Bombadil and Treebeard in Middle-Earth Middle-Earth Is

Bombadil and Treebeard in Middle-Earth Middle-earth is the mysterious made-up setting in which the characters of J.R.R. Tolkien's story, The Lord of the Rings, conduct their lives. As is evident in the name, Middle-earth is a continent located in the central (the middle) of the fictional world; it is not the entire universe or world, yet the characters that inhabit Middle-earth engage in global scale battles and wars with immense and long-lasting stakes.

Treebeard and Bombadil are two of the inhabitants of Middle-earth are outwardly as different as could be imagined; yet they share a capacity to deal with adversity and to survive in an arbitrary and hostile world. The character of Tom Bombadil is an engaging fellow -- he is spry for his age, has a teasing wit, and speaks in a whimsical, jolly, and rhyming manner (McCloskey, 2002).

Bombadil tends to narrate his life, speaking in the third person as though he was on the outside of his body watching himself engage in his life (McCloskey, 2002). Treebeard is as down-to-earth as his name would indicate. He is of-the-earth, while Bombadil is ethereal and disengaged from the earth. As this author will show, those are the primary distinctions between the two creatures and they drive most of the lesser distinctions, such as their way of talking, their mode of moving, and their basic philosophies on life in Middle-earth.

Bombadil presents a bit of a conundrum because he is does not concern himself with the One Ring despite his knowledge about how it is positioned and the possible consequences that could be associated with it (McCloskey, 2002). Rather than just being a conceit, Bombadil's behavior seems to act like a buffer between him and reality (McCloskey, 2002). That is, according to the Council of Elrond at Rivendell, Bombadil is unlikely to be safe from Sauron if rejuvenation takes place (McCloskey, 2002).

Oddly, Bombadil holds some control over even Old Man Willow, the creature that holds some power over the trees in Bombadil's country (McCloskey, 2002). Tolkien is not clear about Bombadil's origins in Middle-earth. But the reader does know that Bombadil considers himself to be the master -- the eldest (McCloskey, 2002). As evidence of his age, Bombadil claims to remember the first raindrop and the first acorn.

He is so old, Bombadil asserts, that he knew the dark under the stars before it was cowed by the Dark Lord from the Outside (McCloskey, 2002). From this brief description, it should be clear that Bombadil does not fit into any of the neat categories of creatures and beings that were spawned by Tolkien (McCloskey, 2002). Treebeard is concerned with the physical and tangible -- trees are the essence of life from Treebeard's perspective.

Bombadil is disengaged with the physical, to the point that he eschews power and control, forces that are typically directed at possessions and status. Speculation about Bombadil's true nature range from angelic to holy. But during the Council of Elrond, Galdor wonders if Bombadil might be able to withstand Suron's powers because Bombadil himself my be made strong by the earth itself -- that is, Bombadil may be a physical manifestation of the properties that inherently belong to Middle-earth (McCloskey, 2002).

So Gandalf's worry that Bombadil would loose the ring if he were given it for safekeeping is based as much on Bombadil's lack of concern about the worries and jeopardy of being mortal -- something he cannot share -- as it is his flightiness (McCloskey, 2002). Tolkien asserts that if an explanation already exists for a perplexing creature like Bombadil, then that is justification enough for letting the mystery ride (McCloskey, 2002). Several other characters in Tolkien's works are established as mysterious and explanations from the author are never forthcoming (McCloskey, 2002).

About the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien did offer that he wrote the story clearly in terms of good and bad sides, of beautiful against ugliness, of kindness against ruthlessness (McCloskey, 2002). But the key point that Tolkien makes -- and that best explains Bombadil's puzzling behavior -- is the effect brought about by renouncing control and any desire of tangible things (McCloskey, 2002). In separating from the world such that he exists only as a watcher, Bombadil is free from the right and wrong duality (McCloskey, 2002).

Indeed, the means of exerting power and control loose meaning and value to Bombadil (McCloskey, 2002). Treebeard is a Middle-earth character who is the eldest member of the Ents species. Treebeard is regarded to live in the ancient Forest of Fangorn, and like the other inhabitants of forests he looks like a tree, having a rigid bodily structure and leafy hair. Treebeard ant the other Ents once roamed other forests of the Middle-earth, including the Misty Mountains, Mirkwood, Mordor, and the Blue Mountains.

But when the Etnwives were driven out at the end of the Third Age, the Ents isolated themselves in the Forest of Fangorn. Treebeard was encouraged by Pippin and Merry to stop the Saruman from cutting down his trees, and so Treebeard led a war against Saruman and his Orcs to stop the carnage. If Bombadil can be characterized as quick and frivolous, Treebeard makes no haste.

He has been characterized as something waking up from an ages long sleep after which he engages in slow, steady thinking considering the world suddenly revealed around him with the "same slow care it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years" (Tolkien, 1954). Conclusion Both Treebeard and Bombadil found ways to interact with the physical world around them. Bombadil is disengaged with the tangible world in the same way that a Buddhist monk might be; he does not engage in the.