Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 1, 2023 March 25, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The second half of The Return of the King opens with a different picture of evil from the one that closes the first half. In the final chapter of Book V, Gandalf offers a verbal challenge to Sauron’s Lieutenant that suggests that evil is largely an internal force—the result of choice, corruption, and misdeed. When Sam awakens at Cirith Ungol, however, we immediately see a picture of evil as an external force, an outward manifestation of Sauron’s inner evil that lies like a heavy blanket over Mordor. The sky is dark, the air thick and bitter, and the terrain a desert wasteland.
The physical presence of the Ring dominates the opening of Book VI. Once a symbol of the mixed blessings of power, the Ring is now a bane on Frodo’s existence. His body and the Ring are one, and his body expires as the Ring grows heavier with each step toward Mount Doom. We are introduced to the Eye of Sauron, glaring as a potent symbol of Sauron’s evil will as it extends across the land. From the Eye emanates a real physical stream of evil power and influence. Sauron’s Eye imposes his inner evil qualities and corrupt condition onto the natural world of his realm.
Furthermore, the Ring begins to inflict trouble the only relationship that has remained pure and complete throughout the novel thus far—the devoted friendship between Frodo and Sam. We have never detected discord in the camaraderie of these two hobbits on their long journey through Middle-earth. But with Sam’s sudden and unexpected possession of the Ring, the relationship falls victim to jealousy and wrongful accusations. When Frodo sees Sam with the Ring and demands it back immediately, calling his loving friend a thief, we witness the power of the Ring to distort reality and impart individuals with an illusory sense of power. Sam toys with mild delusions of grandeur when he wears the Ring, but these are more comic and endearing than evil, and they lead us to feel all the more strongly the unfairness of Frodo’s accusations. The injury is even greater because it comes at a moment of reunion after extreme bravery on Sam’s part. Although Frodo apologizes soon afterward and Sam accepts the apology, the memory of Frodo’s unkind words lingers in our minds as further proof of the Ring’s destructive power.
Sam’s confrontation with the Ring’s power reminds us why he emerges at the end of The Lord of the Rings as the unexpected hero of the novel. Sam wears the Ring and, to some degree, experiences the same delusions of grandeur and fame that all its wearers feel. He fantasizes about fame as “Samwise the Strong,” thereby demonstrating his susceptibility to the insidious and powerful vanity that the Ring inspires. But Sam has the strength to remove the Ring when he thinks of Frodo. Love for others is precisely what the Ring destroys, setting all its wearers on courses of greedy individualism in which bonds of loyalty and love no longer matter. Sam’s intense devotion to his friend is unmatched even by the good Frodo, who earlier took off the Ring through the strength of his own will, but not with the same heartwarming fondness for another. Frodo removed the Ring out of a sense of right—an honorable action, but not as selfless as that of Sam, who removes it out of love. The irony of Sam’s thoughts—that, as an ordinary gardener hobbit, he is too common to wear the Ring—is that he is actually one of the Ring’s safest keepers, relatively unaffected by the selfishness it provokes.
Please wait while we process your payment