s warning about Sauron is typical in that evil characters tend to ‘reach out’ for power, attempting to steal it or take it by force, as does the arm of Sauron.

The study also considers other metaphors with object-related source domains, including image metaphors, The Mind is a Machine, The Body is a Machine, and Location Event-Structure metaphors, which map the force of natural phenomena (such as storms and tides) onto animate entities, such as individuals and armies. The study finds that evil forces are more likely to be represented as non-living objects, whereas the powers of good are more often conceptualized as plants. I argue that these meta-phors complement the distinctions in the OES insofar as inanimate, artificial objects are most likely to be stolen or snatched, whereas living objects, particularly plants, are more likely to be obtained by peaceful means (such as cultivation in a garden). Tolkien’s tendency to represent good individuals and groups as plants reinforces the theme observed in the OES, in that evil powers are represented as objects to be seized – or reluctantly borne as a burden by good characters – while good powers are more often represented as plants that can be cultivated or grown. This consistency in Tolkien’s metaphors adds to the strength and unity of the representation of good and evil attitudes to power in the LotR trilogy.

2 Definitions of extended metaphor in literature

The recurrent use of a given metaphor has been identified as one of the literary tech-niques available to authors (Ben-Porat, 1992; Crisp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2007; Werth, 1994). Repeated use of a metaphor is demonstrably effective. Even in simple paragraph-long narratives, consistent use of the same metaphor facilitates comprehension and speeds processing (Gibbs et al., 1997; Valenzuela and Soriano, 2007). Given the effec-tiveness of repeating a metaphor in even a short passage, it is unsurprising that profes-sional writers should draw on this resource as a means of unifying and reinforcing the themes of entire works.

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In fact, recurrent instances of metaphoric language have been singled out as one of the characteristics specifically of literary metaphor, including lengthy passages of source- or target-domain language (Ben-Porat, 1992; Crisp et al., 2002); extended stretches of source-domain language that lack reference to a target domain (termed ‘allegory’ in Sullivan, 2007); or recurrent use of a metaphor throughout a text, even if lengthy meta-phoric passages are absent (Werth, 1994). The ‘extended metaphors’ of Crisp et al. (2002: 64) are the most precisely defined, consisting of metaphoric language continued from one ‘T-unit’, or ‘semi-independent clause’ (2002: 57), to another. T-units may be ‘main clauses, matrix clauses plus their embedded clauses, non-restrictive relative clauses and most adverbial clauses’ (Crisp et al., 2002: 56). T-units will be the items counted and considered in the current study.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy lacks long stretches of metaphoric language. The longest passages of sequential T-units, all instantiating the same metaphor, consist of only four T-units, as in Elrond’s description of the Ring as a ‘burden’ that he will not ‘lay on’ Frodo against his will (FotR: 354–55). Longer sequences containing multiple metaphors can be found, such as in the string of image metaphors describing Glorfindel and Elrond in their first appearance (FotR: 299), or Sam’s heartfelt description of Galadriel (TT: 365). However, these passages consist of strings of different image metaphors, one after the other. Tolkien does not dwell on a single metaphor for an extended stretch of text.

In fact, Tolkien repeatedly insisted that LotR was not intended as an allegorical work. In the foreword to LotR (FotR: 11) he claims that the work is ‘neither allegorical nor topi-cal’; and in his letters he says ‘Such allegory is entirely foreign to my thought’ (Carpenter, 1981: 307). This attitude is consistent with the lack of either long metaphorical passages or a metaphoric interpretation of the work as a whole.

Though LotR may not be allegorical nor contain lengthy metaphoric passages, it does return repeatedly to a few metaphors salient to the major themes of the trilogy. As such, this study will focus on ‘extended metaphor’ as defined by Werth (1994: 88ff), rather than the narrower definition introduced by Crisp et al. (2002). Werth defines ‘extended metaphor’ as ‘an entire metaphorical “undercurrent” running through a whole text, which may manifest itself in a large number and variety of “single” metaphors’ (Werth, 1994: 80). That is, a specific conceptual metaphor or metaphors repeats throughout a literary text without necessarily occurring in any single sequence of T-units or rendering the work allegorical.

It is often the case that literary works are dedicated in whole or in part to the explo-ration of a particular metaphor, or testing a set of metaphors for a given source domain. For example, Sweetser and Sullivan (in press) describe how the tomorrow and tomor-row speech in Macbeth tests a series of metaphors for Life, drawing out negative infer-ences from each, and ultimately presenting Life as a hopeless cause regardless of the source domain via which it is understood. On a larger scale, Wallhead (2003) explores how AS Byatt takes conventional metaphors for the Self, and then builds on these in creative ways in The Biographer’s Tale; and Simon-Vandenbergen (1993) tracks meta-phors related to speech and music throughout George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. All these studies explore how the repeated use of particular metaphor ties in with the themes of a work.


The dominant recurrent metaphor in LotR is a variant of the OES particular to the tril-ogy, in which power is conceptualized as an object. This metaphor is most apparent in the One Ring: to possess the Ring is to be powerful, to lose it is to lose power, and to seek it is to seek power. The One Ring establishes a necessary connection between an object and an abstraction (i.e. power). The Ring itself involves a special blend, in that it can be liter-ally worn, given and treated as an object. Other powers, such as leadership roles or abili-ties, are less obviously ‘objects’. Nevertheless it will be argued that characters’ treatment of these ‘objects’, like their reactions to the Ring itself, reveal their true natures accord-ing to Tolkien’s theory of morality and power, as encoded in OES metaphors throughout the trilogy.

