The Choices Of Frodo Baggins

According to literary ethical criticism, all literary works are fundamentally ethical.The ethical value is the basis for the evaluation of literary value. Literary ethicalcriticism examines the characters and events taking place in a fictional society inorder to make its moral evaluation. All literature are fictional. None could be a totalreality. Compared to realism, the fantasy genre is only more imaginative, yet being animage of the reality, value and ideas that humankind shares. As a matter of fact,fantasy has been one of the most influential and most popular genres throughoutliterature history. Therefore, it is necessary for us to clarify the ethical facts and valuescontained in fantasy works, especially the most successful and most famous ones, forinstance, The Lord of the Rings written by J.R.R.Tolkien.Normally the researchers of The Lord of the Rings are easily preoccupied with thevastness and greatness of the work, which make them focused on the overall structurefrom perspectives like myth and religion. There are less people who makemicro-analysis on the work. Some dealing with the moral senses of the work arealways inclining to match their thoughts to religion, instead of sheer and realisticanalysis of ethic problems. The Lord of the Rings has entered mainland China for overten years and the number of research papers is gradually growing, yet few areconcerned with the protagonist and the close-related ethical value, and fewer arewell-written. This thesis is an attempt to do a comprehensive and objective analysis ofthe ethical choices of Frodo Baggins, the hero of the epic, from the perspective ofethical literary criticism. Frodo Baggins, a small and humble hobbit caught in thecenter of a upcoming catastrophe, stood forth to take the responsibility originallybelonging to but shunned by other mighty people. He ventured his life and soul to goon such an important and perilous quest for the sake of others, sacrificing himself forthe greater good. After having successfully destroyed the Ring, he survived, withoutbeing proud of his deeds and success, without any hope of regaining what he had lost.Frodo Baggins finally chose to leave his homeland that he loved and saved, in order tofind healing and final rest in the west of the sea. The thesis has demonstrated the honorable moral traits of the hobbit through theanalysis of his choices, and emphasizes on the ethical value of The Lord of the Rings,which is in fact the final destination of the author’s writing and also the reason for itsongoing popularity.