I mostly write fantasy stories and everything I share is primarily written for fun. I don't generally share my personal work online. I originally wrote this in 2020.

There and Back Again: Home and Homesickness in Lord of the Rings

Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.

The world behind and home ahead,

We’ll wander back to home and bed.

- A Walking Song, The Fellowship of the Ring (Book)

Home is a theme that comes up repeatedly over the course of The Lord of the Rings, be it in leaving home, visiting other characters’ homes or longing to return home. The main protagonists are all striving to save their home, Middle-Earth, but more specifically they are either looking to find their home, restore their home or return to their home. The hobbits in particular, though initially excited to go on an adventure, support Frodo and meet elves, all long to return to the Shire. Sam embodies this more than most, as he often speaks fondly of the Shire, reminds Frodo of it during his darkest moment, and the Shire is Sam’s motivation. He left the Shire because he agreed to protect Frodo and support him, but it’s the Shire and the thought of one day returning to it that really motivates him to keep pushing forward. Sam wants to ensure that Frodo succeeds because otherwise there will be no Shire.

Sam’s love for the Shire and this need to ensure its survival reflects Tolkien's own love for his home. During WWI, many soldiers would have been homesick, and the hope of one day returning to their homeland, friends and family may have been the only thing that kept them going through such traumatic hardships. Tolkien was sent to the Somme, and while he was returned home early due to contracting Trench Fever, many of his fellow soldiers who had been his friends, comrades and who encouraged him to write for publication, died. Such events would have drastically impacted and changed Tolkien and the men who served alongside him during the Great War. While Tolkien said that he did not care for allegory, it is clear that WWI impacted him and his writing. The hobbits are ordinary men forced to take part in a war that will forever change them and their home. Even if the war never reached the Shire, they would return as changed men, and their home would not be the same because of that.

The Shire is an idyllic homeland. Tolkien was a conservative man who deeply valued nature and anti-industrialisation. This is not surprising when you consider that during the war he would have witnessed swathes of countryside and forests ripped up to serve the war effort. The Somme may have inspired the Mire, dead bodies lying face up in the water. Mordor is also described as having acrid air and oily water, reminiscent of battlefields. Tolkien's fear of the countryside being swallowed up by war and industrialisation is palpable within The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien spends a great deal of time describing Middle-Earth from the overall landscape to the specific trees in the woods and the mushrooms growing about their roots. His writing is Romantic but doesn’t romanticise nature. The woods are dangerous. Nature is beautiful but must be respected. This is embodied in the Ents, not trees but tree-shepherds and their own race, that go to war. The story of the Ent-wives tells us what could happen if they do not. The Ent-wives made gardens which mankind destroyed as they encroached on their lands while the Ents wandered in the wild, unaware until it was too late. They fear that there are no more Ent-wives, which further pushes them to defend their homes so that they are not made extinct. Tolkien knew that war impacted everyone, but specifically how it impacted the most ordinary man. The hobbits of the Shire are the most ordinary of men, but even they are not immune to the fallout of a great war.

While we do have would-be Kings, Lords, and Wizards in The Lord of the Rings, the story really focuses on the hobbits. These Kings, Lords and Wizards are not heroes in the way modern fantasy readers expect them to be. Nowadays we want our heroes to be relatable. We want to see Aragorn struggle with the decision to become king, and we want to see some romantic conflict too. We want to see Boromir sacrifice himself. We want to see a dramatic showdown between Gandalf and the Balrog. But in the books, and while I would still argue that it is dramatic, it’s not as showy as the film. Tolkien’s writing is focused on the details of an event but not the glorification of it. We know that the orcs have been following the party for some time by the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, but we don’t see them kill Boromir. The build-up to Gandalf facing the Balrog is tense, but the film turns the dial up a little more. The grief expressed by the party afterwards is lingered on longer in the film too when it is only a line or two in the book. But this grief is revisited several times when other characters ask after Gandalf and the party are hesitant to say that he has died because the pain is still raw. As someone who experienced war, this may have felt realistic to Tolkien. He also knew that Gandalf would return, which might have also informed his writing choices.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that at the time that The Lord of the Rings was first published, this was highly original. Modern fantasy readers have seen these types of tropes played out time and time again, and so when reading The Lord of the Rings they know what to expect. The Lord of the Rings is a story that most people know, even vaguely, thanks to it being such a huge part of our culture due to the popularity of the books and the films. Even if you’ve never read the books or seen the films, you probably know who Gandalf is. The writing style of The Lord of the Rings is very different to modern fantasy writing. Tolkien’s writing is prose-heavy and often poetic, as well as including literal poems and songs. The focus is different, and the pace is much slower. But, if you take the time to get into it, Tolkien’s writing is hugely rewarding and can give you a greater appreciation for the genre as a whole. The Lord of the Rings is arguably the reason why we have modern fantasy. You don’t have to read it, you don’t have to love it, but as with any classic we need to appreciate its impact and contribution.

