There are those tht claim LOTR was written as a parable about a war between world communism and the damaged nations of western Europe.
Wonderful film out of UK on Tolkien ‘s early life and how it influenced his writings. It’s called Tolkien.
There is a ton of symbolism in LOTR and it’s all layered and interwoven with each other, which is why it’s such a masterful work. It really should be part of a junior high to high school curriculum, imo. Make it summer reading over several summers and write a report when you return to school.
Mordor is symbolic of the Soviet Union, with the rest of Middle Earth being symbolic of the free West. Tolkien would have also been teaching that, since Sauron was a fallen Maiar, named Mairon, the source of the corruption that created Mordor did not come from Eru. He’s basically saying that communism’s origin is from the Devil.
Orcs are fallen elves and men who were corrupted by Sauron. What Tolkien is teaching about orcs is that all elves and all men can be corrupted if you believe in corrupted teachings. Any one of us could be turned into an orc, if we ended up believing corrupted teachings.
The Middle Earth is symbolic of the West, but only the West that has its origins in Christianity. Christianity is the source of the West’s ability to resist the Soviet Union or communism. If you forget that, you’ll eventually fall into the domain of Mordor (socialism)
The ring amplifies your desire to do good, to the point where the level of good you want to accomplish actually proves harmful. Liberals are corrupt, but they still want to do good. But if we went full liberal, it would prove harmful. Just as those who fall sway to the ring cannot be talked out of exercising their increased power to do good, liberals cannot be talked out of using liberalism to do good, until we have millions dead.
The hobbits are people who don’t want to use earthly power over others. They just want to live their simple lives and be responsible for themselves. The reason why they are so resistant to the power of the ring is because they have no desire to gain power over men in order to do good.
What Tolkien is saying is that the only protection against being corrupted is the Catholic doctrines guiding you and not desiring to use power to accomplish good.