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Geography Double Dissertation GEG-30006
Year of Submission: 2016
Title: How are meanings inscribed into space? A fantasy case
study using J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘Middle Earth’
Student Number – 13028437
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Geography Double Dissertation GEG-30006
Submitted in 2016
How are meanings inscribed into space? A fantasy case study
using J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth
13028437
Word Count: 9418

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Abstract
By using a close textual analytical approach, this paper focuses upon the dynamics of space that
interact to inscribe meaning into space for different cultures, identities and places. The paper uses J.
R. R. Tolkien’s science fiction writing as a fantasy case study to explore the interactions between
identity, landscape, place and time and to examine the production of a new fluidity within imagined
spaces. The study considers the story of Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit, whose sense of place within an
increasingly globalised world becomes stretched, corrupted and lost. By using Frodo as a narrative
thread, the discussion focuses upon constructs of identity, a sense of belonging, home, nature and how
different cultures build ‘cultural landscapes’. The paper is embedded within a rich number of works
that give a spatial landscape context and exemplify the complexities within an imagined world that
represents and influences constructions of our own world.

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Acknowledgements
A Thank you:
To the works of Jon Ronald Reuel Tolkien – without his work, I
would not have understood the importance of family, home and where
to look in dark times.
To my parents for never failing to see me reach my potential.
To my very own Samwise Gamgee for pushing me all the way.
To my tutor, Lisa Lau, who shared a fantastic love of Tolkien’s
wondrous creations and helped me remember my passion for
geography.

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Contents Page
List of Figures: Pages 7 -
- Figure 1 - Circuit of Culture 7
- Figure 2 – Map of Middle Earth 7
- Figure 3 – The Shire and a Hobbit Hole 8
- Figure 4 – The Watchtower of Amon Sul 9
- Figure 5 – The Dunharrow
- Figure 6 – Gollum Perishing
Introduction: Pages
- Aim Page
- Objectives Page
Methodology: Pages
- Techniques Page
Literature Review: Pages
- Space Pages
- Landscape Pages
- Home Pages
- Literary Geography Pages
- J. R. R Tolkien Pages
Discussion: Pages
- On Identity and Space Pages
- On Home Pages
- On Power Pages
- On Time Pages
- On a Sense of Place Pages
- On Nature Pages
- On Culture Pages
- On Narrative and Endings Pages
Conclusion: Page
Bibliography: Pages

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Appendices: Page

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List of Figures
Figure 1. The Circuit of Culture. du Gay, P., Hall, S., Jones, L., (1997)., Doing cultural studies: the story of
the Sony Walkman. London: Sage Publications in association with the Open University
Figure 2. Map of Middle Earth. Tolkien, J. R. R., (1968)., The Lord of the Rings. Hammersmith: Harper
Collins Publishers

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Figure 3. The Shire and a Hobbit Hole. Day, D., (2015)., Tolkien: An Illustrated Atlas. London: Octopus
Publishing Group, Page 181

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Figure 4. Watchtower of Amon Sul. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (2001)., Directed
by Peter Jackson [Film]. USA: New Line Productions
Figure 5.The Dunharrow. Hammond, W. G., Scull, C., (2015)., The Art of the Lord of the Rings by J. R. R.
Tolkien. London: Harper Collins Publishers, Page 159
Figure 6. Gollum Perishing. Day, D., (2015)., Tolkien: An Illustrated Atlas. London: Octopus Publishing
Group, Page 232

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Introduction
J. R. R. Tolkien created a fantasy world that transformed science fiction writing and continues to be a
cult phenomenon in the present day. The ‘Middle Earth’ construction has been created through many
works of Tolkien’s narrative. Most famously of Tolkien’s works are the Silmarillion, The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion heavily contextualises the history of Middle Earth and
produces a cultural setting for the narrative to play out in. The Hobbit follows the story of a small
creature, known as the Hobbit, by the name of Bilbo Baggins. The story foretells the transformation of
a comfortable, shut off creature set in his ways to an adventurous and brave character. Through
Bilbo’s dealings with Dragons, Elves and Dwarves, constructions of home, place, identity and a sense
of self are first questioned. The Lord of the Rings is arguably Tolkien’s best known representation of
Middle Earth and is seen as one of the great stories of a good versus evil. The finding of the Ring of
Power gives Bilbo Baggins’ nephew Frodo the enduring task of travelling to the dark realm of
Mordor. The fires of Mount Doom (Orodruin) is where Frodo must vanquish the Dark Lord, Sauron,
by destroying the ring. This dissertation will pay particular focus to The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien
has been able to successfully construct a world with its own vast histories and complex realities most
clearly in this narrative.
Tolkien’s Middle Earth has had a defining influence on literary productions following his works
because of the narrative’s holistic nature. Tolkien creates a world where races are constructed and
have their own vast histories and spatial settings. Just as impressively, Tolkien is able to give each of
these races different linguistic capabilities, reinforcing the differences and complexities within an
imagined space. The Middle Earth world has its own geographic coordinates, geology and climatic
systems (Habermann and Kuhn, 2011) that provide a physical setting that encompasses as much
difference as between races and cultures. Tolkien’s work is a product of his Circuit of Culture (Figure
1). Tolkien was influenced by his experience of the world, particularly by post-war Birmingham
(Hammond and Scull, 2015). The Middle Earth world however is not mirror of Tolkien’s physical,

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lived space, but an individual construction that has its own circuits of culture embedded within.
Through a close textual formal interpretation of Tolkien’s Middle Earth world, a reader is able to
understand the systems and methods by which meaning becomes inscribed into space through an
imagined geography. By using a world as complex as Middle Earth and a narrative embodied with
such powerful emotive capabilities, a deep understanding into identity politics, culture building,
constructions of home and constructing places of meaning can be studied. The dissertation will
achieve the following aims and objectives:
Aim:
To exemplify how social interactions construct meaning and understanding of space, whilst
providing a fantasy case study that constructs fortiori reasoning for why meanings and
perceptions change over time as spaces interconnect and change each other.
Objectives:
1) Identify the complexity of constructing identities and explore its relationship with space,
place and meaning.
2) Explore the power narrative has on representing meaning, emotion and culture.
3) Identify landscape as a cultural construction and examine the role space and place play in the
construction/development.
4) Show how J. R. R. Tolkien created a parallel world with its own intricate systems through
which we can understand how our own world is operated and constructed.

