The Racial Hierarchy
In the mind of Tolkien race is a hierarchy and is a determinant to how each individual is treated and treats others. White people are are floating on top of the scale while people of color are sinking beneath it. He demonstrates this ludicrous hierarchy in his famous novel The Lord of the Rings. However is race just a myth that is being glorified and accentuated by the people who created the ideology itself?
The whitest characters are the Elves as they are credited for the characters’ whiteness. As stated in his novel Frodo’s white skin is described as “fair of hue…pail but beautiful with an elvish beauty.” This quote justifies that the only form of beauty and acceptance is having extraordinarily white skin. Another example is how the men of Gondor, the whitest humans, are on the top the hierarchy because they speak in Elvish tongue. Frodo is given the ability to identify men from Gondor because “it was the elvish tongue that they spoke, or one but little different.” Throughout the novel and the film, the elves are continuously being described as excessively white. For example, Tolkien gives Elf Glorfindle a glorifying description of being white. “In the dusk its headstall flickered and flashed, as if it were studded with gems like living stars. The rider’s cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil.” It this quote it was interpreted that Elf Glorfindle is looked at and admired like a god of some sort.
I find it rather ironic that Tolkien is praising the “white race” because no race is biologically existent. There is no definitive racial genes. There are no definitive genes that allows people of color in the United States more prone to high blood pressure as there is no definitive genes for specific varieties of cancers that can be designated to one racial grouping. In addition, there is no neurological patterning that differs the races from each other as well as muscle development and structure, digestive tracts, hand eye coordination, etc. Race is an ideology that humans all around the world, especially in the United States, base social well being on. Unique biological elements to any racial groups has not been scientifically proven. However, I am not disagreeing that humans vary biologically; but instead the variation is not racially dispersed.
With this notion being expressed, there is no reason for Tolkien to racially attribute higher value to the white “race” for they are certainly no better than or lesser than any other race. This is including no variance in intelligence, attraction, power, level of respect, and human decency. Tolkien’s hierarchy ideology is complete and utter idiocy and should be acknowledged as such while teaching his readings, not limited to The Lord of the Rings, and watching the films that were created based off of his novels.
-Kianna Marrs
I quite agree with this. It is very apparent that the lighter of skin are placed on a higher pedestal than others especially with the connotations of white being good and dark being evil. I like the quote used as well because Tolkien gives many positive descriptions to the elves and makes them the highest class people in the world other than the Valar and Maiar while he leaves the people of darker skin to be lower class and even more evil people. This is unfortunate because as there is no scientific evidence for races, habits of whiteness still form from this and "justify" the white people to place themselves above people of color.
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