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myths become realities in LotR. He proposes that Galadriel is the “Earth Mother” in the Third Age, a mythic tradition that Tolkien carried on from the fertility goddesses
of ancient religion. Fertility and safety are therefore represented by a female form, and the Ents’ loss of Entwives becomes symbolic of the irreplaceability of nature after
the destruction made by industrial society.
1.3 Methodology
Many critics have explored the detrimental impact that the Industrial Revolution and anthropocentrism have on nature in LotR. However, few have
discussed the correlation between the oppression of different marginal groups such as women, minorities, and natural creatures. With these unexplored issues in mind, I will investigate how nature is represented and how the oppression of nature in The Lord of the Rings reflects current human and environmental conditions. To understand
Tolkien’s nature writing more thoroughly, this thesis borrows several concepts from ecocriticism. Cheryll Glotfelty suggests that ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” from the social sphere to the entire ecosphere, and “all ecological criticism
shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it” (xix). This notion of nature as a co-actor and not just a
silent stage is important in understanding Tolkien’s portrayal of sentient nature and his
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creation of natural beings in Middle-earth. For example, nature is also victimized in the War of the Ring since nature, nonhumans, and humans are all interconnected and
mutually affected within the ecosphere of the Middle-earth.
Glotfelty argues that the environmental crisis is a result of “our fragmented, compartmentalized, and overly specialized way of knowing the world” (xxii).
However, fantasy might possess the subversive potential to this simplistic worldview, for fantasy is a genre that challenges the dualistic anthropocentric worldview and gives voice to the ones that are marginalized or presumed to be silent. Thus, fantasy can help us to break down the simplistic understanding of our world, “so that the
things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness” (Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories” 146). Although fantasy stories are still
written by humans and thus cannot fully escape from human perception of our world, many fantasy stories possess a subversive power to anthropocentric worldview since they allow us to consider the possibility of understanding our world through the voices of the nonhuman.
Deep Ecology, an ecological philosophy first proposed by Norwegian
philosopher Arne Dekke Eide Næ ss, emphasizes the intrinsic value of every entity in nature independent of their values as resources for humans. Deep ecology maintains that the current environmental crisis is a result of the dualistic worldview which
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separates humans from nature. Besides pointing out the separative effect of dominant anthropocentric discourse, Næ ss argues for an egalitarian attitude towards all entities in the natural world by recognizing the intrinsic worth and inter-relatedness of all beings in the ecosphere. For Næ ss, humans are part of the Earth, not a master of it,
and we share an inter-relationship with other species within the ecosystem. He proposes “self-realization”: the concept of expanding the self to identify with other
entities in nature in order to achieve “biocentric equality”. According to Devall and
Sessions, the modern Self is defined as an isolated ego that hinders our search of
“spiritual/biological personhood”.
In other words, deep ecology argues for a realization of a wider self, a broader sense of identity which unfolds the Self from the isolated ego to a collective identity with the whole ecosystem. In LotR, the Ents’ decision about going to war is a result of this realization of a wider Self. Although the Ents are unwilling to join the war at first, they change their minds when they recognize their interdependent relationship with others and broaden their sense of Self from an isolated to a collective one.
A similar concept about the interrelated ecosystem can also be found in Gaia theory, a hypothesis proposed by the UK chemist, James Lovelock. Gaia theory sees the Earth as a living and self-regulating organism, while human and other species are seen as components of one large body of the Earth. This concept is exemplified in the
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statement of the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration on Earth System Science: “The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system with physical, chemical,
biological, and human components” (“2001 Amsterdam Declaration”). The view of
the living and conscious Earth challenges the traditional anthropocentric worldview and parallels Tolkien’s depiction of sentient nature. Gaia theory also stresses on the
interdependent relationship between species and the importance of biodiversity in maintaining homeostasis. Lovelock proposes that the Earth is a large organism that co-evolves with its inhabitants and relies on the cooperation of them.
Gaia theory challenges two ideas that are central to traditional anthropocentric worldview: that human is superior to other living things and that the natural
environment is a passive background. In The Ages of Gaia, Lovelock argues that
organisms and the environment are interdependent and mutually influential. Similar to Gaia theory’s vision of the conscious and co-evolutive environment, nature in LotR is
also portrayed as sentient and possesses its own will. The Ents and Huorns, for
instance, are tree-like creatures who are able to speak and act independently. They eventually destroy Isengard and defeat Saruman’s army of orcs after Saruman and the
orcs cut down a large number of trees of Fangorn Forest. In LotR, the Ents and Huorns are the most direct epitomes of the active and conscious environment which interacts with other living things instead of passively stand as a background. In LotR,
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there are many nonhuman characters such as sentient animals, dwarves, orcs, elves,
hobbits, and the Maiars. Since Gaia theory overthrows the reductive view of our natural environment, borrowing Gaia theory’s concept of the living earth can help shed light on Tolkien’s representation of nature as it provides a new way to interpret the relationship between human and nonhuman. Gaia theory’s collaborative and
interdependent worldview also helps to decentralize the traditional anthropocentric and hierarchical ideologies.
Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene provides us another perspective to look at our relationship with other species. Similar to Deep Ecology and Gaia theory, Haraway also emphasizes the interconnectedness between species rather than emphasizes the difference between human and nonhuman.
In this book, Haraway advocates for a transformation from anthropocentric thinking to “tentacular thinking”. Human exceptionalism maintains that humans are superior to other species and that we have the power to control and dominate our environment. In this anthropocentric thinking, the relationship between the human race and other
species is hierarchical and often exploitive. On the other hand, Haraway’s “tentacular thinking” emphasizes the inter-species and symbiotic relationship in the natural
world. In “Chthulucene”, an alternative concept she uses for Anthropocene, the most important thing is to recognize that we are kin to other species and all species share an
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inner connection with others. Haraway argues that “unlike either the Anthropocene or the Capitalocene, the Chthulucene is made up of ongoing multispecies stories”
(Haraway 55). While the human and nonhuman relationship in the Anthropocene is vertical, the relationship between us and other beings in Chthulucene is horizontal and multifaceted as the inter-species communication is an ongoing process. Only when we forfeit human exceptionalism and try to understand the multispecies stories of our
world will we make it a livable place for all beings.
Women’s oppression is also linked with the oppression of nature since both are
the result of the Self and Other binarism and the association of power with
dominance. Patriarchal ideology maintains the gendered stereotypes through the binary construction of women’s Otherness; similarly, anthropocentric ideology
justifies its exploitation of nature through the dualistic construction of nature as a
passive environment that is separated from us. According to Annette Kolodny, the construction of women’s Otherness can also be seen in the common association of
woman with nature in literature, especially in the archetypal imagery of “a daily reality of harmony between man and nature based on an experience of the land as essentially feminine – that is, nor simply the land as mother, but the land as woman”
(Kolodny 171). This kind of stereotypical depiction constructs women’s Otherness and subjugated status by linking tnhem with nature. In some way, the construction of
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women’s association with nature solidifies the subjugated status of both as they are
both marginalized by the similar dualistic discourses of anthropocentrism and
androcentrism. This does not suggest that women are immune to anthropocentric and androcentric ideologies; instead, women can also internalize these ideologies and participate in the process of oppression. However, since the association of women
with nature prevails in Tolkien’s works and his female characters are often marginalized, I will investigate the connection between nature and women’s
oppression as an ecocritical issue in this thesis and analyze how they are both victimized by the same Self and Other dualism behind the androcentric and anthropocentric ideology.
Underneath the anthropocentric worldview lies the binarism of Self and Other:
the ideology that separates humans from nature and nonhuman. Glotfelty’s idea about
the differences between using “enviro-” and “eco-” helps to explain how the separation of nature and human can be constructed through language: “enviro- is
anthropocentric and dualistic, implying that we humans are at the center, surrounded
by everything that is not us, the environment. Eco-, in contrast, implies interdependent communities” (xx). In addition to the overturning of the anthropocentric idea of
nature being a silent environment that is separated from us, LotR also depicts how the interconnected communities (both in Middle-earth and in our world) could be
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separated by the Self and Other dualism. According to Glotfelty, this dualistic ideology is the source of separation. In LotR, the characters’ senses of separation are all connected with similar dualistic ideologies though they appear in different forms.
After analyzing the dualistic ideology behind the oppression of marginalized
groups in LotR, I will borrow Neil Evernden’s idea of the “relatedness of self within place” to demonstrate how LotR is a story that celebrates the interconnection between
individuals over radical individualism. Evernden denies the existence of a pure individual by suggesting “there is no such thing as an individual, only an
individual-in-context, individual as a component of place, defined by place” (Evernden 103). His idea echoes deep ecology’s concept of the collective Self and will help to demonstrate
the power of resistance in Chapter Four. This recognition of inter-relatedness will bring out the concept of sharing, the key to resist the Self and Other binarism in LotR.
Not only is the Self and Other dualism reconciled by the concept of sharing, Tolkien’s writing of fantasy, a genre that resists traditional anthropocentric worldview,
is also a form of resistance to anthropocentric values. It voices for the marginal groups and rebuilds the connection between Self and all.
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