Postcolonial Mary Poppins

On the surface, Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) tells a cautionary tale about a father who fails to dedicate enough time to his children, children who desperately crave his attention and love. The film, however, is littered with colonial references, though overarching the entire plot is the single message of: one cannot hope to succeed elsewhere if one’s own country is disorderly. Mr. Banks enters the film stating “I run my home precisely on schedule”, yet we’re already aware that his wife is a secret political activist, his children are missing and his nanny has just “forfeited her post”. Mary Poppins, in the guise of ‘mother Britannia‘, sails into “Cherry Tree Lane”, in order to teach her colonial subjects how it’s done. The empire of domestic is often interrupted, however, by Admiral Boom “Late of his Majesty’s Navy”, who resides on the corner of the street in a house that has a ships deck on its roof, including mast, sales and steam funnels. We’re told “He likes to have things ship-shape at all times”, and fires his cannon at exactly six o’clock every morning and evening. The placement of Admiral Boom is hardly an accident, he is a symbol of British naval pride in the heart of London, and acts as a resident reminder that what goes on overseas affects those living in the London suburbs. Just how he reminds those present becomes evident soon after entering the household of Mr. Banks at number seventeen. Mrs. Banks calls “posts everybody!” and with finely tuned co-operation the household races to secure the goldfish bowl and precious china ornaments from falling as the cannon of the Admiral booms and the entire house shakes. This cannon fire rattles the supposedly safe and secure British family home, and the occupants have to cling to their acquisitions of the outer empire to stop them falling apart. A direct metaphor for how conflict abroad and in the colonies shakes the very foundation of Britain, although not for long, the household manages this interruption smoothly and within seconds peace is restored. (1)

The two visions of empire, those of “world” and “home” are made clear during the song entitled: “A

British Bank.” Mr. Banks, as “Sovereign” and “liege”, has visions of his children taking their place in the world, his world, of imperial finance. In order for this to happen, the future generation must be raised accordingly:

“A British nanny must be a General. The future empire lies within her hands. And so the person that we need to mould the breed is a nanny who can give commands!” 

What his vision fails to take into account, however, is the fact that in hiring someone to “mould”, and “command”, he is inviting a colonist into his home. The children know this, and present their concern thus:

“If you [the new nanny] won’t scorn or, dominate us,
We will never give you cause to hate us.”

A child’s plea that echoes strongly of the plight of the native Kenyans in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, who suffered and fought under the oppressive British imperial regime: “they felt Gandhi, Napoleon, Lincoln were watching the black folk of Kenya in their struggle to be free”. Appropriately, as a symbol of British imperial excellence on an individual scale, Mary Poppins sails into Cherry Tree Lane with the Easterly wind in her umbrella; it had to be an easterly wind, as the British were colonizing the east. With the fool-hardy confidence of any invading force she takes a critical view of those she has come to work for, or colonize, and decides to give them a trial week, during which time she will establish whether or not her labours will bear fruit. (1, 7)


Through the course of the ensuing few days Mary Poppins takes the children on various outings of the magical variety. The first of these is lightly dusted with colonial references, Bert warns the

children: “When you’re with Mary Poppins you end up in places you ain’t never dreamed of”, perhaps hinting that she, like Britannia, has power that stretches beyond the borders of their known world; they travel only as far as the English countryside though this is an adventure beyond their usual domestic sphere. In the song Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Poppins exemplifies how language can have a powerful impact on those of different cultures. In the first verse Bert describes how he was afraid to speak until someone bestowed upon him “the biggest word you’ve ever heard”, and suddenly he could communicate. A state of affairs similar to that of teaching the natives of the British colonies, English. As Chinua Achebe said in his essay “The African Writer and the English Language”: “But on the whole [English] did bring together many peoples that had hitherto gone their several ways. And it gave them a language with which to talk to one another.” The song, however, goes further than just Africa:

“He traveled all around the world and everywhere he went
He’d use this word and all would say ‘there goes a clever gent’.”

