This essay is from Austin Johnson
Published on November 21, 2002

Frodo and the Force:
A Comparison of Modern Epic Stories

• Introduction
• JRR Tolkien
• The Rings of Jung and Tolkien
• Frodo as the Suffering Savior
• Aragorn, The Triumphant King
• Boromir and Saint Peter
• The Star Wars Enigma
• Heroism and the Warrior-Mage
• Obi-Wan Kenobi, Post-Modern Guru
• Taoism and the Nature of the Force
• Luke Skywalker, The Human Yin-Yang
• In Conclusion

JRR Tolkien

JRR Tolkien, a British author, was relatively unknown until the 1937 publication of The Hobbit. He was an active Roman Catholic who taught Linguistics at a university. He was an avid fan of Norse Mythology, and dabbled lightly in the creation of his own language, which he called Quenya. One day, while brainstorming for a term paper that he had to write, he penned the immortal phrase "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit," and thus, the epic tales of Middle Earth were born. Tolkien's interests in Norse mythology and his invented language, Quenya, became a blueprint for his first story, the tale of Bilbo Baggins' discovery of the ring. The sequel to this book, The Lord of the Rings, continues this story with Frodo Baggins' quest to destroy the ring, and with it, the source of evil in Middle Earth.

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