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The Elf Ecthelion slays the Orc champion Orcobal in Gondolin. 2007 illustration by Tom Loback. J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, [T 1] created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak.
With the late 19th-century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, Robin Anne Reid and others have suggested that the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings embodies scientific racism. David Ibata has stated that Tolkien's description of the orcs was modelled on racist wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. [1]
Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements such as hope and ...
The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the orc-né (pl. orc-néas, "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability ...
He notes, too. that the Old English word orc carried the meaning "devil", [14] [17] and that Tolkien depicts the Orcs as "creatures that are possessed by the devil. They worship him. Their bodies have been deformed from torture and suffering. Like traditional representations of the Devil, the orc's complexion is dark and his eyes are as live ...
Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly wholly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak. This identified them as sentient and sapient; indeed, he portrayed them talking about right and wrong.
With the late 19th-century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics believed that the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings embodied scientific racism. [102] Other commentators thought that Tolkien's description of the orcs was modelled on wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. [103]
"Where there's a whip there's a will": Orcs driving a Hobbit across the plains of Rohan. Scraperboard illustration by Alexander Korotich, 1995 . The author J. R. R. Tolkien uses many proverbs in The Lord of the Rings to create a feeling that the world of Middle-earth is both familiar and solid, and to give a sense of the different cultures of the Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves who populate it.