This suggests that cultures throughout the world view this language as superior. A superiority that the children learn very quickly, but Mr. Banks can’t pronounce at all. (1, 3)

The colonization of number seventeen by Mary Poppins is having an effect on everyone resident apart from Mr. Banks who complains about all the little changes that are taking place. As colonial subjects go, Mr. Banks is reminiscent of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, who can’t understand why a culture would turn away from what he’s used to and what has worked so well in the past: “...a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the

strange faith and the white man’s god would not last.” He calls Poppins to task over this and is easily hoodwinked, by the superior invading force, into believing that he intended to show the children his world. In this conversation he is, to Mary Poppins, exercising “the educated native’s latest dodge... the younger generation believe in a show of manly independence. They think it will pay better with the itinerant M.P.” as described in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. The Bank sequence is full of imperial ambition, and well dressed officers of finance that are strikingly reminiscent of the “amazing... chief accountant” in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, they perform a stately and erect dance while Mr. Dawes attempts to persuade Michael to “achieve that sense of conquest” by investing in:

“Railways through Africa! Dams across the Nile. Fleets of ocean Greyhounds16. Plantations of ripening tea!” 

This is the empire that Mr. Banks dreams of; the empire of money made possible by trade: “money have pretty face for everybody, but for that man money pretty like pretty self, he can’t see nothing else.” Words that echo through Jean Ryse’s book, Wide Sargasso Sea, and this film both. Mr. Banks is so caught in his vision of imperial wealth that he has become alienated from the values of importance at home. Along with the expansion of the empire it became possible for British subjects to invest money in a monetary institution that would provide their investors with some return: “If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank... soon that tuppence... will come pound.” We are, however, reminded of the fragility of this arrangement when Mr. Banks is later called for his dismissal. The younger Mr. Dawes relates a story about an officer of their bank who wisely invested a loan on a shipment of tea to the American colonies. This shipment was badly timed as it coincided with certain tea taxes, the practical effect being that all the tea was dumped into Boston harbour in protest, the loan was defaulted and a run on the bank ensued. The distant fire of a cannon that caused the institution of the British bank to shake. (2, 5, 4, 1, 6)


A sequence of most poignant significance involves Bert, as the chimney-sweep character, who introduces the children to a land of “enchantment,” with “things half in shadow and halfway in light”. The parallels with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are palpable throughout, though all metaphorical. Mary Poppins warns Michael to “be careful, you never know what might happen around a fireplace,” just as Marlow warns Kurtz “you will be lost,” when they were within yards of

the nearest fire. As she says it Michael’s swept up away from the British home and into another world described by Bert as “a trackless jungle just waiting to be explored.” Mary Poppins leads the expedition by becoming the British General she was hired to be. She makes the children and Bert form ranks and leads them through “the impenetrable forest” of chimney pots and smoke. Soon after they start, Michael puts his face into a chimney and emerges completely black with soot, in doing so he becomes one with the landscape and the natives. The reprise of Chim Chim Cher-Ee ends and their song is answered by multiple calls of “Cheroo!” and immediately many black figures appear from the jungle of chimneys. They commence a wild dance “a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, or feet stamping, of bodies swaying”. Their movements over the rooftops prove how they are “like the wilderness itself”. Mary Poppins joins in in a section of dance that requires her to perform a sequence and the ‘natives’ to imitate, however, she doesn’t recreate their movements but performs neat steps that they copy. Eventually she shows her imperial superiority by twirling multiple times in mid air, and then nods, having outwitted the natives in a dance competition. They can no longer follow her, but must gaze in admiration. This choreography mimics the British feeling of being one step ahead of their colonial subjects at all times. Leading them in a dance of manners and fashion that they will never be capable of developing independently, but must follow as best they can: “I was only thinking how the worthy doctor’s collar climbed up his neck.” (1, 4, 5)

While the natives of the rooftops are dancing around brandishing their brushes, Admiral Boom spies them from the next roof over. His world is definitely not of theirs, separate and immaculate, an image of British naval efficiency. He calls “They’re being attacked by hottentots! Give them what for! Teach the beggars a lesson!” The imperial fire-power turns out to be fireworks (a chinese import) stuffed into “the long six-inch guns” and as soon as they start “shelling the bush” the sweeps scatter in panic

and we’re treated to wide angle shots of “vague forms of men running bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct... as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again”. (1, 4) 