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Methodology
Primary data was collected by analysing 2 subjects. The first was through analytical interpretation of
J. R. R. Tolkien’s works of fiction based within Middle Earth. The analysis focused upon:
1) The Lord of the Rings (1968)
2) The Hobbit (2011)
3) The Silmarillion (2013)
Most emphasis was placed upon analysis of The Lord of the Rings for the narrative held the greatest
amount of content for analysis as well as more detailed descriptions of cultures, regions and
characters.
One of the main limitations of the study was on the limit of content that could be discussed within the
final product. On close inspection, the works of Tolkien cover a number of vast geographical areas
and debates. The expansiveness of content required a narrowing down process through subjective
opinion and selection of the most appropriate themes and discussion points.
Through a method of close textual formal interpretation, analysis was used to discuss identity politics,
construction of landscape, place and home, cultured representations and the power held within
representations of real world space through literary geographies.
The second subject of analytical interpretation was artwork, sketching’s and visual interpretations of
the narrative of The Lord of the Rings. Artwork includes:
1) Original Tolkien sketches collated in the book ‘The Art of The Lord of the Rings’ (Hammond
and Scull, 2015),

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2) Depictions of place based within Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of the Lord of the Rings
(Jackson, 2001; 2002; 2003)
3) In-text sketching in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings text written by Tolkien
I also used a method of Reflective Diaries. Six participants were provided with a copy of Tolkien’s
‘The Hobbit’ and asked to answer questions at different stages of the narrative; (1) before reading, 2)
after reading, 3) after every 4 chapters within the book. The participants were given a three-week
period to read the narrative and answer the questions. On reflection, the results did not provide a
conclusive and strong data set to employ analytically. Instead, the partial knowledge gained was used
for context and self-understanding.
A brief study was also conducted into commentators upon Tolkien’s works of fiction. The results of
the study were used to contextualise how The Lord of the Rings and ‘Middle Earth’ constructions
were received academically. The commentators studied were: Patrick Curry Walter Strepp, David
Ehrenteld, Roz Kaverey, Tolkien himself, Jessica Yates, Calder Marshall and Susantony Broomhead.
The following academic journals were used to employ key geographical theories into the dissertation
mode of analysis; Progress in Human Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographies, Biodiversity and Conservation, New Formations, Cultural Geographies and Human
Geography.

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Literature Review
Space is conceptualised to be socially constructed through representations, meanings and emotions.
The way we perceive space has changed from a bounded, non-interactional entity to one that is shaped
and moulded by human activity. Indeed, space acts dialectically with human activity by altering social
relations. This literature review will explain the development of the concept of space and how it
relates to ideas of place, identity and power. The review will then discuss constructions of landscape
and home before exploring literary geographies and how critics have commented upon J. R. R.
Tolkien’s works of fiction.
Space
A basic understanding of space is found in “The geometric container in which life takes place and
matters exist”, but also in “The spatial ordering and arrangement of the world produced through social
relations and practices” (Castree et al., 2013:479). Already we can see how space is a site of conflict
through physical and abstract forms. This review will first discuss early-structuralist views of space
before examining positivist approaches. It shall then comment upon experiential concepts of space.
Next, Marxist and power related concepts of space will be discussed before analysing relational
concepts of space by considering the term in the context of mobility and globalised spaces.
Early concepts of space are analysed to be bounded and unconstructed. Academics such as Henri
Bergson (1910) concentrated upon space with its association with time, emphasising the temporal.
Hubbard et al., (2004) suggested that these writings saw human activity to fill in the gaps of space;
spaces were “… the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile” (Foucault, 1980: 70). Space as
empty consolidated an essentialist conceptualisation of space whereby space was only characterised
by human relations through time – a backdrop where processes occur. Modern geographers have been
very critical of this view as it does not consider society’s role of changing space nor how space
becomes part of social systems.

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The Quantitative Revolution (Livingstone, 1992) produced a movement towards positivist
explanations of space. Michel Foucault and Reg Golledge were at the front of two points during this
period. Foucault (1970; 1972) focused upon how space worked throughout history and how it shaped
modernity through what he termed “the face of a period” (1972: 9). Foucault also exemplified space
through dispersion by focusing upon exclusion and society’s formulation of ‘the same’ and ‘the
other’. Foucault’s idea still saw space as a backdrop for human behaviour, marginalising and
accepting people. Golledge and Rushton (1984) saw the merits of human behaviour in relation to
Foucault’s discussion however approached from a more empirical, scientific position. Golledge and
Rushton attempted to positively explain thought, knowledge and decisions that dictate human action
within space.
Critics of the positivist school discussed how scientific approaches provide no legitimate reasoning as
to why social relations act the way they do. Academics thus started to understand space in terms of
individuals. Through this process, concepts of static and moving space started to develop with regards
to place and identity. Academics such as Gold and Yi-Fu Tuan started to develop an experiential
understanding of space. Gold (1980) conceptualised space through individuals possessing unique
understanding of their surroundings. Because each individual has unique interactions of surroundings,
their constructions of space must be different. Tuan (1974) explains Gold’s concept through terms of
‘Topophilia’ and ‘Topophobia’. Tuan attaches meanings to space through attraction or repulsion -
through emotions of happiness and terror. The experiential school differs from early spatial concepts
as it constructs the idea of place and identity. By attaching meaning to space, an individual recognises
that space as a place and so it constructs part of their experiential identity.
The Marxist concept of space marks the first point in literature where space is thought to be boundless
and interactional. David Harvey is notable within this discipline as his writings focus on interacting,

