He joined the British Army's Lancashire Fusiliers and saw the horror of trench warfare, with life as an officer made more bearable by the support of a male batman or servant. He was brought up by his guardian, a Catholic priest, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, and educated at male-only grammar schools and then Exeter College, Oxford, which at that time had only male students. Tolkien, was orphaned as a boy, his father dying in South Africa and his mother in England a few years later. The author of the bestselling fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, J. They were happily married for over 50 years. Tolkien Tolkien fell in love with Edith Bratt when he was 16. Scholars and commentators have interpreted the relationship in different ways, from close but not necessarily homosexual to plainly homoerotic, or as an idealised heroic friendship.Ĭontext Tolkien's background įurther information: J. Interest has been concentrated, too, on the officer- batman-inspired same-sex relationship of Frodo and his gardener Sam as they travel together on the dangerous quest to destroy the Ring. Multiple scholars have noted the symbolism of the monstrous female spider Shelob. However, love and marriage appear in the form of the warm relationship between the hobbits Sam Gamgee and Rosie Cotton the unreturned feelings of Éowyn for Aragorn, followed by her falling in love with Faramir, and marrying him and Aragorn's love for Arwen, described in an appendix rather than in the main text, as ' The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen'. Tolkien, has been debated, as it is somewhat unobtrusive.

The presence of sexuality in The Lord of the Rings, a bestselling fantasy novel by J.

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