The Story of The Fellowship of the Ring - Essay Example

As the story unfolded, later on, this side to nature would be reinforced by how Mirkwood and Fangorn were described. When Merry and Pippin, for instance, find themselves deep in the Fangorn Forest, their impression demonstrates the perceived hostility of the place. At one point, Pippin quips, “It is all very dim, and stuffy, in here” later on commenting about the “weeping, trailing, beards and whiskers of lichen,” underscoring the “frightfully tree-ish” environs wherein no animals or hobbits could endure. In the Fellowship of the Ring, the bad nature has been sufficiently covered. Gimli, at some point in the quest remarks about the reputation of Caradhras as a cruel mountain and that, true to the stories, it has, indeed, attempted to impede their quest as well.

Then there is, of course, Old Man Willow who lulls the Hobbits to sleep and traps Merry and Pippin inside. Without the intervention of Tom Bombadill, they would have been eaten and crushed. Tom admonished the miscreant tree, saying “you should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep!” According to Treebeard, later on in the story in his conversation with his Hobbit friends, some trees “have bad hearts” as well and so when people are not friendly towards them, they become aggressive in response.

The other character of nature is demonstrated in the way the author paints an ecological utopia such as that of the Shire. It is inhabited by peaceful creatures who loathe machines and are content with tilling the earth. This characterization is a potent demonstration of how nature at its best is supposed to be, untouched by man’s greed and abuse. Take for instance the Elven city of Rivendell. Tolkien envisioned it as a city of refuge – “the last homely house east of the sea” wherein the community blends with the natural beauty of the mountains, the flowing rivers and the waterfalls, including the woodlands that ring the city’s periphery.

In addition, like the Ents, the Elves are also an extension of nature’s role in the story. Through the Elves nature wields its power, from the woods to the trees. Elrond, for instance, can command a flood, controlling the river, which rose “in anger when he has a great need to bar the Ford.”All in all, it is unimaginable for Fellowship of the Ring to successfully depict Tolkien’s story if nature is not given its due emphasis and importance. The greens, the magnificent trees, soaring cliffs, gentle slopes and rivers, majestic mountains and waterfalls – they are characters in themselves, not just some ordinary device to provide a setting. They assert their role because that is what the story is all about – it was good versus and evil and nature is part of the battle both as an object and as a player.