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with and through, space with regards to capitalist structures. Harvey (1973) describes space as being
based upon 3 logics of capitalism. As capitalism advances founded upon these logics, crises of over-
accumulation occur whereby there are great changes in social structures. From this, it can be derived
that space is socially constructed and goes through periods of slow and rapid change – Harvey termed
this the ‘Active Moment’ of space (1985). Soja (1989) develops upon Harvey’s work by defining the
socio-spatial dialectic whereby space and social practice intertwine to construct an ever changing
concept of space. Key to both Harvey and Soja’s work is the exertion of power through social
structures i.e. through capitalism.
Concepts of space developed into a relational field building on Harvey’s constructions. For Massey
(2005), these capitalist structures are not pre-constructed in space but they are created by continuous
relational behaviour of society - they are pre-political entities that are interacted with to construct a
‘Progressive-sense of place’. This progressive sense of space indicates thoughts of ever-changing
identity and mobility of space. Lefebvre (1991) developed Massey’s workings by basing his
arguments upon the trialectic of cultural practise, representations and imaginings. Through this
relationship, absolute space does not exist as social interactions and structures are constantly changing
it. Jackson (1989) develops Lefebvre’s cultural practice factor by analysing the role of language in the
creation of space.
The last concept of space in its progression is headed by the importance of mobility within globalised
space and time. Academics such as Peter Merriman (2012) criticise previous authors by focusing on
space as characterised by incessant movement. This has led to writers such as Tim Cresswell (2001)
calling for a re-understanding of the role of mobility in constructing space as well as how space
morphs mobility through its relationship with time. For these authors, space becomes both static and
mobile; something that can be picked up and interacted with as well as put down.

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In short, we can understand space to be an interactive body. Social relations become shaped and
altered through power-relations and concepts of experiential identities and understandings of place.
Place is progressive and like space, is shaped by time and identity. Space has gone from a bounded
concept to one that is irrefutably important to modern understandings of societal relations.
Landscape
Landscape is an ambiguous and loosely defined construction that is defined differently from agent to
agent (Cosgrove, 1988). Landscape is a technical term used by artists, earth scientists, architects,
planners, historians and geographers alike; a landscape’s meaning can be seen in a multiplicity of
different representations (Meinig, 1979). This section of the literature review will track the
progression of thought used by academics to construct how landscape is created. The review will
follow early constructions from the Renaissance period and Romanticism movement in Britain,
moving towards a viewing of landscape to be culturally produced. Following from landscape’s
cultural production, the review shall then discuss landscape’s relation to the circuit of culture (du Gay
et al., 1997) before moving onto looking past the importance of ‘the gaze’ (Rose, 2007) and
understanding landscape through experience and perception. The Landscape section shall finish by
considering the decline in contemporary discussions of landscape and locate gaps in the landscape
literature.
Constructions of landscape are first found within the Renaissance period whereby environments were
painted using new techniques and inspirations within the context of the Ages of Exploration,
Discovery and Enlightenment (Antrop, 2013). By viewing the depictions of landscape, the scenes
evoked emotional responses; landscape became an expression of human ideas, thoughts, beliefs and
feelings (Vos, 2000). Landscape was intrinsically endowed with meaning which was then represented
and consumed within a circuit of culture (du Gay et al, 1997). Perceived meaning changed how
humans constructed their personal and cultural identities which in turn altered how space was

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interacted with and ordered. The work of Romantic Poets in the Lake District had a large influence
upon the period of Colonialism. The works of Wordsworth and Coleridge, among others, represented
British landscape as a rural idyll – “An idealised, romanticised construct that presents rural areas as
happier, healthier and with fewer problems than urban areas.” (Castree et al 2013:444). The idyllised
British homeland gave great strength to the construction of Empire and a reason to fight, build ad
civilise the new world.
The construction of determinism of landscape changed in the 1920’s. Rather than landscape
inherently having meaning, thought changed so that landscape was actually a human construction.
Carl Sauer (1925) was a key scholar in this field and understood landscape as a cultural production.
Sauer showed that each landscape was individual yet had a relation to other landscapes and that each
cultural production was a selection of characteristics relative to what is important for that culture.
Richard Hartshorne (1939) criticised Sauer’s argument explaining that terms such as region were
much more applicable. The debate between the views exemplified the assumed locality of landscape
within a place.
Authors such as Meinig (1979), Lavis (1979) and Rose (2007) developed the landscape construction
by placing importance not on choosing value in a certain place/locality but upon how an observer
‘reads’/views and constructs landscape. The implementation of interpretation constructs landscape as
a symbolic representation of how a culture expresses their use and value of space. Landscape is thus
given an identity and as a society interacts with that landscape, cultural and personal identities change
(Egoz, 2013). Landscape is no longer a defined locality and its physical reality is blurred. By
focussing upon how an observer views a landscape, there has been a transition towards how a
landscape is experienced. Richard Kerridge (2013) discusses the experience of the imagined
landscape of the text. Text as a landscape shows how the narrative can be both a representation of a
culture and an influence upon building a new identity for that culture whilst George Revill (2013)
explores the use of senses changing perceptions of spaces; in essence, Revill discusses how
‘soundscapes’ are created and interacted with so that memory and perception alter how cultures

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experience and inscribe meaning into place. More abstractly, Ballard (1963) denotes the construction
of self to be an ‘internal landscape of tomorrow’ which is created from past histories and experiences.
Each of the landscape forms surround the transition towards experiencing and reading landscapes in
cultural ways.
Most recent formulations of landscape are multi-disciplinary and extend beyond the common mode of
thinking. For geographers, landscapes are found and analysed in all areas of society, for instance in
the differentiation between urban and rural, Michael Hough (1990) refers to the urban landscape being
a representation of nature under control. Yet with the progress human geographies have taken since
the quantitative revolution (Livingstone, 1992), there are gaps in how landscape is discussed
relationally. Gender identity and landscapes are scarcely discussed (Dowler et al, 2005) as well as
religious influence over changing landscapes; in the latter, there has been discussion regarding
religious attitudes towards nature (Thomas, 1984) but not directly on landscapes negotiation of
religious identities.
Home
The construct of home is both a personal and cultural production that represents meaning and
identities. The home can be thought of as a cultural landscape that can elucidate what cultures and
individuals value; value can be understood by studying the social orderings, the placing of objects, the
architecture and images throughout a home amongst greater forms of scrutiny. Home is a desired
place through a sense of belonging and security; these notions of self and security also construct a
non-physical reality of home. Nation can represent an individual’s homeland, a collective form of
identity and belonging. The section of home will visit how home has been constructed, focussing
upon the transition from an empty space to a place embodied with great meaning at the result of social
interaction both private and public. The home section shall also study the construction of homeland
and identify how its production has influenced social relations within space.

