By Luis Yerovi Jr.

I first read Tolkien's epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, 27 years ago, during the summer between 7th and 8th grade. As I did every summer in my elementary school years, I was vacationing at my grandmother's ranch in Mocha, a tiny Andean hamlet located just north of Riobamba (capital of Ecuador's Chimborazo province). That summer is etched in my mind as the time when I "became" Frodo -- the courageous, self-sacrificing hobbit on whose shoulders lay the fate of Tolkien's imaginary world, Middle Earth.

My fantasy was reinforced by endless summer days in which my cousins and I passed the hours horseback riding through the mountainous lands which surround my grandma's ranch. High up in the paramos of Mt. Carihuairazo, a 15, 000 foot extinct volcano, we would carefully make our way through treacherous marshes as we warily looked out for wild bulls-- the orcs of my fantasy-- that roam freely in this habitat. At nights, I would indulge my adolescent self-absorbed tendencies through interminable candlelit readings of The Lord of the Rings, safe in a mythical world were "good" and "evil" were clearly defined.

Ecuador was Middle Earth to me, not only because of the coincidental "Middle of the World" eponym applied to my home country, but because Tolkien's descriptions seemed to parallel the intricacies of the land which unfolded before me.

Seeing the movie version of The Lord of the Rings now, as a grown man, I realize how similar my perceptions were to those entertained by Peter Jackson, the director who chose New Zealand as the setting for his film. After all, New Zealand is a country with strikingly similar topography to that enjoyed in Ecuador.

Unfortunately, though, as adulthood would have it, I have not been able to enjoy Jackson's movie trilogy with such childish relish. When I think about "The Rings," troubling imagery and metaphors now intrude into my consciousness, lending to somewhat obsessive ruminations. The Lord of the Rings has transcended its ability to speak to me as a fantasy riddled with childhood innocence and, instead, has turned into an allegory of disturbing current world events and trends.

Power vs. Freedom

My allegorical interpretations of "The Rings," as will be presented below, were shaped by many factors, all of which seemed to coincide with the release of Jackson's film. First, for the last three years, I have read intensively the writings of authors such as Naom Chomsky, Edward Said, Hannah Arendt and Frantz Fanon, who discuss world events from perspectives alternative to mainstream western ideologies. Second, the shocking events of 9-11 forced me to open my eyes to the reality of the world (i.e. why do they hate us?). Lastly, the emergence of the anti-globalization movement in the United States and in Europe, coupled with firsthand observations of the struggles faced by Ecuador's indigenous people amidst Western imposed neoliberal economic policies (i.e. Free Trade Area of the Americas), all conspired to alter my comfortable suburban point-of-view.

As I started to research Tolkien for this article, I learned that Tolkien was a self-described anarchist believing that the ultimate "evil" came from unbridled power: "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)" (From the Letters of J R R Tolkien, p.63).

Writing in Europe as World War II drew to a close, I imagine that the barbarity of war was heavy on Tolkien's mind. Hitler's efficient machines, the atomic bomb, the centralization of power in the Soviet Union and America must have been troubling him.

Breaking through the fog of Western illusions (i.e. democracy will herald the end of history), Tolkien saw that humanity was instead on an alarming course. The world had reached a stage where global domination by one entity was not only possible but imminent-- and the ruling entity that Tolkien envisioned on the horizon was the industrial "West" using economic "globalization" and military muscle to rule the world.

Is Free Trade the "Ring of Power"?

From these antecedent influences, the dark metaphors and parallels that seeped into my mind when contemplating "The Rings" are these:

• Sauron and Mordor, the nebulous evil wizard and his foreboding homeland, are the embodiment of man's (evolutionary?) tendency towards self aggrandizement and greed. ("In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit." From "Letters" p. 268)

• Western political leaders and their corporate masters (an unsavory relation due to the state of "democracy" in places like America where political agendas are shaped by moneyed interests) became "morphed" into Saruman, a corrupted, power mad wizard who literally defiles nature in order to build an army born of metal and fire (industrialization).