The Fall From Enchantment

Abstract

As middle-earth is modeled after the history and landscape of our world, author Alex Bennett believes that middle-earth reflects what has been happening in our real-life world – the fall from enchantment and demise of man. He believes that technology will slowly bring mankind to fall into despair. The way to preserve the culture form technology is by capturing magic in writing – which is what Tolkien did – create a reality in which to escape the technological culture shock. He sees a similar parallel in “The Lord of the Rings” – how the races of middle earth fell to distrust of one another and there is no more great alliances of old. He also takes note that old wisdom of Middle earth has faded away, such of that of Bombadil or the Ents. The Fellowship of the Ring is an attempt to rekindle what was once lost and, through their trials, respect one another, nature, and the old wisdom of the Ents.