The natives all dance into the Banks house which has become a melting-pot for the differing ideals of Empire. The maid is swept up in the rhythmic dance and when she next whirls into shot there’s perfect black handprint on her previously white apron, a sign that the household itself is being tainted with the marks of imperialism. With Mary Poppins’ influence the previously distinct ideas of empire, abroad and at home, are becoming indistinct. Despite this she gives the word and all the sweeps file out, amongst them is Michael, with his blackened face and chimney-sweep’s hat. Mr. Banks grabs him and Michael says “Good luck guv’nor!” he has ‘gone native’ both in appearance and language. (1)

In the end Mr. Banks allows himself to be educated by the colonial influence. He grasps the language (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious), he loses his position in the imperial world of finance and turns to correcting his position as “liege” in the home. The song “Let’s go Fly a Kite” refers to a preferable state of freedom, where the characters can feel the wind in the sails of the British fleet, while keeping

their feet firmly on English soil. This becomes more poignant as, having secured his position and his home empire, Mr. Banks is taken back into the world of imperial finance and promoted: a metaphor for the supposed British notion that once the natives could be trusted to rule themselves, the British would leave them to it and work with them on an equal basis. Having thus succeeded, Mary Poppins takes her leave. The final conversation between Poppins and the parrot-shaped handle of her umbrella is full of the noble pathos of a colonial leaving a colony to independent rule:

“That’s gratitude for you! Didn’t even say goodbye... they think more of their father than they do of you.”
“That’s as it should be... practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their feeling."

She is feeling “the silent pain, almost agony that people feel at the knowledge that they might not be indispensable after all”. Poppins leaves quietly, setting sail westward, her task complete - at least in Cherry Tree Lane. Mr. Banks’ red carnation is placed back in his lapel, and he is allowed, once more, to hold the (purse) strings of the “Ocean Greyhounds” flying across the empire. (1, 7)

Primary Source:1. Mary Poppins (Dir. Robert Stevenson 1964) Walt Disney Productions
Secondary Sources:

2. Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart: Penguin Red Classic (2006)

3. “The African Writer and the English Language” (Chrisman &Williams, Colonial Discourse)

4. Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness: A Bantam Classic (1963)
5. Forster, E.M. A Passage to India: Penguin Classics (2005)
6. Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea: Penguin Essentials (2011) 
7. Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi A Grain of Wheat: Penguin Modern Classics (2002)

  

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The Pervasive Fantasy of Rowling's Wizarding World

Unlike other fantasy creations, the world of Rowling’s Harry Potter series exists alongside our own, within it, about it and through it. Lewis’s Narnia books were portal fantasy and involved the removal of children from our recognisable reality to a removed imagined world. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is presented as history, and his constructed mythology exists in a time before our history began, before the continents had drifted. Rowling’s magical world, however can be accessed at all times through the world we inhabit. Some distinct locations provide a clear portal, like The Leaky Cauldron, situated between two shops on a muggle high street, or platform 9 and 3/4, which exists in the magically created space between platforms 9 and 10 at the very real Kings Cross Station. But even without these specific sites magical people can appear and disappear seamlessly in our world, as when Harry, Ron and Hermione apparate onto Tottenham Court Road after Bill and Fleur’s wedding in the seventh book. In this sense the contents of the Potter books become very familiar, everything is as it is yet another layer of meaning is added to our existent societal structure. In the books, events that occur in the wizarding world, like the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban prison, appear on the muggle television. The crime he’s accused of committing - the murder of thirteen muggles - is explained as a gas explosion. This pervasive addition to how we conceptualise the familiar creates a sense of duality to the reader’s experience, while being mirrored in the narrative. Harry leaves Hogwarts at the end of each book and re-enters our muggle world, where he lives with the Dursley’s, where he’s no longer allowed to use magic, and where he goes back to being ordinary - just like you and me - yet he knows that there is more. This sense of the familiar in fantasy could be enough to argue that reading Harry Potter feels less like a literary experience, and more historically realist, especially when the language of the Potter universe has been accepted into the everyday vernacular of a generation to the extent that words like muggle, Quiddich, Hogwarts, Death Eater, Floo Network, and Nimbus 2000 can be dropped into a sentence without any need for further explanation. The very accessibility of the wizarding world inspires readers to view life through a different lens, and has proven problematic to child readers who come to believe in the parallel world to such an extent that they feel genuine loss when they do not get accepted into Hogwarts. 

