Summary of one ring to bind them all

Literary Criticism, 124 PP.

The “Preface” is quite short; it mainly tells the intentions of the book, which are to show the reader the “process of mythmaking” and to increase the readers’ “awareness of its manifestation” in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially LotR (ix). Directly following this is the “Introduction.” In this section, she talks about the enormity of scholarship that has followed the first printing of the book. She draws attention to a few notable works on Tolkien and then talks about what the critics have said, in general, and her own interest in Tolkien’s role as a mythmaker. The “Prologue,” then, goes on to show the role of the mythmaker as well as a brief outline of Petty’s work as a whole.

Part One of the book is entitled “Departure.” This section has three chapters; the first is “The Mythic Impulse.” In this chapter she states that after receiving the “call to adventure… the only access to the return threshold is through the mythic cycle of our particular quest” (9). Petty then goes on to try and describe what she calls the “mythic impulse” (“the urge to seek unity and completion in the universe” (9)) and tell who is most greatly affected by it. She then explains the mythic structure in the terms of Campbell, Vladimir Propp, and Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Chapter 2 discusses the importance of The Hobbit as a “necessary prelude” to LotR (17). She uses The Hobbit to introduce the style and methodology she will be using to later explicate LotR. Her major themes for this chapter are the importance of The Hobbit’s subtitle “There and Back Again” as being of crucial importance to the mythic impulse and of the continuing theme in Tolkien’s works of evil defeating its own purposes. In the last chapter of this section she finally looks at LotR. Here she explains the artist’s role in relation to subcreation and introduces the three mythic heroes of LotR: Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo. For each of the heroes she outlines the call to adventure and his acceptance of it.

Part Two is titled “Initiation.” The first two chapters of this section are composed of her outlining the next steps that the heroes take on their hero quests. Using a fairly complex list of abbreviations, she outlines the majority of LotR. The last chapter talks about the binary oppositions present in the novel.

Part Three is the “Return,” which Petty has argued the importance of throughout. As might be guessed, this section primarily deals with the return home after the completion of the quest. She talks about the reception of the heroes and their reactions to it. From there she talks of the patterns in the story as well as some deeply embedded symbols. She argues how techniques like giving immense power to names and having characters as the personification of powers are mythic traditions that Tolkien does not forget.

The Epilogue wraps everything up, extolling Tolkien as a true mythmaker.
EVALUATION OF ONE RING TO BIND THEM ALL

One of the major strengths of this book is its easy formatting. The book is well-organized and free from streams of tangential information crowding the main points; it is a focused work. The subtitle claims that the book is about “Tolkien’s Mythology,” and it is. Another of its strengths is its conciseness; this is a fairly short book with only pertinent information included. Her introductory material was highly fascinating. The “Mythic Impulse” she talks about is made easily understandable to the casual reader, as is most of her writing.

There were times when I was willing to dismiss the book as a whole because of what are a few minor errors. One of the things that initially caught my attention and grated on my nerves was her insistence on calling LotR a “trilogy.” Technically, it was published in three parts, but it has become common knowledge that they were never intended to be separate books and any serious scholar should know that. Another error that made me doubt her credibility was when she refers to Éowyn as Théoden’s daughter. The last of the errors that diminish this work is the fact that she does not utilize Tolkien’s accent marks. It is almost jarring to not see them there.

Aside from these points, the major weakness for the casual reader is in the structural analysis. While I will not dispute the accuracy of the analysis, it does get quite confusing trying to keep track of the myriad symbols present. As I read, I was forced to constantly flip to the first appendix to remind myself of the difference between A⁶ and U neg. There were far too many symbols to keep accurate track of them all.

In a review of this book in the June 1979 edition of Best Sellers, Paul Granahan cites the book’s downfall as its overreaching ambition. He says,
The basic flaw of this study is that it tries to accomplish far too much in its rather limited space. The author should have perhaps restricted herself to applying the theories of only one of [the men discussed: Campbell, Propp, and Lévi-Strauss]. As it is, the three lines of thought don’t always quite mesh and sometimes seem to be thrown together almost gratuitously.
Quite simply, the book is just too complex to be fit into 124 pages.

The weaknesses are fairly minor to the work as a whole and they mostly fall under the category of annoyances rather than major errors. This is a fairly easy read (barring the symbols) and gives a lot of insight into how Tolkien fits with the mythic tradition. In its first printing, it was definitely one of the earlier works of Tolkien scholarship, but should not be discounted from the canon for that reason alone. It is writers like Petty who have made Tolkien scholarship a respectable field.

One of the really interesting points this book makes is the importance placed on the return home. Petty thinks that it is one of the reasons that LotR has become so popular. It follows a tradition that is deeply embedded in the human psyche; it is the return that makes an arduous journey bearable and, more importantly, complete.

Another theme she brings out that is very worthwhile is one of evil defeating itself. Petty shows how time and time again in both The Hobbit and LotR the forces of darkness crush their own ends. It is the trolls’ bickering that keeps them outside long enough for the sun to turn them to stone, it is after Wormtongue throws the palantír at Gandalf that Sauron believes his foes are far off, and Saruman is killed by his own lapdog (Wormtongue). She definitely makes the point that evil defeats itself at every turn; it will never flourish in Middle-earth because it is always trying to commit suicide.

The most fascinating chapter in the book was the one on the binary opposites within LotR. Although the chapter is a short one, it has many insights into the structure and balance of Tolkien’s world. In this chapter, Petty talks about the importance of the analogy of story within Middle-earth; LotR is of course a story, but the fact that the characters are constantly referring to their plight as being in the middle of a never-ending story is significant. It is pointed out that “malevolent and benevolent forces clash in confrontation in the Third Age of Middle-earth; yet it is not for the first time… nor for the last” (79). The shadow has come before and it will come again. But above this, it is quite intriguing how Petty brings up the interdependence of the opposites in the book; for example, when the ring is destroyed, the elves are expelled from Middle-earth as surely as Sauron is. Along these same lines, many of the characters are paired with a foil; Gandalf and Saruman, Frodo and Gollum, Faramir and Boromir, Théoden and Denethor, etc. Even within Gollum is the opposition of “Slinker and Stinker.”