The Cardinal Role of Descriptive Imagery: Two Examples
I've been poring over LOTR for the x-teenth time, looking for aphorisms. And of course, along the way, I've noticed a few things. Contains spoilers!
Descriptions
One of the “popular” criticisms that was dissected here at TolkienFans went something like, the author spends 8 pages describing trees. (This was not coming from a TolkienFan! We love trees.) The time spent complaining about this would be better spent thinking about the the role and reason of such passages.
The Professor is painting a picture of an imaginary world, and he faces two challenges. Each place must be unique. Lothlorien is different from the Shire, or from Rivendell. But at the same time, there must be similarities or consistencies. They must all seem to be part of the same world.
In every instance, a detailed or prolonged description plays a role in the advancing narrative.
Lothlorien
The lengthy description of Lothlorien, partly seen through Frodo's reactions, is necessary to establish a place that is like a corner of the Elder Days, a place where time brings healing. And it is the closest the author gets to letting his (devoted) readers in on how the Elves experience the world.
The chapters on the Golden Wood are well done. On one level, not much happens. This is in keeping with the idea that “one can't count the days” in Lorien. On the other, we see a lifelong friendship develop between Legolas and Gimli. Boromir becomes more conscious of his desire for the Ring – and not in a good way. Aragorn receives the Elfstone, and as he pins it to his breast, he is revealed as the true heir of kings, beginning a process that culminates in The Two Towers. And the other gifts they receive are crucial to the next stage of the Quest.
A portentous sunrise
In “The Riders of Rohan,” there's an entire paragraph devoted to a sunrise.
>Turning back they saw across the River the far hills kindled. Day leaped into the sky. The red rim of the sun rose over the shoulders of the dark land. Before them in the West the world lay still, formless and grey; but even as they looked, the shadows of night melted, the colours of the waking earth returned: green flowed over the wide meads of Rohan, the white mists shimmered in the water-vales; and far off to the left, thirty leagues or more, blue and purple stood the White Mountains, rising into peaks of jet, tipped with glimmering snows, flushed with the rose of morning.
>“Gondor! Gondor!” cried Aragorn. Would that I looked on you again in happier hour. Not yet does my road lie southward to your bright streams.”
This is the King in Exile, looking out on the land he knows and loves.
The whole of Book 3 shows the gradual transformation of Aragorn to become the leader in the fight against Sauron and the rightful king. And the process begins with that sunrise. It's like a huge fanfare.