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Home has transformed from a vacant space used only for residency and as a platform for social
relations (Gale, 1949) to a place of crucial interaction in the production of culture. In Rykwert’s
(1991) study, early conceptions of the home focussed upon fortress and security from threat for a
family. Home was essentially a setting down of boundary between safety and harm, civility and
anarchy. The placing of boundary produced assumptions of privacy, personal space and sanctuary by
creating a binary between private and public space. Habitation occurs within private, domesticated
home and spatial interactions are interacted and contested with in public space (Oliver, 2003).
Boundary of home and binary with the public space underpinned the 5 aspects of the home required to
function put forward by Hayward (1975). These 5 aspects highlighted the dominant paradigm of the
conceptualisation of the home (Hurdley, 2013).
Sanders and Williams (1988) challenged the dominant paradigm arguing that the home is actually a
crucial space of interaction that is used as a major political battleground in negotiating meaning,
identities and cultural values. Bourdieu (1977) built upon this claim by explaining that within the
boundaries of the home is a replication of public space and the divisions within it, for example,
between the male and female. The home is a site appropriated by an individual or group of people to
show and represent expressions of identity, meaning and self (Scott, 2009). As landscape is a cultural
production, the home becomes an example of cultural values that inform cultural identity building.
Mary Douglas (1993:268) explains that the boundaries of the home are culturally produced and
therefore arbitrary. Douglas argues that spatial interactions ebb and flow through perceived private
and public spaces.
Stanley Cavell (1993) argued that home gains significance as soon as it becomes threatened. During
the colonial period, European empires were built on the foundation of strong homeland that had a duty
to civilise ‘other’ cultures and peoples (Said, 1978). Said explains that other identities were perceived
as a threat to the rationalities of European identities. Blunt and Dowling (2006) went on to discuss

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colonialism and imperialism as a threat to homeland. Deeply stirring depictions and representations of
brutality stirred vast migration to places such as India to help the cause of the Empire. Homeland is
thus constructed as a place of collective belonging. Homeland is a permanent representation of a
culture’s identity and beliefs. Within the house, the culture of homeland is recreated.
Conclusively, home is an unbound space that is a reflection of cultural identities as well as a
reconstruction of cultural values. The home is a consolidation of a personal sense of self and
belonging yet it has been argued that home is more than just a location of residence. Homeland is a
construction of cultural importance both for collective and individual identities. The value of home
and homeland is upheld when the culturally produced boundaries are under threat from ‘othered’
identities.
Literary Geography
Texts have a defining influence on how a culture is represented and how meaning and memory is
inscribed into space. By looking at a narrative, an observer can analyse and understand the spatial
values and attitudes held within a culture. Language within a textual production can persuade,
motivate, challenge, and enshrine joy, sorrow and other emotions into a landscape. Language, text and
representations are a literary form of making a statement regarding a culture’s current
problems/issues. Since the 1980s, the method of how texts, narratives and imagined geographies have
been studied has changed and taken a spatial turn (Mayhew, 2007). Texts are seen to be culturally
produced and represent a textual landscape from which identities and senses of self are created and
influenced. Text has transformed from a materialist perspective of the physical space on a page to an
imitation of a culture.
At the start of the spatial turn within literary geography, Marcus and Fischer (1986) argued that a
crisis of representation was occurring. This crisis was a reflection on academic approaches to texts as
being more than “mirrors we hold up to the world, reflecting its shapes and structures immediately

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and without distortion. They are, instead, creatures of our own making, though their making is not
entirely of our own choosing” (Gregory and Walford, 1989: 2). The perceived Crisis of
Representation challenged the notions of reporting the world and instead placed importance upon the
creation of a landscape on its own merits (Delyser, et al., 2010). Text as an independent landscape sort
new understandings of truth about the value of imagined spaces (McDowell, 1995).
Developing from the representative crisis saw a focus upon subjectivity of landscape that constituted
the text as a representation of culture that is both influenced and influences culture. Text is argued to
influence culture through the subjectivity of the reader because each person has their own reading
histories (Livingstone, 2005). As a reader navigates a narrative, no reading is neutral or innocent
(Said, 1991). The subjectivity of interpretation is not limited to just the reader, but also extends to the
author as well as a collective consensual reception (LaCapra, 1985). Physical spaces are influenced by
representations as readers negotiate cultural space in a different manner. Authors take extract meaning
from their own imagined products, other author’s products and influences from within the cultural
spaces they situate themselves in and represent that meaning within the circuit of culture. Texts have
an intertextuality whereby “meaning is produced from text to text rather than, as it were, between text
and world” (Rylance, 1987).
The focus within literary studies shifted from texts influencing other texts towards the transfer of
knowledge. Edward Said (1991) put forward a ‘travelling theory’ whereby the travel of knowledge
between spaces is transformed and modification is the cause in change of cultural values (Clifford,
1992). Gillian Beer (1985) operationalized Said’s theory in what she terms a fiction of development.
Beer concluded that the knowledge discovered through reading his own cultural fiction, Charles
Darwin used metaphors and his own vocabulary to deal with a lack of understanding of native cultural
productions during his travels. By using fictional metaphors to describe a landscape, the meaning
ascribed to Darwin in his own culture bled through into his new representations of other cultures
similar to how a European when looking through the Orientalist lens is a European first, and an
individual second (Said, 1978).