3 Methodology

This study applies the tools of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to 611 instances of meta-phoric language in LotR. These include every instance of the OES (n = 346) in which power is conceptualized as a physical object. The study also includes metaphors by which individuals and groups are compared to objects, machines, plants, animals and natural phenomena (n = 265). Other metaphors are not examined.

Because the study has focused on a limited range of target domains and source domains, metaphor identification has been greatly simplified. For example, the narrow focus excludes most examples that could be attributed to metonymy or other non-metaphoric processes, which otherwise pose a recurrent problem in metaphor analysis (Heywood et al., 2002: 38–41; Pragglejaz Group, 2007). The only complicated case is that of supernatural objects such as the Ring itself. The Ring is a physical object that can be literally stolen, given, and so on, but at the same time represents power, which can only metaphorically be taken or given. As such, the Ring clearly is not a simple unidirec-tional metaphor, and involves a metaphoric blend unique to LotR, discussed and illus-trated in Section 4.

Metaphor identification has focused on metaphoric ‘T-units’, or ‘linguistic units of discourse’ (Crisp et al., 2002: 58) rather than on individual metaphorically used words (see Pragglejaz Group, 2007). That is, in ‘So long has the reach of our enemy become!’ (RotK: 161) both long and reach could be judged as metaphorical words. Similarly, ‘his arm has grown long’ (FotR: 377) could be deemed to contain three metaphoric words, arm, grown and long.) In this study, however, all the foregoing phrases, in their entirety, are each counted as one T-unit. On the other hand, ‘… victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. But his arm was long’ (RotK: 139) was counted as three metaphoric T-units (the two clauses in the first sentence, plus the second sentence).

The distinction between metaphoric words and T-units, including the complexity of these metaphors and the frequency of combinations of metaphors, can be a crucial aspect of an author’s style (Heywood et al., 2002). This distinction was considered less relevant in the current study, given its focus on one trilogy, which was not compared with other authors’ works or texts, and considering that a limited range of metaphors were exam-ined. As such, T-units were deemed most appropriate to the study’s aims, and smaller linguistic units were not considered.

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On the conceptual side, metaphoric T-units were analysed based on the metaphoric mappings they involved. For example, his arm has grown long involves Control is Reach in the OES. The length of one’s reach, facilitating the acquisition of objects, maps to the degree to which one has control over events, enabling the achievement of one’s goals. Some metaphoric language evokes other mappings in the OES. When Glorfindel sug-gests that the failing of the three elven rings is acceptable to the Elves ‘if by it the power of Sauron may be broken, and the fear of his dominion taken away for ever’ (FotR: 352), the first T-unit maps the destruction of another’s possession onto the ending of another’s goal state (here, Sauron’s world domination) via Attributes are Possessions. The second instead maps the removal of an unwanted possession onto the cessation of an unwanted state (living in fear).

In examples such as the one just mentioned, mappings are identified in three steps. First, the relevant source-domain language is observed (broken in the power of Sauron may be broken). Next, a relevant underlying conceptual metaphor is identified (here, the OES). Because of the limited scope of the current study, these consisted of a limited set of metaphors well recognized in the literature. Finally, a search for counterparts of the source-domain vocabulary in the target domain is undertaken (here, Ending an Attribute for Destroying a Possession).

Following the identification of linguistic and conceptual metaphors, metaphoric T-units were categorized on the basis of the moral alignment of the forces or individuals in the target domain. In OES, these forces correspond to the agent in the source domain that owns or seeks an object, which maps onto the agent in the target domain that con-trols a power or wants to achieve a goal. Characters and powers in LotR were sorted into three classes of moral alignment proposed by Perkins and Hill (1975); the ‘corrupted’ such as Sauron (1975: 62), here referred to as ‘evil’; those who have ‘withdrawn from the world’ such as Bombadil (1975: 64), which I term ‘neutral’; and those with the stature of ‘hero’ such as Frodo (1975: 69), which I will call ‘good’. The other categories of charac-ters discussed by Perkins and Hill – ‘Great Ones’ such as Gandalf and Saruman (1975: 66), and ‘men of Gondor’ such as Boromir and Faramir (1975: 69), are divided between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ status. For example, Gandalf and Faramir are considered ‘good’, whereas Saruman and Boromir are ‘good’ until Saruman allies himself with Sauron, and until Boromir begins craving the Ring, at which point it seems fairly uncontroversial to say that they have fallen to evil. After this point, metaphoric descriptions of these char-acters’ behaviour is classified as ‘evil’ rather than ‘good’. Forces that have ‘withdrawn from the world’ play little role in the world’s power struggles, and few relevant examples of metaphors for ‘neutral’ powers were found (n = 16). Given the small number of instances of these metaphors, the current analyses focus on good and evil powers.

4 The Ring as a metaphoric blend

Throughout LotR, the One Ring tests characters’ true nature. Some apparent heroes of the story, such as Boromir, are corrupted by the Ring; whereas Boromir’s brother Faramir remains incorruptible and thereby can ‘prove his quality’ (TT: 367). Any comparison of good and evil characters in LotR, and the metaphors describing them, must begin with the Ring itself. The Ring is both an object and an incarnation of power. Since ordinary


physical rings are not powerful, the One Ring involves a metaphoric blend of the type discussed in Blending Theory (BT. See Fauconnier, 1997; Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). This blend is based on the OES metaphor, which conceptualizes abstract properties, such as powers, as physical objects.

Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 196) attribute the mappings shown in Figure 1 to the OES metaphor. Note that all metaphors in this article are represented in BT rather than in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) format as in Lakoff and Johnson (1999). CMT includes only the two spaces labelled ‘Input Space 1’ and ‘Input Space 2’ in Figure 1, which in CMT are the target and source domains of a metaphor. BT representations also involve (minimally) the Blended Space in Figure 1. Simple instances of the OES, as in Figure 1, can be equally well represented in either BT or CMT. However, more complex metaphoric blends, such as that underlying the One Ring (Figure 3), cannot be fully rep-resented in CMT. For this reason BT is employed throughout.

The Object Event-Structure blend is theorized to underlie expressions such as the following:

They just handed him the job. Fame and fortune were within my grasp, but once again they eluded me … He almost got his hands on the Johnson ranch, but it slipped through his fingers. She is pursuing an impossible dream. He has interesting pursuits. Latch onto a good job. Seize the opportunity. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999: 197)

Clearly, Tolkien puts his own stamp on the conventional OES metaphor. Tolkien’s most frequent version of this metaphor is more specific, in that its target input tends to involve ‘Power’ rather than a more general ‘Attribute’. This Power is not necessarily desired, in the manner of a Purpose, but is necessarily attributed to some ‘possessor’ who may or

Figure 1. The Object Event-Structure Metaphor.

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may not wish to be powerful. As we will see, the desire for power in LotR is a sign of moral corruption.

The new specificity of the target input as Power leads to additional mappings, as shown in Figure 2.

In LotR, the responsibility of power is conceptualized as the weight of an object. Ultimately, this correspondence underlies Frodo’s physical suffering as he bears the Ring, and his increasingly frequent complaints such as ‘It’s heavy on me’ (TT: 399). Frodo experiences physical weight because he feels a moral obli-gation to resist the Ring’s power. If he were to decide to use the Ring for his own personal gain, presumably the weight would disappear along with his sense of responsibility.

Figure 2. ‘Power’ subcase of the Object Event-Structure Metaphor.


Indeed, throughout LotR, only characters with a sense of responsibility in the use of Power feel the weight of the Ring. This inference is projected from the Power input to the blended space in Figure 2. In LotR, the responsible use of power is a defining trait of morally good characters, as discussed in the next section. However, the Ring brings both physical weight and a sense of responsibility to its uncorrupted bearers. Additionally, the Ring is little, ‘so small a thing’, according to Boromir (FotR: 514). How can a tiny object be physically heavy? The Ring must be considered to involve a more complex blended structure than other ‘objects’ of power in LotR, and the representation in Figure 2 must be refined to represent the Ring itself.

In the light of the blend in Figure 2, a ring is a counterintuitive choice for an object of power. It lacks the weight of the heavy things that typically represent emotional ‘burdens’

Figure 3. Blend representing Power as a Ring.

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outside of LotR, such as boulders, stones, anvils, and so on. However, within the Nordic tradition that inspired aspects of Tolkien’s work (Bowman, 2010), rings have a frame-based connection to the concept of power, in that chieftains would wear rings, and bestow these on their followers. For this reason men of power were often called ‘ring-givers’ or similar kennings, alluding to their role as the bestowers of gold rings (Jónsson, 1985). Based on these traditions, a ring connotes value and status, and can be considered an ideal prototype of a valuable possession, facilitating its choice as a representative of the category Object (a process illustrated in Sullivan and Sweetser, 2009). This allows the value, as well as additional properties of a ring, to be projected, as shown in Figure 3 – boldfaced elements have values that project from only one space.

Tolkien appears to have constructed this blend on his own. The concept of a ring that grants world domination appears in the Nibelungenlied, and hence in Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, but Tolkien denies a resemblance between his One Ring and ‘der Nibelungen Ring’, claiming ‘Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases’ (Carpenter, 1981: 306).

In most respects, the blend underlying the Ring is merely a special case of the OES. Power is a special case of a Purpose (as in Figure 2), and a ring is a special case of an object. However, the blend representing Power as a Ring is more complicated than the simple representation of Power as an Object (Figure 2). The Power as Ring blend is no longer a unidirectional metaphor, because the Ring has a physical presence, such as its appearance, weight, as well as other properties not literally attributable to abstract power. These qualities are projected from Input Space 1, as shown in Figure 3. Crucially, the light weight of an ordinary ring is not projected. Rather, the Ring has a physical weight, courtesy of Input 1, but the value of this weight is felt as unusually heavy by many char-acters. This heavy value is projected from Input 2 and represents the responsibility asso-ciated with bearing the Ring.

5 The burden of responsibility

In the entire LotR trilogy, not one evil character finds power to be a ‘burden’, to be ‘heavy’ or a ‘weight’. In contrast, the trilogy contains 51 instances of good characters feeling burdened by power.