Home is behind

The world ahead

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadow

To the edge of night

Until the stars are all alight

Mist and shadow

Cloud and shade

All shall fade

All shall

Fade

- Edge of Night, The Return of the King (Film)

Tolkien’s writing style means that Middle-Earth isn’t just a setting; it feels like an actual place with languages and history of all its own. Tolkien was a linguist and so created a language, then a place for that language to be from, then a story to happen in that place. This gives Middle-Earth a sense of realness that has inspired many writers to invest heavily in world-building for their own stories. It also has created a strange sense of homesickness in readers. A sense of “Fernweh”, a German word meaning a sense of longing for a place you’ve never been or can never go to. Many fans of The Lord of the Rings would love nothing more than to visit Middle-Earth, particularly the Shire.

When the films were first announced, many fans wished that they could be filmed in the UK, as that’s where Tolkien is from and was a huge influence on the landscape of Middle-Earth. But unfortunately the places that inspired settings such as the Shire no longer exist as they once were. Even during Tolkien’s own life, his home and the land around it changed greatly. Industrialisation shaped and continues to shape the British countryside, and in some places it would not be unrecognisable to Tolkien. Readers long to visit a place that does not exist, and the places that inspired it are also not the same as they once were.

By the end of The Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth has changed. The war may be over, but the people and land will never be the same again. The film does not include the penultimate chapter of The Return of the King, The Scouring of the Shire, in which we learn that Lotho Saukville-Baggins sought to control the Shire thanks to the wealth he had accumulated through selling pipe-weed to Saruman. With the help of Dunlendings and goblins sent from Saruman, Lotho took control of the Shire, imprisoned many and began industrialising the Shire, destroying its beauty. Through their selfishness and greed, Saruman is able to take over, and the Shire is ruined. This idyllic corner of the world is transformed into an industrial wasteland, and while Tolkien said he did not care for allegory, there are obvious parallels to be made between this and his own views of the destruction of the English countryside. Tolkien commented that when returning from WWI, during which time many of his friends died, he felt that the world he remembered from his youth had changed and was largely gone. The film doesn’t have this happen at all, which creates a wholly different message. For Tolkien, even after the war is over, the world will never be the same again. It is a somewhat depressing message perhaps, but a warning. Tolkien was against the homogenisation of culture; he would probably be deeply depressed by chain stores, and the destruction of nature. He was in many ways an environmentalist, and while he was not an activist and would not have necessarily encouraged others to be so, he did use literature to communicate his views and ideas on how we should value and respect nature, which is, after all, home to so many creatures including ourselves. Without it, we won’t last very long, and so we must care for it and not allow it to be forsaken.

The hobbits cannot return to the Shire. Their Shire no longer exists due to selfishness and greed. Lotho and Saruman valued progress and machines over nature and life’s simplicities. They did not care about their fellow man, the natural world or their homes. They cared for money and power. Because of their actions, the Shire is gone and the hobbits as a people must rebuild what they can. Within The Hobbit, Bilbo was able to leave and return home relatively unscathed, and the adventure changed him for the better in some ways. Within The Lord of the Rings, he leaves again, never to return. By the end of The Lord of the Rings, we have some characters travelling to Valinor, some reclaiming their ancestral homes such as Aragorn, and then there is Sam who returns to rebuild his home after devastation.

Is the Shire home, or is it the people in it? Why return to a place that is so changed and foreign to you now? How can that possibly feel like home again? Throughout the books, a great deal of time is spent travelling, talking and eating together. Of all the characters, it is Sam who ultimately gets what he wanted all along. He returns home. Sam goes back to the Shire, fights in the rebellion and becomes mayor. He gets to settle down again, and while his home has changed, he has returned to the things he loved most: Friends and family. He marries Rosie, the girl he loved at the start before the quest and the war. He is elected mayor seven times. He had thirteen children. Of all the characters, he possibly gets the most in the end. He stayed true to himself the entire time; he wanted to go home and live a nice, simple hobbit life, and he achieves that in the end.

Sam and his fellow hobbits can and will rebuild the Shire; they will undo much of the harm done and find a way to restore the Shire to something beautiful and, most importantly, they will make it a home again. The films have the Shire remain untouched, but the message of returning and restoring your home after a time of war and destruction is arguably more positive and hopeful than having it perfect the whole time. Sam, who has always longed to return to the Shire, does so and the hardships he has endured make him a stronger person, better equipped to support and shape his home into something new out of the ashes of war and industry. Sam, who has been homesick for the Shire throughout The Lord of the Rings, gets to go home and live his happily ever after. He has changed. The world has changed. His home has changed. But at his core, Sam has always carried his home with him. It helped him survive, and in returning to the Shire, he will prove that love for his home by ensuring that it also survives.

Originally written in 2020.