Metaphors and Legends Spring to Life out of the Grass: Travel as a Metaphor for Story and History in Tolkien’s Fiction

While several critics have looked at the motif of the journey in Tolkien’s fiction, so far they have mostly done so from the point of view of the “life as a journey” metaphor. Going beyond this standard interpretation of the journey, this dissertation argues that in the universe of Tolkien’s fiction the physical act of travelling can at the same time be read as indicating the process of human storytelling and, closely connected to this, the unfolding of time or history. Moreover, since all stories originate from characters’ decisions to travel and are written with every step they take, and as history is geographically represented as a linear movement from east to west, it is possible to interpret peoples’ decisions and attitudes regarding travel as indicators of their attitudes towards story, history, and, by extension, such central themes as God, fate, and destiny. Thus, refusal to travel or decisions to travel in the wrong direction become both indications and manifestations of moral misguidedness, in that they ultimately constitute a defiance or denial of God’s plan.