The Ring is the ‘burden’ of power and responsibility most central to the LotR story. Descriptions of the Ring’s ‘weight’ either indicate a psychological ‘weight’ (as in Figure 2) or a ‘weight’ with a physical component (as in Figure 3). The first mention of the Ring’s weight occurs when Frodo reasons that the ring Bombadil returns to him is ‘the same Ring’, ‘for that Ring had always seemed to Frodo to weigh strangely heavy in his hand’ (FotR: 185). Already the Ring seems to have a physical weight that can be felt in the hand. Most references to the Ring’s weight focus on the psychological aspect of its weight, as when Elrond calls it ‘a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another’, statements which could refer exclusively to the responsibility associated with the Ring, as in Figure 2, and not the additional physical weight indicated in Figure 3 (FotR: 354–355).

The physical as well as psychological ‘weight’ of the Ring, for Frodo and other good characters, becomes increasingly clear as the trilogy progresses. FotR contains


only one unambiguous instance of the blend shown in Figure 3. When Frodo looks into the Mirror of Galadriel, ‘The Ring that hung upon its chain about his neck grew heavy, heavier than a great stone, and his head was dragged downwards’ (FotR: 471). The Ring becomes an increasingly physical burden as Frodo approaches Mordor. This is made clear near the end of TT, when Frodo ‘felt the Ring on its chain about his neck grow more burdensome. He was now beginning to feel it as an actual weight dragging him earthwards’ (TT: 300). Presumably, an ‘actual weight’ has a physical component, as shown in Figure 3, in addition to the psychological component indicated in both Figure 2 and Figure 3.

It seems that the characters of LotR, at least, believe in the physical weight of the Ring. Frodo frequently suffers physical effects from bearing the Ring, such as when the Eye of Mordor seeks him: (FotR: 471). Sam, too, believes in the Ring’s physical weight, which he senses when he thinks that Frodo is dead and temporarily takes up the Ring: ‘And then he bent his own neck and put the chain upon it, and at once his head was bowed to the ground with the weight of the Ring, as if a great stone had been strung on him’ (TT: 434). Sam also removes physical encumbrances from Frodo to help offset the ‘burden’ of the Ring, demonstrating his belief that the Ring inflicts a physical strain (RotK: 263). Sam, unable to help Frodo with the psychological burden of the Ring, can only help offset the physical portion of its weight.

However, the weight of the Ring is never merely physical. Without the blend in Figure 3 and the projection of ‘Responsibility (Great)’ to the blended space, there is no reason for a small ring to be heavy. The weight of the Ring depends on this structure in Input 2 of Figure 3. This dependence is apparent in the physics of the Ring, and in the reactions of characters both good and evil who lack a sense of Responsibility (Great), such as Gollum and Tom Bombadil.

Since the Ring is only ‘heavy’ in the blended space, it lacks some of the properties of objects that are literally heavy. For example, it does not participate in the normal physics of weight, such as the additive nature of multiple weights. These exist only in Input 1 (Figure 3) and are not projected to the blend. When Sam lifts Frodo, who is carrying the Ring, Sam ‘expected to share in the dreadful dragging weight of the accursed Ring. But it was not so’ (RotK: 268). Frodo retains responsibility for the Ring, and this responsibil-ity is not passed on to Sam via the physical action of carrying, so Sam feels no more than the weight of Frodo’s body and the normal insignificant weight of a ring.

Characters who, for various reasons, lack a sense of responsibility, also do not feel the extra ‘weight’ of the Ring as projected from Input 2. Even Gollum, warped and psychologically shattered by the Ring, never seems to have found it a ‘burden’ in all the years in which he bore it. Though the Ring caused him great suffering and he both ‘hated it and loved it’ (FotR: 87), it was not heavy. The Power as Ring blend (Figure 3) suggests that this is because Gollum felt no responsibility towards others in the use or ownership of the Ring.

Tom Bombadil, though not evil, feels no responsibility and so is not encumbered by the Ring, spinning it in the air like a toy and ‘seeming to make … light of’ it (FotR: 185). On the other hand, Tom differs from the evil characters in that he makes no attempt to keep the ring. The target-domain interpretation of Tom’s reaction to the Ring seems clear: responsibility (weight) comes only with power (here, the Ring). There is no evil in

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refusing both power and responsibility. To Bombadil, power, even the ownership of the land on which he lives, ‘would indeed be a burden’, Goldberry recounts (FotR: 174). Tom therefore subscribes to the same version of the OES metaphor as the ‘good’ charac-ters in LotR, in that he conceptualizes power as a burden. Unlike them, however, Tom rejects this burden and the weight that accompanies it.

Power as a Ring (Figure 3) predicts that neither Gollum nor Tom Bombadil will feel the ‘weight’ of the Ring, since neither character feels a responsibility to society. Without this element in the Input 2, only the normal inconsequential weight of a ring is projected to the blended space from Input 1. This is similar to the case of Sam carrying Frodo, though here Sam’s lack of responsibility is more transitory. Instead of generally lacking an obligation to use the Ring responsibly, Sam is spared this responsibility because he is not currently the Ring-bearer. Only someone with responsibility for the Ring feels its psychological and physical weight.

