Ring composition in the Lord of the Rings: A brief literary-critical observation

The Shire’s sprawling green hills and quaint village scenery slowly fade into the serene sunset. The setting is almost utopian—the world seems at ease, with no sign that trouble is brewing far away in the shadows of Mordor. In this small enclave, largely sheltered from the rest of Middle Earth, we meet our unsuspecting protagonist, Frodo Baggins. 

Frodo is what’s known as a Hobbit, part of a group of small beings who live quiet and peaceful lives. Hobbits are mostly isolationists — they are wary of outsiders and prefer to keep to themselves. The Shire, the hometown of the hobbits, lies in a faraway corner of the world largely untouched by others. 

The innocence of the Shire does not last for long, however. Early in the storyline, Gandalf tasks Frodo with bringing a mysterious and dangerous ring to the city of Rivendell. Once Frodo and his companions set foot outside the Shire, they’re almost immediately hunted by the Ringwraiths – sinister servants of Sauron who won’t rest until they retrieve the ring - opening their eyes to the menacing world that lurks outside their isolated home. Their world, as we soon see, will never be the same. 

The mission to Rivendell is short but dramatic. Although he is stabbed and poisoned along the way, Frodo makes it to Rivendell safely with his friends and successfully passes the ring off to the Council of Elrond, a group led by the elf Elrond. Frodo’s task is finished—or at least so he thinks.

A few scenes later, Frodo stumbles upon his loyal companion, Sam, packing his bags, which spurs an important exchange between them. When Frodo asks Sam why he is already packing to go home, Sam responds:

Sam: “…we did what Gandalf wanted, didn’t we? We got the Ring this far, to Rivendell…and I thought…seeing as how you’re on the mend, we’d be off soon. Off home.”

Frodo: “You’re right, Sam. We did what we set out to do. The ring will be safe in Rivendell. I am ready to go home.”

Those who are well acquainted with the story know that Frodo and Sam do not return home, instead volunteering themselves to take the ring to Mordor to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom. The ensuing journey is riddled with danger, death, setbacks and eucatastrophes (miraculous victories). 

In the first exchange, before he embarks on his perilous journey, Frodo says he has completed what he set out to do and is ready to return home. In the second exchange, Frodo claims he has done what he set out to do but is unable to return to the Shire. Similar vocabulary purposefully links these two passages together and invites the audience to make meaningful connections between them. 

Importantly, these two scenes bookend the entire trilogy (what literary critics call an envelope structure, inclusio, or ring composition), thus strengthening the relationship between the passages and alerting the audience that the story has come full circle. In her book, Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), Mary Douglas argues that ring composition shows the audience whether the plot’s main mission has been successful and provides the audience with a sense of closure: “By joining up with the beginning, the ending unequivocally signals completion. It is recognizably a fulfillment of the initial promise. Just arriving at the beginning by the process of inverted ordering is not enough to produce a firm closure. The final section signals its arrival at the end by using some conspicuous key words from the exposition. Verbal repetitions indicate that the first and the last section match in other ways. Most importantly, there also has to be thematic correspondence: the original mission turns out to have been successful, or it has failed”. 

The viewer is encouraged to ask what has changed between the beginning of the first movie and the end of the third that makes it impossible for Frodo to return home. Frodo can no longer return to the Shire; he must leave his life behind and forge a new beginning in Valinor. Although the plot’s main mission has been successful, something is awry. 

The viewer receives hints throughout the trilogy that Frodo's burden weighs heavily on him and that he will never be the same. At one point, Galadriel, a royal elf who aids Frodo in his journey, says to Elrond: “The strength of the Ringbearer is failing. In his heart, Frodo begins to understand. The quest will claim his life. You know this. You have foreseen it. It is the risk we all took.” 

At the end of The Return of the King, Frodo’s reflection on his journey betrays these same feelings: “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand. There is no going back. There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.”

The trilogy may seem to end like it begins, but nothing could be further from the truth. The journey has changed Frodo, and although the Shire has been saved from the corruption of Sauron, it came at the cost of Frodo’s innocence. This is the price of being a hero. Those who save the day are often lauded and memorialized, but the cost is high. As is often the case, the hero sacrifices himself or herself on behalf of those they love. Even if they do not die, their experiences change them forever. There is no going back to the Shire as it once was. 

I would like to think that there is something didactic, even theological, about this observation. In a culture that is obsessed with seeking attention and social media exposure, the Lord of the Rings reminds us that true heroes are those who bear a burden of great consequence for the greater good. True heroes do not shrink back from danger and adversity when the world hangs in the balance, even if doing so means the world will never be the same for them. 

We live in a society that lauds so-called “influencers” who amass “likes” and “shares” on social media, but Frodo’s story reminds us that heroes often bear deep wounds and suffer privately in their pursuit to create a better world. While modern-day “influencers” desperately chase attention and eschew sacrifice, you will find those who truly make a difference working behind the scenes. True heroes are servants, not celebrities. That seems to be a message we need to recover and hear anew. 

Matthew Arakaky is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program of Religion at Duke University, where he studies the religion and literature of the Hebrew Bible. He previously studied at the University of Virginia, Princeton Seminary, the University of Chicago and the Johns Hopkins University.