One of the often-recurring requests on the newsgroup rec.arts.books.tolkien is from students requesting a synopsis of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic work The Lord of the Rings. The work is extremely long, and because of this many students simply can't find the time to give the work a thorough reading before giving a written report on it. In the interests of cutting down the number of requests for this material, I have written a short synopsis of the three volumes which make up the Lord of the Rings as well as an accompanying synopsis for Tolkien's posthumous book The Silmarillion.
As an added supplement, I have also listed some possible topics for term-papers and book reports for those who don't feel a desire to come up with their own.
Of course, I feel compelled to point out that a much better understanding of Tolkien's work can be achieved by reading the actual books; it's well worth the effort. If you simply don't like to read, however, I'm sure the following synopsis and suggestions will help you make the grades you obviously deserve.
Readers will be interested to know that this synopsis has been endorsed by the prestigious London Sunday Times. At least, they thought it was accurate enough for them.
The story starts with the twentieth birthday-party for Frodo Baggins,
a Hobbit who lives with his brother Sam in a mythical land called the
Shire. Frodo owns a magic Ring which makes him invisible when he wears
it, a gift from his cousin Bilbo who stole it from the hoard of a Dragon
years ago.
One day the old
wizard Gandalf comes to the Shire, and he tells Frodo of an evil being
named Sauron who wants to capture the Ring for himself. In ages long past
Sauron stole the Ring from the Elves, to protect him from the Powers of
Good; but the Ring was stolen from him by a creature named Gollum,and
then stolen from Gollum by the Dragons, and then from the Dragons by
Bilbo, who finally gives it freely to Frodo. "Sauron has been
searching for the Ring for years," Gandalf tells Frodo, "and
now he has sent his ally, the evil Witch-king, to the Shire to look for
it." Frodo and Sam consult with their loyal friends Merry and
Pipsqueak, and when the evil Witch-king appears with his nine servants
the clever hobbits trick them into going into a mushroom-patch,
disorienting the witches just long enough to escape the Shire.
But the tone of
the book rapidly becomes more serious as the Witch-king and his evil
servants pursue the hobbits through the forest. Frodo discovers that the
witches have destroyed the village of Bree, and the Witch-king uses a
magic spell to burn down the home of their old friend Tom Bombadil.
Frodo, horrified, wants to go back and fight the evil witches, but at a
hill called Weathertop he meets a noble man named Aragorn who convinces
him to go to the city of Rivendell. "In Rivendell you will be safe
from their magic," Aragorn tells him, "for Elrond is a sensible
man, and does not believe in it." With that Aragorn leads them
rapidly to Rivendell, with the witches in hot pursuit. As they ford the
last river between them and Rivendell the Witch-king casts a spell on the
river-water, causing it to rise up and try to drown them; only Frodo's
quick thinking can save them, and he uses the power of the Ring to make
all the water evaporate into fog. The fog is so thick that the Witch-king
and his servants become hopelessly lost, and our heroes make it to the
safety of Rivendell.
At Rivendell,
Elrond holds a Council where the fate of the Ring is discussed. The only
way to keep Sauron from recovering the Ring, they decide, is to throw it
into the volcano of Mount Doom where it will be destroyed. During the
Council Gandalf arrives late, saying that he had been held prisoner in
the tower of Orthanc, the Wizards' Tower. Curiously, he refuses to
describe how he escaped. "But it is more important than ever that we
destroy the Ring," Gandalf says, "for now the other Wizards
know of it, and seek it as well." He tells of how the dark wizard
Saruman, once an ally of the forces of Good, has turned to evil and now
controls Orthanc with an iron hand, and how the other Wizards are roaming
the countryside seeking the Ring for themselves. They all agree to set
out to destroy the Ring at once.
Gandalf and
Aragorn agree to go with the four Hobbits, as does Glorfindel, a
descendant of the ancient ruler Ar-Pharazon, and Boromir, from the Royal
House of Gondor; also joining them are an Elf and a Dwarf who don't
really do much in the story but are there for comic relief. Together
Gandalf and his nine companions - the "Fellowship of the Ring",
as they call themselves - set out for the dark land of Mordor.