When honourable characters in LotR feel ‘burdened’ by powers other than the Ring, the burden is only psychological, not physical, as in the simpler blend in Figure 2. The latter blend pervades LotR alongside Power as a Ring (Figure 3), complementing and reinforcing the inferences about power and responsibility generated by Power as a Ring. For instance, Gandalf describes the leadership of the coming Age as a ‘burden’, telling Aragorn, ‘The burden must lie now upon you and your kindred’ (RotK: 308). Seemingly smaller tasks, such as Aragorn’s guardianship of Frodo, may also be weighty; in this case, ‘the burden of Gandalf had been laid on him’ to guard Frodo (FotR: 477). Decisions are especially ‘weighty’ for Tolkien’s good characters, such as when ‘the burden is laid on’ Frodo to decide whether to break the Fellowship, and he remarks that ‘the burden is heavy’ (FotR: 512–513); or when Faramir recounts his recent actions and decisions to his father King Denethor, saying, ‘I wish I had known your counsel before the burden of so weighty a judgement was thrust on me’ (RotK: 103–104). In these cases, however, there is no indication that responsibility is felt as a physical weight; it is a purely psychological one, as in Figure 2.

Neither does a sense of responsibility increase the weight of other physical burdens in the way that it does the weight of the Ring. Responsible characters are not more bothered by physical encumbrances than evil or irresponsible ones. Throughout the trilogy, all the Fellowship wear heavy packs, weapons and armour, but these do not feature much in the story nor appear to irritate good characters more than evil ones. In fact, Gimli the Dwarf (at every stage an honourable and responsible character) brags about his own carrying power, saying that when men may falter, ‘a Dwarf goes on, be the burden twice his own weight’ (FotR: 506). Only the Ring itself ‘weighs’ both physically and psychically on responsible characters. Otherwise, physical burdens have only a physical weight and responsibilities have only a psychological ‘weight’.

6 Gardeners and thieves

The ‘weight’ of power is not the only mapping in the OES that varies depending on the characters involved. The manner in which a Power/Object is ‘acquired’ is equally varia-ble, though this distinction is tied less to a sense of responsibility and more directly to the characters’ ethical stance. In Tolkien’s version of the OES metaphor, evil characters and


forces tend to ‘seize’ power by force, or ‘steal’ it by trickery (13 of 17 instances of these metaphoric mappings involved evil powers); whereas good characters tend to become powerful via ‘gifts’, ‘inheriting’ or even ‘cultivating’ power as one would a garden (15 of 21 examples involved good powers).

The importance of the means by which power is ‘acquired’ is, as in most cases of the OES in LotR, most evident in the Ring. Every potential or actual Ring-bearer is peculiarly obsessed with the manner in which the Ring is obtained or lost. Gollum, for instance, murders his companion in order to steal the Ring, and yet he ‘called the Ring his “birthday present”, and he stuck to that’, as Gandalf relates (FotR: 89). When Bilbo finds the Ring on the ground – a relatively neutral manner of acquisition – Bilbo claims it was a ‘present’ (FotR: 34–35), a more elevated means of acquisition than the reality, and Gollum considers Bilbo a ‘thief’ (FotR: 327), a less legitimate means of acquisition.

Frodo, it might be argued, is judged the most appropriate Ring-bearer at the Council of Elrond in part because he has inherited the Ring from Bilbo. Despite the legitimacy of this acquisition, Frodo later becomes defensive of the Ring, in the manner of the other Ring-bearers. At the end of TT, Sam reluctantly takes the Ring from Frodo’s unconscious body, believing Frodo to be dead. When Sam then offers the Ring back to Frodo, he cries out, ‘snatching the Ring and chain from Sam’s hands’ and calling him a ‘thief’ (RotK: 230).

These delusions stretch back to Isildur, the first Ring-bearer, who takes the Ring by force from Sauron. Isildur legitimizes this acquisition by calling the Ring ‘weregild’ for his father and brother, who died at Sauron’s hand (FotR: 320) and says that the Ring is ‘precious to me, though I buy it with great pain’ (FotR: 332). Isildur describes the Ring as a purchase or a compensatory payment for past wrongs, though he gave nothing in exchange for the Ring, nor was it given to him in payment.

The Ring deludes even non-bearers as to the way in which it has been, or can be, acquired. Before Boromir attempts to steal the Ring from Frodo by force, he says ‘It is a gift’, echoing the assertions of Gollum and Bilbo under the Ring’s influence (FotR: 515). Clearly, the manner in which the Ring is obtained is of great importance. The Ring is able to corrupt the minds of bearers to believe that it was obtained by legitimate means, and that the Ring itself is consequently good rather than evil. The Ring is ‘of all the works of Sauron, the only fair’, Isildur recounts, thereby showing the influence of the Ring that ultimately leads to his downfall (FotR: 332).

As in the case of ‘weight’, the Ring has much in common with other powers in LotR in terms of the manner in which these powers are ‘acquired’. Stealing (RotK: 158), seiz-ing (RotK: 139), and even taking (FotR: 328; FotR: 517; RotK: 29) are strategies of the enemy, as when Sauron is ‘taking shape and power again’ (FotR: 328). Taking by force is facilitated by a longer reach. This is expressed as Control is Reach in the blend in Figure 2. Just as greater reach allows more objects to be grasped (in Input 1), greater control over individuals and events allows more purposes to be fulfilled (in Input 2). Reach is more relevant in non-consensual taking or stealing than in unopposed forms of object acquisition – say, raising vegetables or inheriting keepsakes – with the implication that ‘long arms’ and ‘long reach’ tend to be attributed more to evil individuals than to good ones in LotR. Sauron’s arm, hand, and even fingers are described as ‘long’, as in the

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previously mentioned example, ‘…victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. But his arm was long’ (RotK: 139); or as when Pippin ‘thought of the long fingers of the Shadow: of the Orcs in the woods and the mountains …’ (RotK: 43).

