Penn State Deluge - Vol. 2 No. 1 - Spring 2004

As a result of their harrowing experiences, the hobbits face the unnerving realization that the Shire does not feel like the home they remember. The new gates are "gloomy and un-Shirelike" (975) and its wardens, old acquaintances who barely recognize them, have only the foggiest understanding of their exploits of the past year. One warden greets their reappearance with brief and mild surprise, remarking, "Why, they said you was dead! Lost in the Old Forest by all accounts" (975). The warden's remarks contrast with readers' intimate knowledge of the hobbits' struggles throughout the quest, reminding them that they must likewise remove the quest from the forefront of their attention in order to experience the identity struggle Tolkien sets up with the narratives hitherto.

This conflict intensifies as their incongruous identities meet the hostility the Shire holds for them. The hobbits' journey allows them to see the precious and fragile nature of the peace that the Shire-folk learn to take for granted. So inadequate is the warden's comprehension of the War that the only acknowledgement or recognition he concedes for their exploits therein is the observation that they have returned "all dressed up for fighting" (975). Sam's frustration indicates the onset of their struggle to reintegrate themselves into the Shire after their brush Sauron's evil: "No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and a lot of rules and orc-talk instead" (977). This struggle originates from the disparity between their homecoming and its romanticized mental image Sam maintains during the journey.

The hobbits endure the confused frustration of this disappointing welcome in order to update their mental image of the Shire. The gatekeepers and Shirriffs recount to the travelers the misfortunes that have befallen the Shire since the War of the Ring began: the Shire's exploitation at the hands of Sharkey's ruffians, and the humiliation and abuse that their fellow hobbits have endured. This sudden enlightenment is troubling, however, because it intensifies the travelers' shock at the inaccuracy of their artificially inflated memories to which they cling for inspiration in the quest's darkest hours. Their images of home had become so simplified and glorified in their minds that reality can no longer correspond with them. Thus, the hobbits inadvertently guarantee their eventual disappointment when their mental images of their home clash with the reality of what the Shire has become. This moment occurs when they arrive in their home neighborhood of Bywater and the contrast finally overwhelms them:

The travelers trotted on, and as the sun began to sink towards the White Downs far away on the western horizon they came to Bywater by its wide pool; and there they had their first really painful shock. This was Frodo and Sam's own country, and they found out now that they cared about it more than any other place in the world. (980-981)

This revelation by the narrator confirms that a new conflict is arising to replace the quest in the narrative forefront, engaging the protagonists in the text's more significant struggle of coping with life after the Ring—a struggle more intimate and complex than their adventure with the Fellowship. With the onset of this narrative development, Gandalf's prediction upon his departure comes true: the hobbits will indeed have to "settle [the Shire's] affairs [them]selves" (974).

Merry and Pippin take matters into their own hands in the Scouring of the Shire—the revolt in which they apply the military experience they gained in the service of Rohan and Gondor to muster the Shire-folk for organized resistance against the ruffians. The victory propels the duo to fame and proves the strength that Gandalf says they gained from the quest. Their valor distinguishes them from their provincial neighbors, and the ruffians can sense it: "Fearless hobbits…were a great surprise. And there was a note in the voices of these newcomers that [the ruffians] had not heard before. It chilled them with fear" (982). In order to save the Shire, they must differentiate themselves from the Shire-folk, whom Merry assesses "have become so comfortable so long they don't know what to do. They just want a match, though, and they'll go up in fire" (983). Only by becoming become un-Shirelike enough to physically best a foe can Merry and Pippin rally the hobbits to oust the ruffians.

Despite his valor, however, Pippin still succumbs to dismay at this unexpected violence in the wake of their victory over Sauron: "Of all the ends to our journey…that I should have thought of: to have to fight half-orcs and ruffians in the Shire itself" (983). Sam echoes his dismay at seeing their homeland laid waste, lamenting, "This is worse than Mordor…Much worse in a way…because it's home, and you remember it before it was all ruined" (994). Sam's reference to memory and remembrance reveals the emotional need for concordance between the memory of place and the experience of place in the present. It also equates the degradation of home over time with a personal wound, exposing the linkage between place and identity. Although the Shire's desecration pales in comparison with the pestilent destruction that Sauron unleashed upon the lands of his foes, it wounds Sam deeper than the foreign destruction ever could because the land of the Shire is part of him.

The hobbits' shock reaches its apex as they reach Bag End and discover that Sharkey, the mastermind of the rape of the Shire, is actually Saruman, bereft of his potent wizardry but armed nonetheless with malevolent cunning. He spits his hatred at the hobbits for their victory over his men and mocks them for their naiveté:

You make me laugh, you hobbit-lordlings…so secure and so pleased with your little selves. You thought you had done very well out of it all, and could now just amble back and have a nice quiet time in the country. Saruman's home [Isengard] could be all wrecked, and he could be turned out, but no one could touch yours. Oh no! Gandalf would look after your affairs. (995)

Saruman's tirade exhibits some of his old wisdom despite his bitter sarcasm. His remark highlights the risks of relying on memory of place to bolster identity, deriding the naiveté of assuming home would remain untouched by the quest. Saruman's words also represent Tolkien's wry denunciation of fantasy works that are content with just such a formulaic conclusion. Saruman recognizes this ending as inadequate, and the fact that Tolkien extends The Lord of the Rings past the literal end of the quest suggests that he does as well.