A very familiar theme that is recycled through the Potter series is that of the battle between good and evil. Harry, The Boy Who Lived, faces Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, in a battle to the death - ‘neither can live whilst the other survives’. Harry is The Chosen One, prophetically anticipated and fatalistically meant to be. In that respect he joins a whole line of child protagonists somehow called upon to save a/the world: Lyra Belacqua (His Dark Materials), the Pevensie Children (Narnia), Will Stanton (The Dark is Rising), to name but a few. Yet the line between good and evil, while seemingly simply drawn, becomes increasingly problematic on closer reading, ‘The world isn’t divided up into good people and Death Eaters, Harry.’ Harry himself contains part of Voldemort’s soul, he is the seventh Horcrux, and from his earliest encounters with the wizarding world, the dual nature of the Harry/Voldemort conundrum becomes apparent. When buying his wand on his first trip to Diagon Alley he learns that his wand shares core origin with Voldemort’s: ‘Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great.‘ And again on his arrival at Hogwarts during the sorting we learn that Harry has the potential for ‘greatness‘ and a placement in Slytherin, Lord Voldemort’s old house, would help him achieve this potential. The nature of greatness remains problematic, and even though Harry chooses a contrary path to Voldemort on his first night in Gryffindor tower, he has his first significant dream where he hears Voldemort’s voice inside Quirrel’s turban. As in the scene at the Zoo, the glass has been removed between Harry and the snake that through wizarding power is given a voice.

An obviously good character who later becomes problematic is Dumbledore. The aged mentor who doubles as puppet master:

He’s a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don’t think it was an accident he let me find out how the Mirror worked. It’s almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could (Philosopher’s Stone)

Here we see the first instance where Dumbledore tests Harry’s ability, arriving just in time to avert complete disaster. This method, while allowing for unsupervised heroic adventures in the first three books, in the fourth becomes troublesome when Harry is entered illegally into the Triwizard Tournament and allowed to compete. Where previously Harry’s adventures had happened very much in secret, somehow mitigating the fact that he was allowed to do as much as he did, in the fourth book the danger is acknowledged and yet events are allowed to unfold. Allowing Harry to face the dangers of the tournament becomes Dumbledore’s first open testing ground for his new chess piece. Instead of allowing Harry to enter in order to fulfil the ‘binding magical contract‘ that the Goblet constitutes, then making him forfeit every round safely, Dumbledore expects Harry to compete in challenges that are too advanced for his skill set and that he did not freely volunteer for. In this regard, Harry is the only 

competitor forced, like a Gladiator in the colosseum, to fight a series of battles that end in a duel with Voldemort. The Triwizard Tournament, therefore, is the practice arena for Harry’s greater struggle - and for Dumbledore, directing from the sidelines, it is the perfect training ground.

In many ways the Potter series follows the conventions of the School Story. A child is removed from a domestic home to a place where they experience relative autonomy, which allows for a greater range of experiences and a greater degree of adventure than they would have if they’d stayed at home. While at school they partake in classes, interact with other children, and engage in sports. Unlike other school stories, however, the school itself is a definite personality within the story. With its moving staircases, secret passageways, doors to nowhere, and most notably in the Room of Requirement, ‘It’s almost like Hogwarts wants us to fight back’, Hogwarts even has a sense of humour that allows for the appearance of a collection of antique chamber pots when Dumbledore is most in need of a toilet. Yet the personality of Hogwarts is as ambiguous in its notion of ‘good‘ as its headmaster. Unlike other school stories, the goings on at Hogwarts are augmented by the powers at play (sometimes literally at play), and while the castle can make space for the inhabitants to fight evil or protect against it, it can also allow space for the existence of the evil that must be fought. In the second book the discovery of the legendary Chamber of Secrets leads to a series of sinister attacks on muggle-born students. ‘The horror within‘ that is ‘released‘ uses the stone pipework in the walls of the castle to move around freely during all hours of the day. Like Dumbledore, who assisted Harry in his various battles rather than preventing the battles from taking place, Hogwarts provides the training and sometimes the danger. 