On the other hand, admirable characters and forces tend towards more peaceable means of ‘acquiring’ powers and abilities. Many good characters (n = 21), but few evil ones (n = 9) are ‘given’ powers and abilities. The Ents, for example, received a ‘great gift’, the power of speech, from the Elves (TT: 95); Boromir speculates as to whether Aragorn has ‘inherited … the sinews of the Kings of Men’ (FotR: 351); Gandalf sees from afar with ‘the sight that was given to him’ (RotK: 161); and Aragorn, seeing the sick to be healed, says, ‘Here I must put forth all such power and skill as is given to me’ (RotK: 170). Often, these come with the understanding that they will be passed on to others, or used for good. This is perhaps most evident in Galadriel’s gift to Sam, consist-ing of a box of earth from Galadriel’s orchard and a mallorn seed. This gift is a blend of a physical object and a power, as is the Ring itself (Figure 3): the soil is a physical sub-stance that grants the power of supernatural plant growth. Near the end of the trilogy, when the hobbits return to find the Shire ravaged, Frodo recommends to Sam: ‘Use all the wits and knowledge you have of your own, Sam … and then use the gift to help your work and better it’ (RotK: 374). Sam already ‘has’ gardening abilities of his own, and both his previously ‘possessed’ and newly ‘given’ abilities are intended to benefit others. Sam recognizes this when he says, ‘I’m sure the Lady would not like me to keep it all for my own garden, now so many folk have suffered’ (RotK: 374). When good powers are ‘given’, they are without exception intended to be employed for good, and for the benefit of others as well as oneself.

Good powers and abilities are in fact often grown like plants without involving any type of gift exchange. ‘There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit’, Tolkien writes, ‘waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow’ (FotR: 194). The courage is not a ‘gift’; it instead is grown by the individual who then ‘possesses’ it. The same is true of other attributes, such as when ‘Health and hope grew strong in’ the hobbits in Rivendell (FotR: 358). Cultivation does not necessarily happen within an individual; it may also be ‘grown’ externally, such as when Théodan tells his riders, ‘though you fight upon an alien field, the glory that you reap there shall be your own forever’ (RotK: 135). In the most complex metaphor of this type, Gandalf says one must spend the present ‘uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule’ (RotK: 190). In this case, the ‘clean earth’ will presumably produce all kinds of good effects, whatever goals they may strive to achieve.

The only instances of good characters obtaining power illicitly, such as by trapping, deceiving or stealing, are found in accusations by characters who are themselves cor-rupted or deceived. Frodo’s accusation of Sam as a ‘thief’ has already been mentioned. In addition, Denethor accuses Gandalf of trying to ‘use’ him as a ‘tool’, of ‘stealing half my son’s love’, and conspiring to ‘steal’ his knights’ loyalty so that they ‘rob me wholly of my son at last’ (RotK: 158); and Saruman accuses Frodo of having ‘robbed my revenge of its sweetness’ so that he must go forth ‘in debt to your mercy’ (RotK: 369). These accusations by corrupted or deceived characters in LotR are the only


instances in the trilogy of good characters metaphorically ‘taking’ or ‘stealing’ either the Ring or other types of power.

In general, responsible characters feel the ‘weight’ of the Ring and other powers, and ‘obtain’ the Ring or other powers as gifts, inheritances, or harvests. Evil characters, while not ‘burdened’ by the Ring or other powers, tend to ‘obtain’ these powers by violent or deceitful means. The pervasiveness of these trends in LotR serves to distinguish the good from the bad in the world of Middle-earth. Particularly, the reflection of the trends of ‘weight’ and ‘giving/taking’ in powers other than the Ring reinforces the theme of the Ring as a test of characters, who prove themselves by either bearing the weight of the Ring or by stealing it through treachery.

7 Objects, plants and animals

Good effects, according to Gandalf’s quotation given earlier, may be cultivated in tilled earth. Evil, however, is not grown, but is instead seized like a valuable object. This dis-tinction is related to a more general theme in LotR, by which good is associated with plants, and evil with animal vermin and manmade artefacts. Most of the metaphors of these types are purely image metaphors, such as when Goldberry is called ‘a sunlit flower’ (FotR: 189). Other metaphors combine image metaphor and the Location Event-Structure metaphor, such as when armies are compared to ‘tides’, which may both visu-ally resemble the sweep of an army and have the destructive power of an army. A few instances do not involve image metaphor at all, as when Gandalf warns that ‘Saruman will come to the last pinch of the vice that he has put his hand in’, meaning that Saruman’s evil dealings with Sauron will cause him mental pain – The Mind is a Body – and he will be unable to break free and pursue his other goals – Location Event-Structure metaphor – (TT: 261). In comparing good and evil in LotR, the choice of metaphor type is less revealing than the representation of good and evil powers as plants, animals or objects. In the foregoing example, the ‘vice’ is a special case of an Obstacle in the Location Event-Structure metaphor and a Cause of Pain in The Mind is a Body, but more rele-vantly, it is a manmade inanimate object, as opposed to a plant or animal. Metaphoric artificial ‘objects’ such as the vice tend to be evil rather than good.

