In The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien, the hobbits, elf, dwarf, and other various travelers continue their journey to Mordor to destroy the powerful ring that their leader, Frodo has possession of. They are being pursued by many enemies, such as Sauron, Saruman, and orcs. I suppose that a complicated book such as the likes of this, contain many themes within. One that became clear to me was the importance of taking one’s time. I found this often throughout the book which supported my simple theory and created it more complex as the book evolved in my mind.
In the book, Merry and Pippin meet large tree-like creatures called Ents. These Ents mentioned my theme quite a bit. They repeatedly enforced how they are never “hasty”. They take their time and never rush their conversations. Talking with them seems like talking in legal writing, all the time. This brought them to the decision to help with this battle against the Lord of the rings. In fact it helped out our little friends in the book because before, it was them against the great force of Sauron and his creatures. The Ents are very strong and can reinforce the hobbits and friends. So without the un-hastiness, the travelers would be fighting Sauron all on their own, and that would most likely change the destination of the story.
This theme of taking your time has been a theme in many stories and some of the most famous fables. I don’t want to sound too repetitive. Slow and steady does not always win the race, but making sure you do things right does. Taking your time is one thing, but taking time to make sure you are on the right track in another. I think that this is the main theme in the story. Aragorn may never have found the trail of the hobbits is he hadn’t taken his time to inspect every clue he saw. As my tennis coach always tells me, “NO RUSHING! Stay with the ball.” Keeping your eye on the main goal of what you are doing applies to life, not just tennis.
The characters in The Two Towers face very different problems than a New Yorker does, but they face similar issues and must remember similar lessons in order to meet their goals, thought they are very different. For instance, my goal at the moment is to get into a good high school, while theirs is to safe the Middle earth from the dark lord’s power. Any similarities?
Dearest Tiv,
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed your post. I really like how, for one thing, you compared your post to real life(your high school and tennis coach comments)and I like how you described part of the story without giving it away. Also, as for the Ents, I wonder if Tolkien thinks that being slow like them is good or not. As you may recall, it seems quite frusterating when the Ents won't hurry up and attack Sauron, and Tolkien seems to shine an almost negative light over their slowness. But, at the same time, he seems to frown disapprovingly at the hasty hobbits. Maybe he's trying to say that we're often to slow and or to fast, but can't reach an equilibrium.
Thank you very much. That is a very good idea you brought up. It is true that maybe the Ents were frustrating to the hobbits. I did actually think about that while I was writing it and it is very true. But I want to point out that I was mostly zooming in on their helpfulness towards there hobbits and others in the war. The company is weak on their own and needed the help of the Ents, so maybe the slowness of the Ents was helpful after all. Thank you for considering this though. You made a good point and i shall think about this when I write more blog posts.
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