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94 arda inhabited chapter four Dis-, Re-, Un-empowered Journeying and Environment As we consider how characters in The Lord of the Rings respond to and interact with their environments, we would be sadly remiss if we ignored the fact of the journey itself. Indeed, while many important matters surrounding the events of The Lord of the Rings happen “off-screen,” extratextually , the primary action that occurs within the text itself is travel. F. E. Sparshott claims that “one may conceive of an environment as a place to stand in, or a culture to live in, or both,”1 but what happens when characters are alienated from these very things that define a place? Sparshott further expands the definition of place, suggesting that “people do live in their imaginations and the name of ‘an environment’ can be given to an imaginative or conceptual construct that cannot be perceived as such.”2 The quest to destroy the Ring takes place in all these dimensions of place, as the all-consuming journey for Frodo, physically and psychically, leaves all of his companions changed ever afterwards as well. The Fellowship’s group and individual movements through space often reflect an accompanying inward, spiritual journey. I would like to suggest, therefore, what journeying as an environment reveals about some specific characters, the accompanying spiritual dimension or metaphysical import of these travels, and how those might correspond to some of the power dynamics discussed in previous chapters . The Elves and Aragorn are all exiles, but their exile functions differently because they have different relationships with the environment. Gandalf and Frodo are pilgrims, and the attitude of humility necessary to the success of their quest lies at the heart of a “power with” relationship . Finally, Gollum is a wanderer, and his complex, unique “power with” relationship with the land of Mordor is emblematic of his bro94 dis-, re-, un-empowered 95 ken inability to find true community anywhere. The relationships these people have with their place define the type of travelers they are as well as the kind of journeys upon which they embark. Ultimately, these relationships shape who they are, and who they are in turn shapes how they interact with the world around them. The boundaries between these categories delineated below are, of course, permeable. Most of these travelers prove to be both transients and residents, and there is something of exile, pilgrim, and wanderer in all of them. Categorizing them is simply a useful way to think of their differences and to highlight their similarities. It is just one more way of gaining insights into Tolkien’s environmental vision. In “Figuring the Ground,” Sparshott delineates several ways for people to relate to the spaces around them. One mode is the relationship of a traveler to the scene of his travel. She sees the starting point, the destination , and whatever facilitates or obstructs her journey.3 Sparshott goes on to describe the differences between a transient and a resident of a particular place. Stated simply, for the transient, an environment is only what it physically consists of: rocks, trees, a certain slant of light, other people, and other tangible, observable objects and phenomena. For the resident, an environment is weighted primarily by the associations that person has with the place. The transient sees “mere façade with no inside or past,” Sparshott claims, but “to the resident, [a place] is the outcome of how it got there and the outside of what goes on inside.”4 This distinction has interesting implications for those characters in The Lord of the Rings who undertake journeys. In some instances, Sparshott ’s distinction holds true, but not in all. It may be that in some cases, one can be a wanderer and a resident at the same time. One might also expect that the power relationships these characters have with their home environments might not apply as they travel. However, as we will see, the act of traveling reveals that the power relationships from which these characters operate are applicable not just in these characters’ own environments, but in all environments through which they travel. There are as many different types of journeys as there are travelers performing them, but for our purposes a short taxonomy of three types of travels will suffice. These categories are based on Dan Vogel’s attempt to create a “lexicon rhetoricae” for literature that deals with traveling. The three types of traveling I intend to address are exiles, pilgrims, and wanderers . Although...

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