Analysis — Chapters 6–7
One complaint that readers of The Lord of the
Rings sometimes make is that the denouement—the portion
of the narrative following the climax—seems excessively long. Indeed,
five full chapters follow Frodo and Sam’s successful completion
of the quest at the Cracks of Doom. This lengthy coda, however,
highlights the important fact that The Return of the King cannot
be considered an individual work, separate from the other two volumes
of The Lord of the Rings;together,
they form a single novel and narrative. Given the extraordinary
length of the novel as a whole and the height of its climax, an
exceptionally long coda is not out of line with the rest of Tolkien’s
work.
Furthermore, Tolkien does not use the remaining chapters
only to tie up loose ends, but also to show the fulfillment of the
images and themes he has introduced throughout The Lord
of the Rings and The Silmarillion as a
whole. The gradual return of the Company to the Shire frames the
narrative, revisiting many characters and locales we have seen before.
The Fellowship almost literally retraces its steps from The
Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in reverse
order, giving us a chance to glimpse how these people and places
have changed now that the burden of Sauron’s evil has been lifted
from Middle-earth. The town of Bree, for instance, is a far cry from
the dark, suspicious, somewhat rough border town it once was. Whereas
Frodo was earlier an object of great suspicion, especially after
his accidental wearing of the Ring in the tavern in Book I, now
he is the object only of great admiration and wonder, with throngs
of people asking if he has written his memoirs yet.
Tolkien’s inclusion of the idea of Bilbo’s and Frodo’s
respective memoirs adds an interesting twist to the narrative structure
of the novel. Tolkien implies, though he does not overtly say, that
these memoirs form his source material for The Hobbit and The
Lord of the Rings. As such, the author suggests that the
mythology he has recorded is not his own modern creation, but a
much older set of lore he has merely retold. This sense that the
story of The Lord of the Rings existed before Tolkien’s
retelling connects the novel to the ancient mythological tradition,
seemingly linking it to a narrative and a world that precede our
own time.
