Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » If I only had a Bombadil... - Page 5

If I only had a Bombadil... - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

In discussing the symbolic importance of Bombadil Tolkien writes in Letter 144:

Bombadil is not an important person -- to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment'. I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron. He has no connection in my mind with the Entwives. What had happened to them is not resolved in this book. He is in a way the answer to them in the sense that he is almost the opposite, being say, Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and Practicality.

This is one of the most often-cited and most misunderstood passages in all of Tolkien's writings, when it comes to discussing Bombadil. All too frequently people cite the first sentence and stop reading with the period: "Tom Bombadil is not an important person -- to the narrative." One need only read a few sentences further to see that Tolkien is not speaking about the plot of the story, or the progression of Frodo's adventure: "...he represents something that I feel important...." And a little further on: "The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion." Bombadil is the "natural pacifist view" who has "renounced control" when "both sides...want a measure of control."

The copyright of the article If I only had a Bombadil... - Page 5 in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish If I only had a Bombadil... - Page 5 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.