the poem with lines like “the haunting flares” and “like a man on fire” (Lines 3 & 12). The fire imagery is accented in the Moria passage with Balrog, a creature that is made of fire and rock. This is the “hell” the fellowship leaves behind them as they fight their way out (Sassoon line 25). By having the fellowship leave this “hell” and go directly to the complete opposite landscape of Lorien. The lands of Lorien are denied to the Orcs and are then indicating a denial of availability to the lower classes. Tolkien asserts the fellowships separation from the dangerous matters of Moria through Lorien. This construes a feeling of detachment from the horrors that Sassoon is trying to face. Instead of the fellowship being altered by their encounters with the Orcs in Moria, they stay above them and unsympathetic towards their enemy. As a result the ‘other’ never gets more than one dimension, implying the Orcs’ inferiority to the fellowship who get to leave the Orcs behind in what are the fantasy trenches or hell-like lair. This is opposite of the messages of breaking class barriers and the blurring of good and evil that Sassoon tries to promote.
Both share in a hell-like description which in Tolkien’s case makes the Orcs and the Mines of Moria even more evil, perpetuating the binary of good and evil as polarized. Wilfred Owen’s poem “Miners” continues along the lines of Tolkien’s imagery of fire and brimstone in Moria, painting a picture of it being the “hell” they “unload behind them” (Sassoon line 25). The poem is explicitly about miners that died in an explosion in an attempt to dig tunnels under enemy trenches. It already sounds like the dwarves who dug deep into the pits of Moria and unleashed the Balrog, fire and rock itself. Owen brings images of fire, coal, dark pits, embers and burning. It paints a similar picture to the mines of Moria and its depictions of the Orcs “coal” eyes and the “dark pits” full of “fire” and “ember” (Owen 1973). This poem about explosions and comrades lost has the same descriptions as a supposedly escapist piece of fantasy.
What does this mean?
What is truly peculiar about this message is how much is pushes against the ideals that the fandom, specifically the American audience, hold true. The American dream is an ideology that through hard work and perseverance a person can climb the social ladder and make it. Yet the readers accept Tolkien’s message and cheer for Aragorn and Frodo as they reassert their higher class status on those below them. Those unfortunate enough to live in Mordor, a place that does not get sunlight and does not allow for agriculture are the Orcs, who are forced to eat maggoty bread and each other. As an audience we condone the slaughter and mistreatment of thousands of Orcs. We do this through the power of Tolkien defining the Orcs as an ‘other’. This kind of mentality is strong and works today as it did in World War I by justifying violence against the ‘other’ through the supposed good that a classist society upholds.
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