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In recent geographic works, literary productions have been the focus of landscape studies by which
the boundaries of the physical page and text are blurred. Imagined and physical limitations become
intertwined as the landscape is constructed as a text that can be read different ways, just like a
narrative (Duncan, 1990). The image of landscape being seen as a text has led to calls for a re-
evaluation of how literary geographies are valued. Miles Ogborn (2006) for example has argued the
possibility of mapping meaning into the physical landscape and exploring the complexities of urban
spaces as the dynamics within a narrative.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Tolkien’s work around Middle Earth has been translated into over 30 different languages and has re-
enchanted the physical world in which we live (Curry, 2005). As successful as Tolkien’s work of
narrative are, the academic community have split themselves into two different camps of inspiration
and criticism. Critics have been very direct to Tolkien’s writings with some commentators describing
the narratives as “paternalistic, reactionary, anti-intellectual, racist, fascistic and irrelevant” (Scheps,
1975: 52).
Various critics of have targeted different aspects of Tolkien’s imagined geographies. Narratives
including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion have been criticised for their
political ideology; the Lord of the Rings for instance is likened to an anti-totalitarian discourse (Yates,
1995). Calder-Marshall (1995) describes the narrative of the Lord of the Rings to focus upon the
nature of power with the villain Sauron embodied as a dictator figure using his Ring Wraiths as a
secret police. The Marxist ideology is a common theme throughout critical works with authors such as
Catherine Stimpson (1969) challenging the bourgeoisie lifestyle within the rural idyll that is the Shire.
The critical literature focusing upon ideology developed further through accusations of the narrative
being inherently racist. Scheps (1975: 44-5) was a key commentator in this claim as the link between
the East and the South as othered, evil lands in need of dismantling and civilising by the Orientalist

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European. Other critics have focused upon the imagined space of the text arguing that reality has its
limits and that the parallels Tolkien is said to construct are to vivid and blurred. The imagined
“juvenile trash” (Wilson, 1956: 312) that Tolkien created was out of place within the literary world.
On the other hand, there are a vast group of scholars who value Tolkien’s cultural representations.
Racist arguments are deconstructed when considering throughout the narrative, good characters show
evil traits and emphasis is taken away from the representation of the ‘othered’ East (Attebery, 1992).
Parallels are drawn between real and Tolkien’s imaged spaces depicting different parts of
geographical discussions. The depictions of the Orcs as a super feudal society (Broomhead, 1973) is
embedded within the historical geography literacy as well as the rural idyllic lifestyle of the Shire
being embedded within the themes of rural geography (Woods, 2005). Tolkien’s image of the
countryside influenced the re-evaluation of the rural during post World War One Britain. The image
of the rural changed the appreciation for the countryside which in turn had a strong influence during
representations of World War Two Britain being consistent, unchanging and enduring.

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Discussion
On Identity and Space
Tolkien in his many works created a unique space. Through the representative mediums of imagery
and symbolism in text, Tolkien built a world where cultures thrive, function, fail and dwindle. The
narrative of The Lord of the Rings shows how in a dynamic form of space which is “… not isolated,
idiosyncratic or marginal” (Agnew, 1993: 251), identity is constantly being negotiated and characters,
races and places develop identities. Kabachnik (2012) explains that “Identity is not the same uniform
trait or bundle of characteristics that remain consistent everywhere, but shifts according to the
different places and social situations” (213). Tolkien’s imagined world is spatially located in a
landscape through representations. “Landscape is the unit we see, the impressions of our senses rather
than the logic of the sciences” (Meinig, 1979: 2). A reader’s perspective thus gives power to the
narrative. Tolkien’s narrative develops and constructs character identity, which resonating with the
landscape, shows emotion and perspective of how place is seen. As space is always constructed in
relation to identity and the self, landscape itself can take on an identity. Representations of landscape
by Tolkien create spaces by which readers read the places, characters, and cultures thus animating the
landscape.
As explained in the methodology, analysis will utilise the narrative of the Lord of the Rings,
specifically through the story of Frodo Baggins. Frodo is a Hobbit. Hobbits “… are an unobtrusive but
very ancient people” (Tolkien, 1968: 1). The race of Hobbits love peace and quiet, living in their
homely hobbit holes with great big coloured doors; their stature is small and they are fond of light,
earthy colours of green, brown and yellow. Hobbits are constructed through the text to have a passive
and peaceful culture away from the meddling of other cultures of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and
Wizards. Frodo’s story in the Lord of the Rings brings him into contact with all things foreign to a
Hobbit’s nature. The re-emergence of a dangerous Ring of Power, created by the Dark Lord Sauron,
gives Frodo his quest. One of the main themes constructed within the text is the changing hands of

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power between forces of good and evil. Throughout the course of the narrative, the routes Frodo
choses to follow alters power geometries (Massey, 1994: 149); these geometries are relations of
power between good and evil characters which have the effect of changing the way spaces are viewed
and in turn, how meaning is inscribed.
Bogard (1991: 336) explains that Foucault, throughout his own works, has embedded the power of
‘The Gaze’. Foucault achieves this by considering how beings navigate through space in relation to a
‘Panoptic’ form of surveillance – “a mechanism of power reduced to its own ideal form” (Foucault,
1977: 205). Panopticism is the constant, universal gaze from a power observer. Based upon Jeremy
Bentham’s Strangeways Prison in Manchester, the observed is never sure whether they are being
watched, however the spatial structures around them insinuate constant surveillance. The observed
thus become their own regulators. In Frodo’s story, the Eye of Sauron constantly within his mind
embodies this constant form of surveillance from Mordor. Mordor is a dark land to the South East of
Middle Earth; the land represents power, fear and destruction. Sauron, the villain of the story, is in
constant observation of the world, constantly looking for his ring in which he fused so much of his
power. As the Ring bearer, this puts Frodo into constant danger.
Frodo fears the power of Sauron because he is seen to be all-embracing and his gaze shrinks the
mobility of space without being caught. The all-embracing/constant vision of Sauron has a defining
influence on Frodo’s change in identity. Initially, Frodo is relatively impervious to Sauron’s
surveillance and starts strong in his sense of self, able to “… defend the boundaries of [his] inner
body” (8) and reinforce his sense of border and individuality (Sibley, 1995). Yet as he comes closer
and closer to completing his quest, Frodo becomes less and less his original self. The power of the
Ring consumes his memory, his perceptions of friends and even the sensory connections with space
such as taste and colour. This show the extent to which constant surveillance can warp even a pure
character. The discussion will focus on how these changing emotional responses and changes in a

