They are shocked at the state of the Shire, with endless rules, ugly new buildings, and wanton destruction of trees and old buildings. They are surprised to find it barred, but are taken in, after some convincing, by the Shiriffs, a kind of hobbit police, who are guarding the bridge. The hobbits of the Fellowship – Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin – returning home to the Shire, come to its border, the Brandywine Bridge, late at night. The hobbits, much changed by their experiences, ride home to the Shire, hoping to return to a peaceful rural life. The Ring is destroyed in the Cracks of Doom, and Sauron is overthrown. With Sauron distracted, Frodo and Sam manage to travel to Mount Doom. Merry and Pippin become involved in wars against the evil Wizard Saruman and then against Sauron: Merry becomes a knight of Rohan, while Pippin becomes a guard of Gondor. They face many perils on the journey, and the Fellowship is split up. They are joined by others opposed to Sauron, forming a Fellowship of the Ring, led by Gandalf. There, they learn that it can only be destroyed in the volcano, Mount Doom, where Sauron forged the Ring, in the evil land of Mordor. They are pursued by Sauron's Black Riders, but escape to a stronghold of the Elves, Rivendell. He is joined by three other hobbits, his friends Sam, Merry, and Pippin. A Wizard, Gandalf, tells Frodo the history of the ring and persuades him to leave the Shire to destroy the Ring. If Sauron finds the Ring, he will use it to take over the whole of Middle-earth. The story tells how the One Ring, a ring of power made by the Dark Lord Sauron, lost for many centuries, has reappeared and is in the hands of a hobbit, Frodo Baggins, in the England-like Shire. The chapter follows all the main action of The Lord of the Rings. The chapter, which has been called one of the most famous anticlimaxes in literature, has been left out of all film adaptations of the novel, except, in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, as a brief flash-forward when Frodo looks into the crystal ball-like Mirror of Galadriel, and for the death of Saruman, which is transposed to Isengard.įictional history Context However, the actual addition of Saruman to this part of the story, as the reason why the Shire should need to be scoured, came very late in Tolkien's composition he considered other identities for the wicked Sharkey before settling on Saruman. The book's central theme is going out on the physical quest to destroy the One Ring, to be balanced by a chapter on returning home on the moral quest to purify the Shire and to take responsibility for oneself. The idea of such a chapter was, as Tolkien stated, planned from the outset, as part of the overall formal structure of The Lord of the Rings, though its details were not worked out until much later. Commentators and critics have however seen it as applicable to that period, with clear contemporary political references, which in their opinions include a satire of socialism echoes of Nazism allusions to the shortages in postwar Britain and a strand of environmentalism. Tolkien denied that the chapter was an allegory of the state of Britain during the aftermath of World War II. The hobbits rouse the Shire to rebellion, lead their fellow-hobbits to victory in the Battle of Bywater, and end Saruman's rule.Ĭritics have considered "The Scouring of the Shire" the most important chapter in The Lord of the Rings. The ruffians have despoiled the Shire, cutting down trees and destroying old houses, as well as replacing the old mill with a larger one full of machinery which pollutes the air and the water. The Fellowship hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, return home to the Shire to find that it is under the brutal control of ruffians and their leader "Sharkey", revealed to be the Wizard Saruman. " The Scouring of the Shire" is the penultimate chapter of J. R. R. Penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings
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