A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

by Joseph Loconte

Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.

Tolkien and Lewis were attracted to the genres of myth and romance not because they sought to escape the world, but because for them the real world had a mythic and heroic quality.

Their depictions of the struggles of Middle-earth and Narnia do not represent a flight from reality, but rather a return to a more realistic view of the world as we actually find it.

“If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.”

Tolkien and Lewis offer an understanding of the human story that is both tragic and hopeful: they suggest that war is a symptom of the ruin and wreckage of human life, but that it points the way to a life restored and transformed by grace.

Neither Tolkien nor Lewis fell prey to the extreme reactions to the war so typical of their era. “We know from the experience of the last twenty years,” wrote Lewis in 1944, “that a terrified and angry pacifism is one of the roads that lead to war.”28 Tolkien decried “the utter stupid waste of war,” yet admitted “it will be necessary to face it in an evil world.”29 Their recourse was to draw us back to the heroic tradition: a mode of thought tempered by the realities of combat and fortified by belief in a God of justice and mercy.

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all,” he explains. “But I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”31

“I will not walk with your progressive apes / erect and sapient. Before them gapes / the dark abyss to which their progress tends.”

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” Aslan tells Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.”

“The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is—not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.”11

- George Macdonald

She reminded Lewis of a beloved portion of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1. “If you will play that record over, trying to turn that music into a person, you will know just how she looked and talked.

Without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, Science herself may destroy all that makes life majestic and tolerable,”

In the worlds of Tolkien and Lewis, the choices of the weak matter as much as those of the mighty. Here we are not left as orphans, for a force of Goodness stands ready to help.

The great achievement of Tolkien and Lewis is the creation of mythic and heroic figures who nevertheless make a claim upon our concrete and ordinary lives. Through them we are challenged to examine our deepest desires, to shake off our doubts, and to join in the struggle against evil.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” he says. “So do I,” says Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The choice they face is also a summons; not a blind accident, but a Calling on their lives. One may answer the Call—or refuse it, turn away, and walk into Darkness. But indifference to the Call to struggle against evil is not an option; one must take sides.

We are led to believe that the choices of these characters—their decisions to put away fear and ego and choose goodness—are freely made and yet made with the help of a source of strength outside them. Tolkien was reluctant to name this power, though elsewhere he explained that “the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”36 Thus, in The Lord of Rings we’re told that Bilbo “was meant to find the Ring,” that Frodo was “appointed” and “chosen” to carry it to Mordor, that even as the Fellowship decides its next move “the tides of fate are flowing.” Destiny and free will are commingled throughout: “But you have been chosen,” says Gandalf, “and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.”37

In Frodo we are meant to see ourselves: our weaknesses, our rationalizations, and our lack of resolve in combatting evil. But we also get a glimpse into a life of courage and perseverance in the ongoing struggle: you resisted to the last.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

“Sin is crouching at your door,” God warned Cain before he murdered his brother. “It desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Critics sometimes accuse the authors of creating black-and-white characters to personify their religious beliefs. But the careful reader sees something else entirely: individuals often at war with their own desires.

“This is the greatest shame and sorrow that could have fallen on us,” says the Prince in The Silver Chair. “We have sent a brave lady into the hands of enemies and stayed behind in safety.”

“The soil of the Shire is deep,” explains Merry in The Return of the King. “Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace, but for them.”

The most influential Christian authors of the twentieth century believed that every human soul was caught up in a very great story: a fearsome war against a Shadow of Evil that has invaded the world to enslave the sons and daughters of Adam. Yet those who resist the Shadow are assured that they will not be left alone; they will be given the gift of friendship amid their struggle and grief. Even more, they will find the grace and strength to persevere, to play their part in the story, however long it endures and wherever it may lead them.

Poet Thomas Hardy, writing upon the signing of the Armistice, undoubtedly spoke for many: Some could, some could not, shake off misery; The Sinister Spirit sneered: “It had to be!” And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”

The present world, always in the grip of Darkness, can never evolve into an earthly paradise. Rather, it will draw to a sudden and violent close:

It is the reversal of a catastrophe, what Tolkien calls the eucatastrophe, a decisive act of Grace that promises to overcome our guilt, restore what has been lost, and set things right.11

Here again comes the “joyous turn.” The great Lion has invaded the Stable, cast out the demon Tash, and turned the Stable into a portal to Aslan’s Country. The children watch as Narnia is destroyed and a new world, nearly more beautiful than their hearts can bear, is called into being. “All the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door.”17 Lucy captures the simple yet powerful symbolism of the Stable: in the Christian story, it is the birthplace of the Messiah, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, of Jesus the Christ. “In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”18

the Myth that became Fact.

Only after all the fighting is done, when the bravest have fallen in battle, when the war against evil has been fought to its bitter end—only after all this—does the Myth as Fact complete the human story. Only then can joy, “joy beyond the walls of the world,” become our permanent possession.20 There is no shortcut to the Land of Peace, no primrose path to the Mansions of the Blessed. First come tears and suffering in Mordor, heartless violence at Stable Hill—and horror and death at Golgotha.

The mingling of grief and joy, so descriptive of our mortal lives, is a recurring theme in the Bible. It is the experience of the Jews in the days of Ezra the prophet: the knowledge of the presence of God after many years of spiritual famine. Returning from bitter years of war and captivity, they begin to rebuild the temple of the Lord—their house of worship that had been destroyed by Israel’s enemies, initiating a long descent into slavery and exile. “And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid,” wrote the prophet. “But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.33

“Nowhere else outside the New Testament,” he wrote, “have I found terror and comfort so intertwined.”

Hence comes a warning, as well as a blessing: to deny the King, to turn away in grief or rage, means endless ruin. But to behold him—to be counted among his Beloved—is to pass into life everlasting.

This King, who brings strength and healing in his hands, will make everything sad come untrue.