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sense of self are echoed by the landscape, by following Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring, a group
of companions tasked to support Frodo in his journey. The journey of the Ring goes from a localised
setting within the Shire (the peaceful, rural setting and home of the Hobbits) to a heightened sense of
mobility, travelling hundreds of miles across the vast, perilous spaces of Middle Earth (Figure 2).
That heightened sense of mobility increases the constant change and process of how place is
constructed for the characters (Cresswell, 2015: 6). The characters are thus constantly changing their
roles and personal identities through dynamic interaction between themselves and the cultures they
come into contact with (Giddens, 1990). Place grows to have more meaning through a heightened
sense of mobility because the characters value and remember spaces of fondness and repulsion. The
construction of home is an appropriate example.
On Home
Home is an imagined geography. The home is a place that offers security, memory and nurture (Tuan,
2004: 164). Home within Middle Earth gives an in-text construction of a time-space relationship
(Soja, 1989: 78). Home is a construction that is inherently bound to our identities and is “…
inextricable from that of self, family, nation, sense of place, and sense of responsibility towards those
who share one’s place in the world” (Duncan and Lambert, 2003: 395). Frodo’s Uncle Bilbo Baggins
constructs stories of his adventures, the relics and wealth he returned with, and the fondness for which
he looks after Frodo, constructs a safe and positive home where Frodo feels a sense of belonging and
meaning. For Frodo at the start of his journey, he is surrounded by the comfort of the home made by
his uncle Bilbo Baggins. It is the everyday practice, lived experience, social relations, memories,
emotions and feelings that Frodo experiences that endows his Hobbit hole with meaning (Blunt,
2006). Home can suggest great detail about a culture and how it is constructed. The landscape of the
home plays an important role in constructing identity and meaning. People interact with the home
through a “… supporting set of ideas and values [and] unquestioned assumptions about the way a
society is or should be organised” (Duncan and Duncan, 1988: 123). The Hobbit Hole construction of
home is safe, warm and protective (figure 3). The social construction of protection and safety within a
Hobbit Hole is identified when Frodo learns Bilbo’s old Ring is in fact the One Ring forged by

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Sauron. Frodo means to keep it safe in his home, to never speak or think about its presence. Frodo
comes to the painful realisation that his safe home is merely an illusion of safety and that the Ring
cannot be kept safe. However, Frodo carries his sense of home as he journeys, so “… long as the
Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, [he] shall find wandering more bearable” … “[He] shall know
that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again” (Tolkien, 1968: 62).
For Frodo, the Shire is a place of sanctuary and attachment which provides motive to displace himself
in order to save his place.
On Power
David Seamon (1979) questioned the existence of an essential human condition. Seamon described
this condition as “the irreducible crux of people’s life situations which remain when all non-essentials
… are stripped bare through the phenomenological procedures” (149). During the narrative of the
Lord of the Rings, whilst Frodo waits for his friend Gandalf the wizard, he starts to become more
adventurous by wondering the paths of the Shire (1968: 43). As Frodo became more mobile, the
Hobbits living near his home became unnerved by his curiosity; the Hobbits’ sanctity of place became
threatened by mobility and reinforced the Hobbit essential condition. The long walks Frodo takes are
the result of his sense of placelessness within the Shire; Frodo becomes interested in the stories of an
“evil power in Mirkwood” (44) and the movement of “… dwarves on the road in unusual numbers”
(43). Frodo’s developing sense of identity changed away from the collective identity of the Shire.
Frodo’s spatial interactions (meetings with Gandalf and stories told by Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s Uncle)
highlight the influence culture has on producing identity and how place is negotiated.
The panoptical presence from the enemy gives Frodo and his companion (Samwise, Meriodoc and
Pippin) reason to leave the Shire. The group of Hobbits hear tale of Black Riders; the Hobbits can
neither confirm nor deny their presence or surveillance, yet they self-regulate their own spaces by not
using the roads and choosing the journey through the Old Forest (a mystical and ancient woodland
area) and the Barrow Downs (a woodland space filled with evil Barrow Whites – undead creatures). It
is not until the Hobbits reach the watchtower of Amon Sul, an ancient ruined tower, that the

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panopticon is fully embodied (Tolkien, 1968:183-196). (Figure 4) Peter Jackson’s film interpretation
of the watchtower represents the emotions being felt by the group of Hobbits. The narrative explores
the first meeting with the enemy whereby the landscape reflects Frodo’s emotion. Frodo feels a
“…cold dread creeping over his heart” (194) and starts “quaking as if it is bitter cold” (195). Frodo
cannot help but gaze into his surroundings; he is scared and fearful of what he can feel but cannot see.
Frodo then starts to see “black holes in the deep shade” (195), a representation of his emotions.
The site of his first meeting being a ruined watchtower is also a metaphor for the lack of sight and
knowledge about the enemy; a struggle to see the other. From the events that transpire at Amon Sul
(stabbing of Frodo), the narratives form of panopticism changes. Frodo becomes more resistant to
Sauron’s powerful gaze and actively challenges his power by continuously progressing towards
Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. However, as Frodo shows growing strength to resist Sauron, the
“…barbarians, heathens, unbelievers, savages” (Harbsmeier, 1985:273) that Frodo interacts with,
along with bearing the evil weight of the Ring, changes his sense of self and identity.
At Amon Sul, Frodo also creates a ‘locale’ where his physical setting changes as he shapes the
identity and place of the location (Agnew, 1987). Creswell (2015) explains that “even imaginary
places…have imaginary materiality of rooms, stair cases and tunnels that make the novel work” (14).
What changes from Creswell’s materiality is the construction of identity and place; although Frodo
constructs the place as dark, for other people, it is a place of security and observation as its original
use was to guard and protect. The re-appropriation of the space through the narrative exemplifies
Amin and Thrift’s argument of nodes in a network society whereby constructions of place are made
based on knowledge derived from representation, identity and subjectivity (Amin and Thrift, 1992).
The academic’s argument shows the power narrative has as it can construct cultural difference which
appropriates and inscribes different uses and meaning into space.

