Thursday, December 16, 2010

Dragons in the World of Tolkien: The Magnificent Beast of the Immense Powers

Because of their constant craving for something miraculous and unusual, people have created a number of mythological creatures which live their full life in numerous legends and fairy-tales. Made up not only for children, but also for those whose hearts there is still some room for wonders and adventures, the mythological creatures are at the service of modern writers. The latter create imaginary worlds of theirs, inhabited by the beasts so powerful that a man can only stand in awe and gaze in fear at the legendary creatures. One of the most significant figures among the range of the animals inhabiting the land of fantasy is a dragon, the symbol of wisdom and power.

It must be remembered though, that, described by modern writers whose works left a significant trace in modern literature and culture, the image of dragon underwent great changes. As a result, one can see that the old-fashioned idea of a leather-winged beast has almost nothing to do with what modern fantasy and fiction suggests. Taking a look at literary works from most well-known writers, one can see the paradigm of the dragon image development, starting from the old legends up to the modern fantasy fiction books.

In spite of the fact that dragons are mythological creatures, they have always been close to people as a necessary element of a fairy-tale. Without these incredible beasts, the world of fairy-tales and legends would have suffered great losses and many tales would have been left untold. However cruel and merciless dragons could be depicted in the stories, they would always leave a trace of something unknown yet possessing the wisdom of the centuries, a creature with stone heart and the wisdom of the universe. Although the creatures were depicted in different ways by different writers, they were all given certain similar elements. The question is, which features are in common in the most famous stories and which make difference between the dragons?

Because of the fact that Tolkien created a world so unusual and unfamiliar to what people have already known, yet giving it the traits of a human’s world with its wars, misconceptions and – well, and the unceasing fun which have been helping people to survive so far. In the imaginary world of his, the dragons do not possess the features of the wise. Being characterized rather as the beasts which have human traits, bloodthirsty and violent, Tolkien turns the scope of the audience back to the Middle Ages, when people feared everything that was connected with magic, and, as a result, thought everything which beheld the magic gift a curse to the mankind. He based his idea of a dragon on the German tales, which had a significant effect on his book (Berman).

However, according to what the modern culture suggests, dragons exist no longer. As Judith A. John noted;

Dragons are dead! Killed by science, jokes, logic and technology, the once-vigorous symbol of evil in Western culture has been vanquished. In the past dragon sightings were so numerous and so well-documented that, like UFO spotters toady, most rational, intelligent, scientific thinkers including Pliny the Elder, Herodotus, and Edward Topsell accepted dragons as a fact, and Marco Polo recorded witnessing flying dragons during his trip to China (219).

Fortunately, as Tolkien was writing his incredible story, The Hobbit, science had not ruined the vision of the fairy-tales which people had and dragons lived a full life in people’s imagination, feeding on the beliefs and the legends composed in honor of the wise and terrifying creatures.

Tolkien depicts dragons as the creatures which possess certain traits of people’s character. Depicting Smaug, a creature born by his exciting imagination, John points out that “Smaug is mesmerizing and intelligent, but suffers from what Tolkien defines as ‘dragon sickness’” (254). In Tolkien’s understanding, dragons are flesh and blood, but rather dangerous one, and the incredible mystique of theirs is what people should stand in awe and amazement in front of. With such an approach, Tolkien creates a most convincing image of a dragon, not harming the “reputation” which the beast has acquired through the centuries of legends and myths.

However, Tolkien also admits that the powers of a dragon are rather frightening, since they are immense:

… in two illustrations Tolkien did for the book, both of which, at least as originally drawn, show a full moon in the eastern sky on the night of the dragon’s marauding. (Sturgis 13)

Indeed, dragons as Tolkien depicted them were the creatures of rather scary appearance and influence.

Note: The video clip above is from animated film The Hobbit (1977).

Works Cited

Berman, Ruth. “Dragons for Tolkien and Lewis.” Mythlore: A Journal of J. R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and the Genres of Myth and Fantasy Studies 11.1 (39), 1984, 53-58.

John, Judith A. "From Death to Rebirth: A Short History of Dragons and Their Presence in Modern Fantasy." Flashes of the Fantastic. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004, 219-228.

Sturgis, Amy H., and Darrell Gwaltney. Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C. S. Lewis. Altadena, CA: Mythopoeic, 2007.

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