  In the same way the inhabitants of Hogwarts are divided into four houses, one of which is notorious for producing dark wizards. Slytherin house is even banished from the grounds of Hogwarts during the final battle because their ideology differs so strongly from that of the others. Salazar Slytherin created The Chamber of Secrets, yet while he was forced to part from the school his house remains. This is problematic because in the aftermath of the battle ‘nobody was sitting according to house any more: all were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves’, yet in the final chapter when Harry gives his son last minute encouragement on platform 9 and 3/4, the subject of the talk is about the houses and how no particular house is ‘bad’. Slytherin still exists, as do Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, the unity seen in the final battle has not lasted, division remains. The conflicting ideologies persist along with the stigma attached to ‘belonging‘ to a certain set. 

A discussion about Harry Potter, its placement in the familiar and its re-working of old tropes into new forms, cannot be complete without a comparison to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In both books the hero goes on a quest to destroy an object that contains part of the Dark Lord’s soul, ‘They are one, the Ring and the Dark Lord.’ In both series the hero is attached psychologically and magically, to the object. In Harry’s case he is the vessel in which the last Horcrux is contained, in Frodo’s he is the Ring bearer, and has developed a dependency on the Ring that he cannot overcome in the end. Both Harry and Frodo are guided for part of their journey by a venerable wizard, who dies and leaves them to complete the journey alone - or at least, with the aid of other friends. Both Harry and Frodo are rescued from death by those wizards, Gandalf collects Frodo from the slopes of Mount Doom on a giant eagle, while Harry meets Dumbledore in limbo in Kings Cross Station to discuss his options that ultimately leads to the decision to live. Both books contain characters that are tall, wear black hoods, and cause feelings of fear and despair. The Nazgul and the Dementors are an interesting addition to the comparison, because while their similarities in aesthetic and function are striking, their actual composition is entirely different. The Nazgul, or Ringwraiths, are named for what isn’t there. They are insubstantial voids in the space where men once were. Their status as once-men is what makes them so terrifying, because they are the extreme result of dependence on power in the pursuit of power, which is a very human trait. In comparison the Dementors are named for what they do, mens is latin for mind (also used in legilimens and occlumens) so Dementor can be interpreted as ‘De-Mind’ - the removal of the mind. Dementors were never men, they are creatures that feed on negative emotion, and while they have the ability to make wraiths - by

devouring a person’s soul - that person will never become one of them.

  While the Nazgul stand for specific men and Dementors stand for no men, Harry and Frodo stand for the everyman. Neither of them wanted the ‘task that was appointed to them’, both inherited their future roles. 

‘I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.’

‘So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. What we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.‘      

Both are small and of average faculty. Harry defers in intelligence to Hermione who outshines him in most arenas, while Frodo is protected by the physically stronger characters of Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir and Gimli for the first part of his journey. They also stand for freedom in relation to a specific type of servitude. If the dark powers stand for homogeneity, Sauron for industrialism - ‘he needs only this Ring to cover all the lands in darkness’ - and Voldemort for collectivism, ‘the colours of Slytherin will do for all’, then Frodo and Harry stand for individualism and the freedom that that brings. In the face of the industry of Mordor and Isengard, Frodo is a symbol of romanticism, originating in the peaceful agricultural Shire. In the face of Voldemort’s singularity of vision that only benefits pure-blood Wizards and reduces others to silent subservience, Harry is a friend to muggles, muggle-borns, blood-traitors, half giants, half veela, house elves, centaurs and all. Both he and Frodo must destroy the part of themselves that allows for evil, and live, thus preserving themselves as the romantic hero.  

The Harry Potter series does not challenge our concept of what a hero is, it does not offer a great alternative to the school story genre. It does not provide us with a Utopian vision of what man could be if he had magical abilities, it does not even challenge class conventions - and if there’s anything that the ability to perform magic should do, it would be to level the field in terms of wealth and status, assuming that all people live according to their abilities. Instead what the Potter books do, is they challenge our perception of the world we live in. The pervasiveness of the Wizarding World as told by Rowling is where the magic of Potter truly lies.

Lord of the Rings Criticism (Exam Practice Essay)

The following is a practice essay I wrote for my exam in Fantastic History of the 20th Century (Final year Glasgow University English Literature).Writing on such an enormous work in one hour is a daunting task. 

‘Fantasy... is a literature of desire, which seeks that which is experienced as absence and loss.’ Discuss.