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On Time
Yi-Fu Tuan explains that “space that is stretched over a grid of cardinal points makes the idea of place
vivid” (1977: 150). Over the course of Frodo’s journey, the space, cultures and landscapes he has
interacted with (the meetings in Rivendell (home of the House Elves) and the trek through the mines
of Moria (home of the Dwarf Race) etc.) creates changes in his identity. Frodo’s journey highlights
that home is a cultural production. For Frodo, his sense of belonging within place had been
constructed around family and friendship in a specific geographic location. But Frodo’s construction
“… does not make [that] particular geographical locality the place” (1977: 150).
For a race such as the Lothlorien Elves - a wise, forest-dwelling race of Elves - their sense of
belonging is constituted upon worship of the stars. The Lothlorien Elves are immortal, meaning they
will not perish from natural causes. The Elves look further to find meaning within space through
worship of the stars and starlight. The worship of starlight is universal and does not bind the Elves to
one, fixed location. The interaction of the Elves with the Silmaril Jewels (said to be filed with
starlight) and the stars of the forest construct feelings of intimacy, belonging and meaning. Hobbits
are mortal creatures; their short temporality on Middle Earth propels them towards finding attachment
to their fellow mortal companions. By comparison, there is a difference in how length of lifespan can
change what races/cultures value and how they form attachments that then go on to inform their
concepts of home and belonging.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings observes that our interactions with space are time dependent, or at least,
time influenced. Hobbits who have a more compressed lifespan create attachments with members of
their own communities. Elves on the other hand, who are immortal, look beyond the self, into the
ordering and protecting of the worlds and form attachments not only with each other, but beyond the
immediate, materialist world. For the Hobbits, their place in Middle Earth is “little more than frozen
scenes for human activity” (Pred, 1984: 279) but for the Elves, a Global sense of universal place is

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constructed (Massey, 1991). The Elves live in a state between place and non-place where “… the
scrambled game of identity and relation is ceaselessly rewritten” (Auge, 1995: 79).
On a Sense of Place
Massey’s global sense of space is a site of conflict between sedentary and nomadic behaviours. The
emotion felt in a space becomes a primary force in the building of meaning for a character. If a space
is experienced through happiness, strength and positivity, meaning is constructed through a sense of
belonging; if the space is experienced through sadness, pain and suffering, the space is endowed with
lesser meaning and is a force of repulsion. The concept of ‘emotionality’ (Ahmed, 2004) is applicable
here as through the territorialisation process, the emotions felt in those places are echoed into the
environment. From that emotional response, “place comes into existence [as] people give meaning to
a part of the larger, undifferentiated space in which they live” (Jack, 2010: 757).
The Elvish race and the Gondorian Rangers (a race of men from the region of Gondor) during the
narrative of the Lord of the Rings both suffer a sense of placelessness. The Rangers at the start of the
narrative are displaced and working in a guerrilla form of warfare against the enemy. The relationship
between races, based upon 3000 years of history, has produced a cultural setting whereby men are
seen to have failed in their duty to the world’s safety. This setting is due to the stealing of the One
Ring by Isuldur of Gondor, an ancient King of Gondor, which allowed evil to seep back into the
world. Elves are socially constructed to be wise and stable societies during this age of the world.
Through social change depicted within the narrative, we see a dialectical change in the relationship
between Men and Elves; a transition of territoriality whereby rangers grow to have stable, sedentary
form of home yet Elves begin to experience placelessness. The fading of the stars and the coming of
the Age of Men thus causes the race to leave Middle Earth. Elves are blessed with being timeless,
however as time has stayed still for them, the social and spatial interactions of other races has changed
and manipulated space so that Elves are displaced. The race of Men build place, territory and
belonging throughout the narrative by showing power and domination one space.

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Meaning can also be found by seeing past materiality and beyond the power of place. Sack (2003)
argues the need to look to human agency; a focus on the actual use of space that inscribes meaning.
This focus upon use of space can be illustrated by the example of the Beacons of Gondor. The
Beacons of Gondor were constructed to be used in times of war. They are “… beacons built on the
tops of outlying hills along both borders of the great [mountain] range” (Tolkien, 1968: 748). The
Beacons are lit to call for aid and are always maintained, ready to send out the message of Gondor to
Rohan, allies in wartime (Figure 2); this gives the beacons a fixed purpose. Their carefully placed
location gives them meaning as they have a purpose; to be lit and to call for aid. But without human
agency, they are meaningless; they are separated locations that lose purpose. If they were to be
separated out of sight of each other, human agency would be wasted as the utility of their location
would not be suitable. From this, we can conclude place and attachment alone are not always key to
building meaning. In the case of the beacons, they have a fixed purpose and identity but a mobile
method of communicating their meaning. The Beacons embody how landscape needs to be both
working and the product of past work (Mitchell, 1995). The Beacon’s usage can be likened to that of
airports and bus stations. They are points in fixed space but with the purpose of transmission. Rather
than aiding mobility of human agency however, these points in space facilitate human agency rather
than communicating messages (Adey, 2010).
On Nature
Roy (1998:18) argues that the power of the environment is essentially stories and visions. Roy assures
environment is naturally embodied with power from how cultures construct it. Tolkien makes the
metaphor literal. Embedded within Middle Earth are environments that take on their own identities so
effectively that they alter the spatial interactions of character within the narrative and inform their
identities and construction of meaning. Tolkien moves further than seeing nature as nothing more than
a social object (Wagner, 1998). The passing through the mountain of Caradhras exemplifies an
anthropomorphic development of Middle Earth’s environment. The landscape of the mountain echoes

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the isolation felt but the members of the Fellowship, especially Frodo, who is concerned by the
gravity and importance of his quest; Caradhras embodies the power that they fear. Through the
weather conditions, scarcity of shelter and lack of security, the mountain takes on its own life force
and identity. Caradhras becomes part of the social relation by which Gimli yearns for another path –
“He has more snow yet to fling at us… the sooner we go back and down the better” (Tolkien,
1968:291).
The trees of Fangorn Forest extend Tolkien’s anthropomorphic construction of the environment.
Fangorn, located in the region of Rohan (figure 2) is ‘woken up’ by the Elven race. The narrative
introduces the character Treebeard who is an Ent; the Ents are a species of tree that have a life force
and culture of their own. Ents move around the woods protecting and talking to the Forest. The Ents
act as an independent identity for which the landscape comes alive; the metaphor becomes literal and
is more than a cultural landscape. The Ents have their own thoughts and emotions that are exercised
within space and are not “…comprised, partially ... stable modes of ordering the world” (Gold and
Revill, 2000:15). The characters Merry and Pippin, displaced from Frodo’s fellowship, experience
space through and with Treebeard, constructing new identities as they interact with nature in an
emotive process (Bourdieu, 1984).
Nature is represented and becomes a product through the narrative (Eder, 1996:29). Nature’s
representation is consumed by readers who construct a geography of meaning (Rupke, 2000).
Through the use of metaphor becoming literal, readers associate constructs with certain meanings and
start to expect a landscape culture to which readers consume both the imagined and the real. The texts
Tolkien has produced are “not mirrors we hold up to the world” (Gregory and Watford, 1989:2),
instead, Tolkien has blurred the lines of real and imagined and created a new science fiction culture.
Tolkien’s representation and imagined geography has become intertextual (Rylance, 1987) with other
works of fantasy. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter embodies a number of Tolkien’s representations, for