Instead, however, Tolkien waits until Saruman's death following this exchange to declare an end to the War of the Ring: Merry describes Saruman's death as "the very last end of the War I hope," to which Frodo replies, "I hope so…the very last stroke. But to think that it should fall here, at the very door of Bag End [in the Shire, where it all began]. Among all my hopes and fears at least I never expected that" (997). This assertion that the War lasted beyond the quest's end diminishes the significance of the quest itself, suggesting that the War's true finale here in the Shire is the most important episode in the text.

Tolkien's need to explore Saruman's death as the "last stroke" (997) of the War is encapsulated in Sam's response to Frodo: "I shant call it the end, till we've cleared up all the mess…And that'll take a lot of time and work" (997). Sam's words summarize Tolkien's purpose in these final chapters of The Lord of the Rings: to "clear up the mess" the quest made of their identities, creating a respectable and challenging work of fantasy by dealing with the ramifications of the events it depicts throughout the rising action.

With Sam's words, the text begins its final stage, and the shift away from the fantasy and action of the quest is complete. This narration changes in order to reflect the fact that the quest is over, and that the hobbits are once more in the unique land of their birth. The narrative discards its awareness of Tolkien's legendarium—vast in space and history—and instead adopts the viewpoint of the Shire. The narrator's description of the gear the hobbits brought back with them exhibits this new perspective: "mail-shirts so bright and…shields so splendid…long grey cloaks, finely woven and clasped at the throat with beautiful brooches; and Mr. Frodo wore always a white jewel on a chain that he would often finger" (1002). The narrator professes obliviousness to these particulars of the quest, referring to the entire business with less and less familiarity. Having hitherto described these elements throughout the text with such accuracy and understanding, the narrator's sudden lack of knowledge about these possessions enables Shippey to assert, "what hangs over the end of all Tolkien's fiction is not 'And so they all lived happily ever after', but the line from the Old English poem, Déor, Þæs ofereode, Þisses swa mæg. This could be translated, 'That passed, this can too', but Tolkien translated it…'Time has passed since then, this too can pass'" (Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth 328).

The narrative distance this rhetoric conveys parallels the temporal distance that clouds the hobbits' memories of the quest as time passes, as Sam's anecdote suggests: "If that isn't the very tree you hid behind when the Black Rider first showed up, Mr. Frodo…It seems like a dream now" (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 1004). The quest is distant even to the protagonists who toiled through it, and its events continue to become hazy and unreal to the characters, and consequently to the reader as well. Only by thus alienating the reader from the intensity and violence of the War of the Ring can the narrative attract attention to a conflict that is quieter but equally significant: the more personal conflict in which the hobbits struggle with the changes within their identities that prevent them from emotionally coming home.

Tolkien's use of narration to successfully execute this shift highlights the mastery of language he applies to his storytelling. He recognizes that the narrator is an active participant in the text, and that the language of narration can alter the text's meaning and significance. In this case, Tolkien manipulates narrative significance by lessening narrative familiarity, applying this technique gradually throughout the final chapters to draw readers away from the fantasy action and encourage them to see the ensuing identity struggle. The effectiveness of Tolkien's narration impresses Flieger, who notes, "to Tolkien the value of a story is in its transmission as well as in its existence. Indeed, its transmission is its existence" (Flieger, 185). Tolkien manipulates the language of narration to make the quest seem dream-like to readers and help them better understand the experience of the hobbits.

The culmination of the hobbits' identity struggles at home is Frodo's realization that the burden of bearing the Ring so crushed his spirit, and so changed him, that he will never be able to live at peace in the Shire again. Going abroad gave Frodo the strength to save the Shire and restore it to the idyllic state that he remembered, but his quest also replaces his old identity with one that is too big for his home to contain: his incongruity in the land of his birth is evident to his close friends: "Frodo dropped quietly out of all the doings of the Shire, and Sam was pained to notice how little honor he had in his own country. Few people know or wanted to know about his adventures" (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 1002). Eventually, Frodo's identity crisis and inability to reintegrate himself into the Shire reaches its breaking point when he cries from a dream, "It is gone for ever…and now all is dark and empty" (1001). A solution of greater finality is necessary for his ultimate relief, and it is in pursuit of it this succor that Frodo sails from the Grey Havens to the Undying Lands at the text's conclusion. He explains his predicament, "I have been deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them" (1006). Frodo's realization is the ultimate conclusion of the shift in his identity that began when he first set foot outside the Shire to destroy the Ring. This moment, and not the actualization of the quest itself, is the text's true finale. It also proves that The Lord of the Rings is more than a simple adventure story. It is an exploration of the changes in identity that only the greatest romance of the twentieth century could provoke.

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