Tolkien and Lewis were attracted to genres of myth
and romance not because they sought to escape the world but because for them
the real world had a mythic and heroic quality. The world is the setting for great
conflicts and great quests: it creates scenes of remorseless violence, grief,
and suffering as well as deep compassion, courage, and selfless sacrifice. In
an era that exalted cynicism and irony, Tolkien and Lewis sought to reclaim an
older tradition of the epic hero. Their depictions of the struggles of
Middle-earth and Narnia do not represent a flight from reality, but rather a
return to a more realistic view of the world as we actually find it. –Joseph
Loconte*
Going into WWI, each nation
believed God was on its side and, therefore, it would be victorious. The
mixture of nationalism (not the same thing as patriotism) and triumphalism (“We’ll
win, because we are a morally superior people.”) blinded the combating nations
to the reality and horrors that were to come. And how could people so “advanced”
have been so blind? Because they had chosen to ignore the evil that was in
their own hearts, they had not considered the evil that could be perpetuated
upon the earth with their advanced machinery.
“For devoted nationalists,
their patriotic faith was equivalent to membership in an alternative church.
For religious believers, nationalism offered a grandiose political outlet for
their faith commitments. The result was the birth of Christian nationalism, the
near sanctification of the modern state.” (Loconte)
While many who survived the
carnage of WWI readily rejected triumphalism, they also renounced any belief in
a moral vision, of belief that a human was capable of goodness, compassion, and
nobility. While Tolkien and Lewis probably rethought their views about human potential,
their writings reflected “the historic Christian tradition: human nature as a
tragic mix of nobility and wretchedness.” (Loconte)
“You come of the Lord Adam
and the Lady Eve,” Aslan tells Caspian in The
Chronicles of Narnia. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of
the poorest beggar and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest
emperor on earth.”
(T)hese authors anchor their
stories in the ancient idea of the Fall of Man: just as a force of evil entered
our world in a distant past, so it inhabits and threatens the worlds of their
imaginations. It is the deepest source of alienation and conflict in their stories.
Even so, it cannot erase the longing for goodness and joy, so palpably alive in
the best and noblest of their characters. They are haunted by the memory of
Eden: take away this fundamental idea, and their moral vision collapses.”
(Loconte)
Interestingly, neither
Tolkien nor Lewis became pacifists. There are some evils in the world that must
be defeated, militarily. Both The Lord of
the Rings and The Chronicles of
Narnia are filled with such battles. However, both men never framed their
battle scenes as opportunities for martial glory or nationalistic conquest.
They are also depicted realistically, as you would expect from soldiers who
fought in the Great War. We see the “military blunders, the fruitless acts of
bravery, the bone-chilling rain, the meager rations: there were many days and
nights just like these along the Western Front.” (Loconte) However, we also are
shown acts of compassion and valor, self-sacrifice and honor, and, yes, even
glimpses of beauty and joy. The “tragic mix of nobility and wretchedness” are
always present.
The stories of Tolkien and
Lewis demonstrate that moral heroism is possible because, through God’s grace
and love, we are capable of great victories against the wretchedness that is in
the world and in us. Of course, such moral heroism presupposes that there is a
moral vision, that there are objective moral standards whereby we know what is
noble and what is wretched. And yet—
We see no triumphalism in
these stories. Knowing that we are always at war against our own capacity for
behaving wretchedly, there can be no sense that our victories were inevitable because
we are a superior nation, a superior people, or superior individuals. After
all, the “tragic mix” is part of the human condition.
Next Post: “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War”:
Heroic Quests
* “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe,
and a Great War: How J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith,
Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918,” Nelson Books, 2015
Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2015
Yes. Thanks for the post.
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