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instance, the similarity between Middle Earth’s Ring Wraiths and the magical Dementors who both
are shrouded in black cloth, have a chilly sense to the character’s landscape and act as figures of
‘secret police’, enforcing surveillance and regulating space. The intertextual development Tolkien
implemented has had an effect on readers as they have grown up on a diet of fantasy and story that
directly affects the construction of their own and the character’s identities.
On Culture
Narratives are cultural representations; narratives are products within a circuit of culture that are read,
interacted with and reacted to. The representations hold the ability to build senses of belonging, home
and a sense of place. Within the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, riddle, song, tale and music hold
great influence on the building of a character’s and a culture’s identity and how landscape is
perceived. Tuan (1977) explains that “If we were not linguistic animals, visual images could not carry
even a small fraction of the meaning they often have for us” (94). Tuan highlights the false reliance
upon the power of the gaze and attributes a process of building meaning to the non-visual components
within a culture. Songs and poems are “diverse cultural commodities” (Withers, 2007:168) that
construct meanings and associations to places for characters as well as providing cultural
representations that gives the reader an understanding of what different cultures value. The reader
builds a lens to understand how characters and societies interact in a certain way and why certain
places and symbols hold such value.
As the narrative progresses, forces of good and evil clash in dramatic land battles. Representations of
war, courage and bravery are constructed into song and tale about legendary warriors. Cities become
spaces which are “… fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite historical
period” (Lefebvre, 1991: 73). The narrative shows culture being produced when Théoden, King of the
men of Rohan (a region to the south of Middle Earth where the Men are known as the Horse Lords)
sings the song of a ‘Dark Dunharrow’. The Dunharrow (dark, misty mountain with an ancient history
– see figure 5) within the song creates a landscape that mirrors the emotions of the army of Rohan

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who believe that they are going to fail in the battle with the orc armies. Those orcs are seen as “… a
threat to the authenticity – the purity – of the nation” (Mitchell, 2000: 261-262) of Rohan. The song
creates a ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky, 1986); a medium by which the narrative leads
the reader in a certain direction but meaning is determined based upon their past experience of the
narrative, spatial interaction and their identity. The song of the Dark Dunharrow alters the
construction of self for each of the riders and for King Théoden as their security of home, belonging
and identity becomes uncertain in the wake of battle.
Some cultural productions are so powerful that constructions of landscape become timeless and
represent spaces to almost have a permanent meaning. The song of Nimrodel in the Forest region of
Lothlorien (Home of a race of woodland Elves) tells the story of an Elven Princess who falls in love
with a mortal man only for her love to be lost which leaves her heartbroken. Tolkien finds voice
within the narrative beyond the material boundaries on the imagined world. The presence of her story
is so strong, the characters feel sadness and heartbreak for a person who has left the world thousands
of years before their birth. Nimrodel’s story imbues the place with a power and specific meaning. For
the characters, the music is actively used and evokes a memory of experience that changes their
perceptions.
On Narrative and Endings
Throughout the course of the narrative, Frodo gradually loses his sense of self as he succumbs to the
power of the one Ring forged by Sauron. When Frodo finds himself in the home of Sauron, in the
cracks of Orodruin, the landscape embodies his weakness to the ring. A symbol of light and purity,
the phial of Galadriel – starlight bottled into a small glass container – was “… pale and cold in his
trembling hand and threw no light into that stifling dark” (Tolkien, 1968: 945). Frodo is within the
home of Sauron without his greatest ally Samwise Gamgee (figure 6). During this moment, Frodo
succumbs to the power of the Ring and takes it for himself. The taking of the Ring exemplifies how

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much Frodo relied on Sam to remember his identity throughout their quest. Though Frodo was losing
his sense of self, Samwise retained his Hobbit identity and showed that meaning of homeland has
great traction in the impetus to save home and their sense of place in Middle Earth. Sam’s transition
of identity from curiosity about the world to a person of a great love of home shows how his
construction of home had no meaning until he ventured out of his place in the world (Sopher, 1979:
131). The consistent nature of Samwise gave something for Frodo to hold onto. Samwise as his angel,
and Gollum (a once hobbit like creature who has been transformed by the dark power of the Ring) as
his devil, Frodo constantly battles between the two identities he is stretched between. In a moment
without his companion Sam, Frodo loses his grip on reality and his place in the world, symbolised by
his leaving on the last ship to the West of Middle Earth.
Before Gollum attacks Frodo and is sent hurtling into the magma below destroying the Ring, Sauron
is alerted to Frodo’s presence. With the Ring in the hands of the enemy within his home, Sauron’s
assembly of elements coexisting in a chosen order (Certeau, 1984) is under total threat. The panoptic
power held by the Wraiths and the metaphorical Eye of Sauron is lost through the power of resistance
shown by Frodo and Samwise although the regulation of space by Sauron as a perceived overseer has
directly affected Frodo’s security in his sense of self.

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Conclusion
It is easy to argue/reduce Tolkien’s impressive work down to an anti-authoritarian/Eurocentric
representation of the world but Tolkien’s narratives go much deeper than this simplification. Tolkien
has successful created a new fluidity in the interaction of space, place, time and identity. Not only
does Tolkien create a world that ‘goes past’ the crisis of representation, he creates a cultural product
that constructs and informs our own identities as readers. Tolkien’s narrative shows the power held by
a text upon building culture and the representation of landscape identity. The narrative builds power
by embodying key positions within geographical literature such as through the panopticon, resistance
and power in space, the relationship between nature and society, and understanding how attachment to
place in constructed. Tolkien not only proved his argument about the complexity of the world outside
your door but built a world to prove the complexity within the home. Tolkien is represented as a
powerful science fiction symbol and continues to effect constructions of culture within societies
across the world.

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