Tolkien famously detested allegory—that is, a one-to-one correspondence of symbols (i.e., Aslan from Narnia = Jesus; pig society in Animal Farm = communism). Tolkien, in contrast, practiced typology, a form of representation that allows for multiple symbolic associations and ambiguity of meaning.
The world Tolkien created in his Lord of the Rings series has appealed to readers of the Catholic faith, which Tolkien practiced, but also readers coming from other faith traditions and even readers who practice no faith at all. The extraordinarily detailed world of Middle-Earth invites a multitude of possible readings—or, in Ricoeur’s way of putting it, worlds before the text.
If, indeed, Tolkien’s novel does allow for multiple interpretations, what keeps the meaning of the work from floating away into a sort of relativism where “anything goes”?
The relationship between naming and being is an important theme in the novel. Where goodness, or the fulfillment of being, is associated with lots of names, evil, which is understood as an incomplete form of being, is associated with namelessness. What does this association tell us about Tolkien’s take on the relationship between language and reality?