The Ring and the Fall

In the letter to his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien discussed much of the processes he used and the thoughts he put into creating The Silmarillion. Within this discussion, he mentioned the fall of man and how allegory, especially concerning that fall, was necessary in a creation story. While he regarded the fall to be that of the elves and did not feel that the fall of man came into the story at all, the rings which became central in the chronologically later books can be a physical representation of the Fall as well as of sins.

            The ring, as we have discussed in class, can be representative of various things including power, colonialism, and greed. When looking more generally at the rings, they come to represent what is bad. This is in large part due to the fact that Sauron was the one who tempted everyone into making and wearing the too powerful rings. Nine of these rings went to man, seven to the dwarves, three to the elves, and the most powerful, of course, went to Sauron who made it behind everyone’s backs.

While the Tolkien focused on the fall of elves in The Silmarillion, the creation of the rings brings men more into the forefront as they succumb to the power. Everyone who accepted the rings could be viewed as partaking in the fall, but none are punished as much as humans. The elves, who had already fallen when Melkor tempted them, are not particularly punished and the dwarves who take rings out of greed are not really heard about again with their presumptuous deaths. The nine men who took the rings were Kings originally who were tempted by power and abnormally long age. Soon after, their greed and lust for power transformed them from men to the Nazgul or ringwraiths who are neither alive nor dead and continuously search for the ring for Sauron. As mortality is the gift of men, they were transformed for their sin and for trying to go against what is in a way divine law by attempting to live longer and can be considered a kind of fall. Although this only happens to these nine particular men, it becomes like a mark on humanity and shows how easily man can sin – something which is elaborated on even more with the story of Isildur.

In battle, Sauron is temporarily destroyed after his ring is cut off his hand by Isildur after Sauron kills his father. Isildur takes the ring and rather than destroying it in, he decides to keep the ring as it can become a sort of heirloom, or source of pride and remembrance as well as possibly power. He is soon after killed by orcs and the ring is lost. His descendants and house are then cursed as his heirs from his inability to destroy the ring so that Aragorn must conceal his identity for a time out of fear that he would be endangered if Sauron and others found out who he was. As a result of Isildur’s failure to destroy the ring, perhaps from a source of pride as well as greed, he commits a kind of sin which leads to the fall of his whole lineage.

The One ring serves as many different devices throughout the series and can symbolize various things. It’s main purpose, however, is that of temptation which leads all, but especially men, to sin, stray, and fall as it awakens feelings of lust for power and greed.