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Rhetorical Analysis Paper
Rhetorical Analysis Paper
Benjamin Brickner
Professor Voldstad
UWRT 1104
26 February 2019
J.R.R. Tolkien was a dreamer out of all things. When he created The Lord of the Rings
and The Hobbit those books where one of a kind for their time. These series first was created by
Tolkien as stories he told to his children and then one day while grading papers while he was a
professor at Oxford he, out of complete randomness, wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a
hobbit.” (Doughan 2018) This was the start to the creation of another world called Middle Earth.
Tolkien created The Lord of the Rings as a story of the struggle and battle between good and evil.
In the movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings there is always a persistent force seeking power
from the one and powerful ring. Through the movie is Tolkien as a positive attitude towards the
the struggle between good and evil. J.R.R. was an Oxford professor that studied and taught in
depth course about Anglo-Saxon (Old English). Through these course he saw lots of old fiction
stories about different heroes and their quests which easily could of influenced the rich nature
and story behind middle earth. He created even languages for the story as well showing his love
for making a good story. When the Fellowship of the Ring is created Tolkien had them
prospering almost at every problem that they face. (Doughan 2018) Tolkien’s audience for The
Lord of the Rings is mainly for anybody of any age but mainly for anyone that is a teenager and
The Lord of the Rings movie adaptation is geared to more mature audiences. The movie
takes place in a complex fantasy world with horrific creatures and intense fight scenes. It also
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deals with lots of death and tragic stories and pasts of certain characters. The story is very in
depth and requires a lot of knowledge to be able to keep along with and full understand of why
everyone is acting the way they are based on certain objects they have or the secret intents they
have for certain things. For example, during the intense fighting scene against the invading orcs
Boromir is overwhelmed with temptation to take the ring Frodo has for power. He then takes
advantage of the heckteck moment and tries to kill Frodo for the ring but Frodo disappears and
takes the ring with him. Boromir had the want for the ring all along and these types of concepts
take a mature mind to be able to keep track up because if a person was too young to understand
and saw that part they would be completely confused on what Boromir was trying to selfishly
accomplish.
The subject of The Lord of the Rings is the fight and struggle between good and evil. Do
to the subject, in most cases, ending up with the good side winning it can be infer that the
audience enjoys the perseverance that the good side has to overcome to reach their goal. A story
that has its ups and downs but throughout the whole series it turns out to be a happy ending for
Frodo and his friends. During the first movie we see only a little part of Frodo’s journey but
through all three movies we can see this common theme prevail. J.R.R Tolkien throughout the
years told many stories to his children and due to this fact he probably wanted to teach his
children a lesson through them he ended up making them some type of story where the people
During the movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings it shows that Tolkien’s original
story’s subject was well shown through its presentation. The subject of the movie is that it is a
fight and struggle between good and evil and it argues that the good always win as if its fate.
This is prevalent throughout the whole movie. It is said that the fellowship of the ring was put
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together by fate and that its destined that Frodo, a person from the most innocent race, a hobbit,
must take the ring to Mount Mordor. Through the movie we see how good and evil have this
back to back relationship. As soon as the ring was able to get itself into good hands somehow it
twisted the good and brought evil to it. Throughout the movie we see that every conflict as a one
to one ratio of who is winning in the fight for power but always ends up good for the people
trying to destroy the ring. For example, at the beginning of the movie we see the Hobbits and the
mysterious ranger get attacked by Ringwraiths who are then then fought back by Aragorn. This
seems like a win for the crew traveling with the ring but it turns out the Frodo, the destined one,
was stabbed and poisoned by the Ringwraiths blade. In the end Frodo is healed and he meets up
with Bilbo and he can continue happily on his journey once again.
Behind the story there is J.R.R. Tolkien, who is trusted to be able to tell an accurate story
about Frodo’s journey. He is trustworthy towards the audience because he tells the story through
Frodo’s writings who we believe to be the only one capable to be able to tell such a great story.
J.R.R. Tolkien creates a vivid world that almost makes his words feel like factual things that
pertain to Middle Earth. He is in the end a little biased because he most likely craves a good
ending for the people in middle earth so he creates the story based on the initial thought that they
will succeed.
While watching The Lord of the Rings many emotions hit you hard and usually are not
expected. For the first part of the movie we are happy and joyful seeing Frodo see Gandalf and
his fireworks at Bilbo’s birthday party. Once Bilbo slips on the ring for most part of the movie
most of the feelings you get are very anxious and fear. We see many occurences where get
frightened at the building up power from Sauron and his army of orcs. Also at the many crazy
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things that get in the fellowship’s way. We also feel pain when someone dies or something goes
terribly wrong.
The Lord of the Rings is completely filled with facts. J.R.R. Tolkien created a world of
his own and we believe what he says because he can be the only one who knows the truth. The
audience does not need any further evidence to do the fact that we can believe what he is saying
to be true.
The story itself was released in 1954 but the way the book was written made it always
timely and relevant due to the fact that it was never related to current events. The movie itself
was timely too do to the fact that it brought words to life and created imaginations of a fantasy
world for people. The commentary within the movie is prevelvant and easy to understand. There
were no words that were out of the ordinary or hard to understand. The movie will always create
an imagination
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References
https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/