A pervasive theme throughout this seminar’s material has been the tyrannical destruction of nature in a broader pursuit of power. Lewis, Tolkien, and even Solzhenitsyn (to varying degrees) seem to possess an innate reverence towards the natural world, viewing it as a beautiful and necessary constant in an ever-changing world. Lewis’ own respect is reflected through Samwise Gamgee during his brief, but quasi-prophetic peek into Galadriel’s mirror. In this magical water surface, the noble Hobbit sees a potentially grim outcome for his home, The Shire. People are “cutting down trees as [they] shouldn’t,” and a “tall red chimney” replaces the familiar “Old Mill” (Tolkien 362). This horrifies Sam, and he declares his will to return because of the “devilry at work.”
Devilry, indeed. C.S. Lewis probably grinned upon reading this section from the Fellowship’s rough draft (while drinking a cold draft in a local pub, of course). Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with his acquired roots from Vermont, would also attest to nature’s perpetual value. In his paradigm-shifting Soviet exposé, The Gulag Archipelago, he laments the “plowing under” of vegetable gardens, and the needless “cutting down” (Solzhenitsyn 141) of trees that resulted from Stalin’s relentless prison expansion efforts. He expresses the same internal disgust through his frank prose, having experienced it first-hand.
These endeavors, while well-meant in theory, are all too common under the soulless reigns of totalitarian leadership. In attempting to bring about their vision of “utopia,” or “victory,” such leaders encroach upon their most basic and timeless surroundings. They crave control over nature, because its constance and objectivity pose threats to their subjective societal “remedies.” This will become even more apparent as Tolkien’s trilogy progresses, with Saruman adopting the same strategy, extracting wood from age-old forests beyond sustainability. And while not mentioned (yet, perhaps), Stalin’s barbaric collectivism relied on the same basis, resulting in such environmental catastrophes as the draining of the Aral Sea, and famines galore. Through shortsighted urgency, such actors fail to realize the detriment of their own foolish actions.
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