  

The opening chapter to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is entitled “A Long Expected Party” and directly parodies the opening chapter of his previous work The Hobbit, “The Unexpected Party.” In this chapter, the hobbit in question, Bilbo Baggins, is celebrating his “eleventy-first birthday”, and promises “a party of special magnificence,” after which he plans on “going on a holiday, a very long holiday,” from which he intends never to return. A very different Bilbo to the Bilbo we met at the beginning of The Hobbit, a Bilbo who doesn’t like adventures, doesn’t like making a fuss, prefers his own home comforts, and has a healthy mistrust for the lands of the “big folk.” At the very start of the book therefore we’re introduced to two very different senses of loss, firstly that of Frodo when at the party, after Bilbo’s spectacular disappearance, “I’m leaving you now, GOOD BYE!”, he realizes quite suddenly just how dear Bilbo is to him - and then of Bilbo for the Ring. Bilbo’s need to part with the ring is vocalized by Gandalf,

“I will keep it.”“You will be a fool if you do, Bilbo. You make that clearer with every word you say. It has got far too much hold on you. Let it go... and be free.”   

It’s the prospect of the loss that agitates Bilbo to such a degree, for when he’s finally lets the Ring go, he is immediately relieved. The process of his loss echoes previous emotions associated with the Ring’s previous owners, “It is my own. I found it. It came to me.” The first shouts of Gollum’s claim, naming it his “Birthday Present,” the second, Bilbo’s, in his dubiously reported ‘discovery‘ of the Ring by accident in Gollum’s cave, and the third, Isildur, who took the ring from battle and intended to make it an heirloom of his house. His interpretation of the argument between himself and Gandalf, “I don’t know what has come over you, Gandalf... You have never been like this before.” and his dubious refusal to see in his own behaviour that which is irrational and uncharacteristic, foreshadows the moment between Frodo and Boromir at the falls of Raurus. This conversation, which hails the “breaking of the fellowship” is fueled by Boromir’s sense of loss for the strength of his people. A loss of strength arguably caused by the absence of the king and the empty throne of Gondor. The whole plot is fueled by absence and loss, but the loss the drives the plot in its entirety is Sauron’s loss of the One Ring, and the hope that that which was lost is never found by him. 

While professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, Tolkien sensed a lack of purely British mythology. The popular Arthurian legends originated in Northern Europe and were brought to the British Isles by the Normans in their conquest. According to the experts on the extra material that accompanies the film versions of the books by Peter Jackson, Tolkien considered the Norman Conquest 

disastrous in its effect on British literature, and had a theory that had the Anglo-Saxons had a cavalry they would not have been defeated. Which explains the nature of Rohan, a culture very similar to that of the Saxons, but horse-centric (even down to the recurring use of the word Eor, which is old English for horse). Be that as it may, Tolkien certainly felt the absence of British mythology and set about writing his own. This takes place in Middle Earth, a term certainly taken from the Old English, Middengearth, a word used to describe the world we currently live in because it lies between the heavens and the underworld.

“Those days, the Third Age of Middle-Earth, are now long past, and the shape of all the lands has been changed...”  

This, from the Prologue, clearly suggests that the world Tolkien envisioned was a world before continental drift had occurred and the British Isles had been separated from Europe. This explains the narrative voice, which in the Prologue seems to be setting out  relevant history, and in the appendices tells the stories that happen before, during and after the time of Frodo and the Ring.  

The use of The Shire as the place of origin, speaks of Tolkien’s sense of loss for the rural and pastoral scenes of Britain during Anglo-Saxon times. Indeed, the time we spend in The Shire, being acquainted with its peoples and its traditions, really builds an affection for its simplistic ways and helps us to empathise with the heroes when they encounter The Scouring. 

“They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellow, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools.” 