On the way, their
path is repeatedly beset by evil forces. First they are attacked by evil
Orcs in the woods; next they are driven into the dark forest of
Lothlorien, where they are imprisoned by the beautiful but evil Queen
Beruthiel. They make their escape when Beruthiel's good sister,
Galadriel, frees them from their prison-cell and floats them down the
river in barrels. After that they think it best to leave the woods and
head to Moria, the secret city under the mountains; here, however, they
face a terrifying setback when they are found by the evil wizard
Radagast. Gandalf sacrifices his life to destroy Radagast the Balrog, and
the others escape the mountains while the battle rages. At the end of the
book, however, the Fellowship is destroyed from within; Glorfindel,
lusting for power, tries to kill Frodo for the Ring. Aragorn stops
Glorfindel by shooting him through the throat with a black arrow;
Glorfindel dies, but not until he maliciously sets fire to the
grasslands. In the resulting smoke and confusion the Fellowship of the
Ring is hopelessly scattered.
Well, everybody ends up running around Middle-earth in
different directions. Aragorn and that Dwarf and Elf whose names I can't
remember go to this place with lots of horses, but inexplicably they have
no racetrack. Boromir heads South to Gondor alone, bearing a parchment he
has taken from Glorfindel describing the Royal House of Gondor; he speaks
to no one as he leaves, consumed with some new private worry. Merry and
Pipsqueak get kidnapped by forty-foot-high walking trees, but as the
story goes on they convince the trees that it's best to be kind to
strangers; the lesson is well-learned, and when Aragorn and the others
arrive the trees welcome them with open limbs. Just as this reunion is
taking place Gandalf reappears, having ultimately defeated the evil
Radagast; he reveals that there
were actually two of him all along, and the other one is still trapped at
Orthanc, now under the control of the wizard Saruman, Gandalf's half-brother.
Everybody goes to Orthanc and frees Gandalf's twin, but the first Gandalf
dies fighting Saruman at the top of Zirak-Ziogi, the great mountain of
Japan. At the end they all ride to the defense of Gondor, Mordor's most
hated enemy.
Meanwhile Frodo
and Sam are captured by the evil Gollum, but they are rescued by
Faramir, Boromir's cousin, who has escaped the people of Gondor. Faramir
reveals that he had to leave Gondor because Boromir and his brother
Denethor have ordered that he be killed; Faramir is the true heir to the
kingdom, but Boromir and Denethor wish to go on ruling Gondor themselves.
Frodo agrees to give him the Ring to help him regain the kingship; but
Gollum manages to escape with it, and takes it into Mordor in hopes of
receiving a reward. Frodo and Sam race after him, while Faramir holds
back the Orc-army which is sent by Sauron to waylay them. Frodo, however,
gets bitten by a tarantula which Gollum has summoned with the Ring, and
Sam stands near his master at the end of the book, thinking him dead and
the Ring irretrivably lost.
Everyone except Frodo and Sam arrives at the kingdom
of Gondor, and though the people of Gondor are amazed and frightened at
first by the huge army of walking trees that accompany them, everyone
smiles and accepts them when Gandalf and Aragorn reveal themselves. The
brothers Denethor and Boromir, however, see that Aragorn brings knowledge
from the North which will give their kingship over to Faramir, the true
King, and so they secretly conspire against him. And so later on, when the
forces of Mordor arrive to attack Gondor, they successfully plot to have
Aragorn positioned so he must face the Witch-King in single combat. The
battle is too much for Aragorn, and just as he is about to die he is
saved by Eowyn, a woman of Rohan who loves him, and Merry, who slays the
Witch-king in single combat by using ancient hobbit-magic and so reveals
himself to be the lost Thain of the Shire. Even as the forces of Mordor
retreat, they are swept into the Sea by great ships brought by Faramir,
the true Prince of Dol Amroth, from the hidden city of Osgiliath further up
the Great River.
Meanwhile Sam
chases the tarantula back to the lair of Ungoliant,
the Queen of Spiders, and after a tense argument about the nature of good
and evil she finally reveals to Sam the cure for the spider's-venom which
holds Frodo in thrall. Sam thanks Ungoliant for her mercy and wisdom
and revives Frodo, and they set off into Mordor to find Gollum. "Oft help
will come from the weak when the Wise are foolish," Gandalf once said,
and sure enough all the spiders of Mordor are willing to help Frodo and
Sam in their quest. Their course leads them to Mount Doom, where just as
they arrive they find Gollum claiming the Ring for himself. The Dark Lord
Sauron then becomes aware of them, and leaves the Dark Tower to come
forth and destroy them; but just them Frodo and Sam rush Gollum and force
him backwards into the Cracks of Doom. The Ring is destroyed, and without
it Sauron is destroyed by the sunlight. Frodo and Sam leave the Mountain
just in time to see the great armies of Aragorn and Faramir coming across
the plains of Mordor to greet them.