Overall, plants tended to image-metaphorically describe good characters (11 of 13 examples), especially men as trees (TT: 34, 168, 219, 341), with Galadriel once described as a ‘tree in flower’ (TT: 365). The description of warriors as trees is likely to have been inspired by the Norse kenning tradition (Jónsson, 1985), and yet Tolkien – unlike the Norse literary authors – applies tree image metaphors only to good char-acters. In the trilogy, only Galadriel and Goldberry are described as flowers, both via image metaphors with special reference to their slenderness. Sam describes Galadriel as ‘Sometimes like a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like’ (TT: 365), and Goldberry is called ‘small and slender like a sunlit flower against the sky’ (FotR: 189).

The metaphors discussed in this section are frequently expressed as similes, as is typi-cal of image metaphors (Sullivan, 2007). Similes are here considered metaphoric, since their interpretation depends on the same conceptual structures as metaphor (Lakoff and Turner, 1989; Sullivan, 2007; cf. Pragglejaz Group, 2007: 32). Though the semantic

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differences between ‘metaphors’ and ‘similes’ (i.e. differences in meaning related to the presence or absence of like, in English) are undeniable (Chiappe and Kennedy, 2001; Glucksberg and Keysar, 1990, 1993), these distinctions are not deemed relevant to the contrasts discussed here. Indicating that Galadriel is ‘like a great tree’ involves the same metaphor as ‘Galadriel is a great tree’ – in both cases Galadriel is image-metaphorically described as a plant.

When evil forces are described as organic life-forms, they are not flowers or trees but pests: vermin and destroyers of plants. Orcs, Uruk-hai and the armies of evil are termed ‘rats’ (RotK: 221; TT: 228; TT: 220); or ‘swarming’ insects such as ‘beetles’ (RotK: 110), ‘flies’ (TT: 186) or ‘ants’ (TT: 174). Non-animal pestilences also represent evil, such as poisons (TT: 160; RotK: 319), or the ‘great camps of tents’ that ‘sprouted, like a foul fungus-growth, all about the beleaguered city …’ (RotK: 116). In one of the rare instances in which evil is described as a plant, it is a weed, an undefined type of vegetable pest, when Gandalf refers to ‘uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till’ (RotK: 190). However, evil is more often a pestilential animal (n = 48), such as a rat or insect, than a plant (n = 2) or a fungus/disease (n = 16).

Animals in general are more associated with evil than with good (48 evil vs. 27 good examples). This imbalance can mostly be attributed to a few favourite animal metaphors for creatures of evil, such as ‘rats’, as already noted, or ‘snakes’, an epithet used to describe many of the major villains of LotR, including the Nazgul (FotR: 317; TT: 400), Orcs (FotR: 422; TT: 422; RotK: 224), Saruman (TT: 237; RotK: 319), Wormtongue (TT: 159), Mordor’s Messenger (FotR: 317) and Gollum (TT: 426). Gollum, in fact, seems particularly animalistic, and is compared to a cat (TT: 377), dog (TT: 306), eel (TT: 377), fish (FotR: 497), fox (FotR: 497), frog (TT: 283; TT: 427), grasshopper (TT: 283), hedge-hog (TT: 377), insect (TT: 321), maggot (FotR: 85), mouse (TT: 280) and spider (TT: 278, 411). Most animals, then – and especially those considered vermin – tend to describe evil beings. This suggests that it is only plants, and not living beings in general, that are imagistically compared to good individuals and groups in LotR.

Both good and evil are described as forces of nature, such as tides (TT: 69, 131; Rotk: 87,136), wind (TT: 168, 184, 187, 256, 220), sea (TT: 175, 293; RotK: 206) stones (FotR: 333; TT: 127, 152, 217, 394; RotK: 57, 157, 208, 274), stars (FotR: 260, 299; TT: 418; RotK: 139), and storms (TT: 95, 128, 149, 151, 167, 171, 216, 221, 242, 256, 384, 401; RotK: 24, 75, 97, 207, 245). Of these 63 metaphors, 28 refer to the forces of good, 25 to evil, and 6 to neutral forces, a relatively even breakdown. Unsurprisingly, evil forces are more associated with destructive natural phenomena, particularly those damaging to plants and crops, such as storms (13 of 18 instances); whereas good forces are more often described as less destructive natural objects, such as stones (6 of 8 instances), or harm-less beautiful phenomena, such as stars (3 of 4 instances). Taken as a whole, inorganic natural objects and phenomena seem neutral in LotR, and take part in metaphors describ-ing good and evil forces alike.

Man-made objects tell a completely different story. Tolkien sets these up in opposi-tion to living beings, especially plants, and represents evil forces and characters as artificial objects or manufactured materials (10 of 12 instances are evil). The source domains of these metaphors are devices and materials of the level of technology


assumed in Middle-earth. Presumably comparisons to more advanced machinery would detract from the world-building and timelessness of the work. Nevertheless, any kind of machinery is depicted negatively. Treebeard’s description of Saruman exempli-fies this perspective, when he says that Saruman ‘has a mind of metal and wheels; he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment’ (TT: 96). Saruman has met his match in Sauron, and as Gandalf puts it, ‘will come to the last pinch of the vice that he has put his hand in’ (TT: 261). Gandalf also calls Saruman ‘the spider in a steel web’ (TT: 260), suggesting that if Saruman is a predatory animal, then Sauron is an animal-machine hybrid that weaves steel webs – presumably a more sin-ister combination than a mere natural spider. This hybrid recurs, such as when Sauron ‘had taken the proffered bait in jaws of steel’ (RotK: 206), as an animal with steel components, or when Orcs’ tireless motion is described as ‘tough thick legs going up and down … as if they were made of wire and horn’ (TT: 69). If both animals and arti-ficial objects are mapped onto evil beings, then presumably the most dreadful combi-nation is an animal built of or including mechanical components. Unsurprisingly, none of these hybrids are mapped onto good characters or forces, which are not typically represented either as animals or as artificial objects.