All of these items were in great use in Britain up until the Industrial Revolution, a time that paved the way towards further mechanization, which in turn led to the introduction of tanks in warfare, first encountered on the Somme in WW1, during which Tolkien was a soldier. After the battle of the Somme Tolkien began writing a piece called “The Fall of Gondolin”, on the back of sheet music for a military marching song. The story tells of the founding of the Elven city of Gondolin (Where Thorin’s sword and Gandalf’s Glamdring were forged), of the arrival of Tuor, a prince of the Edain, of the betrayal of the city to Morgoth by Turgon’s nephew Maeglin, and of its subsequent destruction by Morgoth’s armies. Those armies drove mechanisms of war that laid waste to the beautiful city. In this story, later recovered and used in the completion of The Silmarillion, we see a preamble to the mechanized mass production of the armies of Saruman. In this way, the destruction of Saruman becomes one of the main ideological focuses of the text, because even after his defeat at Helms Deep and in Isengard by the Ents (a powerful image if ever there was one, a center of industry burning up wood to fuel the fires of production, being torn to pieces by sentient trees), the vestiges of industrialism hang on and next take a hold in the beloved Shire, and begin to transform the homely beauties of Britain into the industrial center that it is today. In Tolkien’s creation he has his worldly heroes return home and begin to heal their land, reclaiming the losses of the time they’ve lived through.

“I shan’t call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess... And that’ll take a lot of time and work.”

Saruman’s nickname in The Shire of Sharkey, is also indicative of Tolkien’s attitude towards industrialism as a great voracious predator, grim, gray and powerful, eating through the peaceful pastures of the earth, bleeding the world dry of life. 

An ever present sense of loss in Middle Earth comes from the passage of the Elves to the Gray Havens

and beyond. The sense of a time drawing to a close, of a great people leaving is strengthened by the recurring nature of the war being fought; in the last battle between Sauron and the ‘Free Peoples‘, Elves battled alongside men in “The Last Alliance of Elves and Men.” That great effort was all brought to nought when Isildur failed to destroy the Ring in Orodruin, and this time men must fight the battle alone. This battle, too, might be seen as a reclamation of Middle Earth from the grip of the Rings of Power, of which the One Ring was just one - the master ring for sure - but to be master there had to be other rings for it to be master of. None of these rings are meant for mortals, and mortal souls are easily corrupted by them, as shown by all who have been bearers of the One. The three remaining elven rings, Nenya, Vilya, and Narya, are an important presence providing strongholds against Sauron’s influence in Rivendell, in Caras Galadhon, and Gandalf who, as a Maiar, is himself a stronghold against evil and whose great task it is to aid in the destruction of the dark powers. Once the One Ring is destroyed, however, the power of the three rings would only exist for powers sake, with no function for good or for evil. Without a function they must “diminish and go into the west,” along with their bearers.

This creates a new absence, an absence of magic, an absence of a race of guardians who had been present to aid and protect middle earth. This absence, however, leaves room for a new presence, that of Aragorn who fills the long empty throne of Gondor. A throne that not all wish to see filled. Denethor, the steward of Gondor, tasked with guarding the throne, is so unwilling to accept change that he kills himself in the middle of the battle of the Pelennor Fields. He has allowed himself to succumb to loss as he grieves for his son, Boromir, and he prematurely grieves for the loss of Middle-Earth having misunderstood the visions provided by the Palantir, “Do you think the eyes of the white tower are blind, Mithrandir?” He has so given in to his sense of loss that he is incapable of seeing hope in his living son, Faramir, and in the remaining strength of men when led by a true king.

Aragorn’s tale is also littered with losses. He is last of the line of Numenorian Kings, a race that succumbed to the evils of Morgoth, and whose land was lost, like Atlantis, under an all-consuming wave (A wave Tolkien dreamt of like the dream recounted by Faramir to Frodo in Ithilien). He is descendent from a line of people who, but for himself, are absent from Middle Earth, lost to history and weakness. He wants to marry Arwen, but before he does he must defeat Sauron and take his throne. In marrying Aragorn, however, Arwen must sacrifice immortality and the company of her kindred. This relationship of loss and death is echoed in the tale of Luthien and Beren, which in turn was partly inspired by Tolkien’s wife Edith, who tragically died aged 55, Tolkien then inscribed “Luthien” on her gravestone. 

Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings is a tale of a world that, like all complex worlds involving multiple peoples, races, histories, and individual interests, is fueled partly by loss. I believe that fantasy is often enabled by a desire to fill an absence or loss, but in an attempt to not succumb to Denathor’s mistake I will say that the possitive additions that fantasy makes far outweigh those losses. Tolkien may have felt an absence of British mythology, but in that absence he created the Middle Earth.