Boromir and
Denethor are driven away from Gondor forever, but
mercifully spared by King Faramir, and Aragorn is revealed to be the
long-lost King of Arnor, the North-Kingdom of old. "Yet you may still
rule the Shire," he says to Merry the Thain, "for with Mordor fallen,
there may be kingships enough for all." The heroism of Frodo and Sam is
sung in Gondor and Arnor for long ages, and even Pipsqueak finds honor in
his new role as Faramir's bootblack. "There's room for advancement in
this job," he tells the other hobbits knowingly, his eyes on Faramir's
crown. Faramir smiles at Pipsqueak's jest and tells him he will always be
welcome wherever he goes. (Indeed, the Appendices note that Pipsqueak's
journeys take him far and wide in later years, and he becomes the
best-known hobbit of them all.)
The other hobbits
eventually return to the Shire, only to find it
corrupted and in chaos because of an onslaught of evil Men; they
eventually find the evil brothers, Denethor and Boromir, trying to set
themselves up as dictators of the Shire. Frodo and Merry fight the evil
brothers hand-to-hand and slay them at the very door of Bag-end. Merry
takes up the Thainship, and at the end they all go West to the shores of
the Sea, there to bid Gandalf farewell as he sails back across the Sea
and into Heaven, for he was an Elven-king all along who was trying to
improve the relations between Elves and Men long-sundered, and now he had
found his reward.
Well, this book is really complicated, but I'll try to hit the
high points real quickly. Maybe someday, when I have more time, I can
improve on this.
God created the
angels, and the angels created the world. But the
Elves created the Silmarils, the Great Jewels, and fought over them for
generations until Melkor, one of the greatest angels, took them away for
safekeeping. But Melkor's brother Morgoth stole the Silmarils, and the
Elves swore they would fight the angels forever until they got the
Silmarils back. The story is an allegory for greed, and also a tale JRRT
told to demonstrate that you can never hope to fight God. In the end a
brave Man named Beren steals the Silmarils from Morgoth, and when the
Elves try to kill him to get them back (this is where the estrangement of
Elves and Men occurs, which is to haunt JRRT's other works), he gives
them to his son Earendil to take across the Sea and back to Heaven.
And that's how peace is restored to Middle-earth.
1. Brothers in the Lord of the Rings. Many of the characters in Tolkien's work have brothers, or sometimes sisters, who demonstrate different aspects of their families' beliefs. You could write a paper contrasting the many family relationships, such as the way Frodo is helped by his brother Sam, the way Denethor and his brother Boromir conspire, and the way Feanor is assisted by his brother Feenamint. Contrast this to the sharp differences seen in other Tolkien families, such as Beruthiel and her sister Galadriel, Melkor and his brother Morgoth, and Gandalf and his half-brother Saruman.
2. True Royalty. One recurring theme of Lord of the Rings is the theme of good royalty defeating tainted royalty. Just as Faramir defeats his evil cousins to reclaim the Throne of Gondor, Aragorn restores the Kingdom of Arnor with his marriage to Eowyn. Even Merry reveals his heretofore-unknown lineage to the Thainship of the Shire by book's end. Remembering that Tolkien wrote this book even as Queen Elizabeth was taking the throne of England when King Edward VIII abdicated and married a commoner, write a paper showing the influence of Tolkien's aristocracy beliefs on his work.
3. Use of Fire in Lord of the Rings. Whenever the forces of evil try to strike a blow in Tolkien's work, they almost always use fire. Denethor tries to set fire to Faramir; Glorfindel sets fire to the grasslands; Radagast tries to set fire to Gandalf. Even the dragon in The Hobbit tries to set fire to LakeTown; and Queen Beruthiel, while she never actually sets fire to anybody, is portrayed as an incessant chain-smoker, "waving the fire about in her hand like a hot poker" (Fellowship of the Ring, towards chapter seven). You could write a pretty fair paper on the use of fire in Tolkien's works. Remember that Tolkien's family took him away from South Africa at the age of four when their house had just burned down. Maybe it left a lasting impression.
Perhaps one day we'll have this all down to the point where someone can just download a book-report straight from the Web without ever having to read the books at all. Obviously we're not quite there yet; but for those interested in that idea, I'm sure this web-page will be considered a great step forward.