ents a clear and present ‘other’. Only when the fellowship follows the Victorian class paradigm that Sassoon and Owen condemn, are they able to defeat the ‘other’ that embodies the barbaric acts of World War I. Therefore Tolkien’s text suggests the belief that the British hierarchy was the reason Britain claimed victory over the gruesome lack of humanity that was the evil of World War I. The Lord of the Rings then argues for a recede from social progress through a refusal of class mobility ending in any resemblance of a good result.
“Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man”: The Fellowship as high-class officers
Tolkien is arguing that only those with the divine right to the higher classes can fix the world by ridding it of such violent evils like World War I and Sauron’s armies. If the Orcs accepted their lower status in the hierarchy, the tragedy of the war for Middle-Earth would have never happened. This reinforces the concept of the “Great Chain of Being” in the belief that nobody of lower class, such as an Orc, have the right to try to defy the system. By the end of the trilogy, the fellowship keeps its class system values in its destruction of Sauron’s armies and The Ring. Middle-Earth is rebuilt according to the societal structures Owen, Sassoon, and many others have criticized. The marriage of Aargorn, the King of Man, and Arwen, an Elven princess, cements the old social order into the future of Middle-Earth. Together they reaffirm the hierarchy by restoring the Elves and Men to their rank above the Orcs. Tolkien is then holding onto the class systems Britain firmly had in place at the beginning of the war that Sassoon and Owen also experienced. Sassoon writes of these very issues in his memoirs; which he encountered before going off to war. The following is from Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, a novel that takes experiences from Sassoon’s life and incorporates them into the fictional character, George Sherston. At this point in the novel, George Sherston looks back on his first servant, “…he never allowed me to forget my position as ‘a little gentleman’: he always knew exactly when to become discreetly respectful. In fact, ‘he knew his place’.” (Sassoon 10). At this point in his memoirs he is acknowledging the absolute subservience and loyalty of a man who is in a class beneath him.
Tolkien romanticizes the subservience of George Sherston’s servant through Sam’s unquestioning loyalty to his Master Frodo. This hobbit Master/Servant relationship is a direct reflection of the real class systems that took place in Britain before and at the beginning of World War I. In his memoirs and poetry, Sassoon expresses an eventual disgust with this way of life. Owen and Sassoon blame this class system for the loss of so many British soldiers. To them the upper class were using everyone beneath them to fight their wars. The “Aragorns” of our world were the ones that Owen and Sassoon were protesting against. Instead of going along with this growing progressive ideal that started sweeping through Europe at the time ─ most dramatically beginning with the over throw of the Russian Royal family, the Romanovs, in 1917 ─ Tolkien reverts back to the past instilling the British class systems before the revolutions spread across Europe.
Tolkien strongly forces the audience to empathize with the fellowship. He designs them as the only ones with the power to save Middle-Earth from the Orc invasions. This is in direct opposition to the messages Sassoon and Owen are trying to emote using the same tragic descriptions of violence. Royalty and wealthy land owners make up the company of the fellowship. There are only two possible exceptions to this, the first being Sam the servant.
Sam only reinforces the hegemonic powers of the hierarchy through his constant obedience and disregard for his own well-being for his Master Frodo. This no longer makes him a possible exception, but a character who placates to the class systems. The other possible exception is Gandalf. Although he is not a land owner or royalty, he is divinely superior for he 