8 Conclusion

The One Ring is only the most obvious of a set of metaphors that test characters’ ‘quality’ in LotR. Certainly, characters’ reaction to the Ring gives definitive insight into their moral nature. We do not know, until Boromir tries to steal the Ring, that he cannot be trusted; nor do we know that his brother Faramir is trustworthy until he lets the Ring go. Throughout the trilogy, Frodo offers the Ring to characters such as Gandalf and Galadriel, and their refusal proves that they can be trusted without reservations. Good characters bear the Ring as a burden, whereas only the evil try to take it.

However, the Ring is just one of many such tests of character in LotR. In both the OES and Power as a Ring blends (Figures 2 and 3), weight maps onto responsibility. Characters that metaphorically feel authority and power as a ‘burden’ demonstrate that they are responsible individuals, whether this ‘weight’ belongs to the Ring or to another source of power. Those that do not feel this weight may either lack power over others, in which case they are ‘carrying’ nothing, as in the case of Tom Bombadil; or far more often, the characters are evil and seek power without responsibility. Tolkien indicates this distinc-tion subtly but consistently in both the OES and Ring blends.

Object transfer, along with object weight, figures in both the OES and the Ring blends. Characters in LotR are fixated on the manner in which the Ring is transferred, scheming, lying, and even calling it a ‘birthday present’ instead of the result of theft and murder. Characters repeatedly want to think of it as a ‘gift’, as if acquiring it in a legitimate manner makes the Ring good rather than evil. Though these characters are lying to themselves, their obsession is well founded, insofar as the manner in which power is ‘obtained’ in LotR does serve to distinguish good from evil. Ominous powers are constantly striving for power, stealing or seizing it, even lengthening their ‘reach’ in order to bring more power within their grasp. Good power is ‘obtained’ peacefully: it is inherited, given, or grown organically.

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This special case of the OES in which powers and abilities are ‘grown’ is noteworthy partly in that it reflects the division between the metaphoric mapping of objects and plants in LotR. It is not coincidence that the Ring is an artificial thing. It has some ani-malistic qualities, devouring and seducing its bearers, but it remains a manmade object. Tolkien’s metaphors in general give a less preferential place to artificial objects, drawing on these as metaphoric source domains primarily for the description of evil. Plants, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly associated with good and utilized as source domains in metaphoric descriptions of elves, warriors, and benevolent beauties. Plants sustain life, and the peaceful cultivation of crops is in Tolkien’s model the complete antithesis of obtaining inedible objects by force.

For exactly the same reasons that the Ring is a test of responsibility and moral char-acter, then, other powers and abilities also test these qualities. In the version of the OES in LotR, weight maps onto responsibility, and giving and stealing map respectively onto moral and immoral power. The OES and Power as a Ring are identical in this respect. The significance of the Ring, and its role as a test of character, is thereby subtly rein-forced throughout the trilogy by matched mappings in the OES and Power as a Ring.

The consistency of these repeated metaphors contributes to the internal logic of Tolkien’s Middle-earth and intensifies the affect of the One Ring. From the beginning of the trilogy, we are presented with metaphors for power that prepare us for the inexorable challenge of the Ring. Even minor abilities and positions of authority in Middle-earth must be ‘given’, ‘cultivated’ or otherwise handled according to moral rules. Hundreds of these metaphors establish the moral rules of Tolkien’s world and prepare us for the moment when Frodo stands with the Ring over the Crack of Doom, when no doubt remains as to Frodo’s evil fate if he keeps the Ring. The coherent construction of a dis-tinctive metaphoric theme in LotR arguably adds to the believability of Middle-earth, the epic quality of its good and evil forces, and above all, the emotional intensity of Frodo’s struggle with the Ring over the course of the trilogy.

Funding

This work was supported by a Faculty Fellowship in the Centre for the History of European Discourse at the University of Queensland.

Note

1. The three books: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, which make up JRR Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings (itself abbreviated to LotR) are here cited by abbreviated titles (FotR, TT, and RotK) rather than by author or year.

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Author biography

Karen Sullivan is a lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Queensland, Australia. Research interests include the structure of linguistic metaphors, as in her forthcoming book Frames and Constructions in Metaphoric Language; and metaphors and metonymies in specific genres of language use, as in her articles ‘The Languages of Art: How Representational and Abstract Painters Conceptualize Their Work in Terms of Language’, winner of the 2010 Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM) Early Career Researcher Award (2009, Poetics Today 30(3)), and ‘Genre-Dependent Metonymy in Norse Skaldic Poetry’ (2008, Language and Literature 17(1)).

One metaphor to rule them all? ‘Objects’ as tests of character in The Lord of the Rings

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