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.

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.

“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.”

“I care more how humanity lives than how long,” he wrote. “Progress, for me, means increasing the goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible idea.”

Both authors regarded twentieth-century modernization as a threat to human societies because they viewed the natural world as the handiwork of God and thus integral to human happiness. As such, nature was an essential ally in the struggle against these dehumanizing forces.

The conceit of the intellectual elites of the day was that science, and the technology it underwrites, could solve the most intractable of human problems.

Both authors thus reflect the historic Christian tradition: human nature as a tragic mix of nobility and wretchedness.

The idea of personal moral guilt, however, was widely rejected in the postwar years. Psychology, philosophy, literature, even theology—all these disciplines were helping to erode individual responsibility. Vices and addictions were explained medically or scientifically, not in moral or religious terms. “Collective” or “biological” forces replaced old-fashioned notions of “sin.”

The denial of personal responsibility took a political turn as well. The outbursts of revolutionary violence rocking postwar Europe—the purges and assassinations in Lenin’s Russia, for example—were rationalized as a necessary phase toward a utopian vision. An official of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, explained thus: “We are not carrying out war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class.”59 As Paul Johnson writes, shortly after seizing power Lenin “abandoned the notion of individual guilt, and with it the whole Judeo-Christian ethic of personal responsibility.”60 Tolkien and Lewis explicitly rejected these views as an assault on human freedom.

Given the contemporary infatuation with “virtual” relationships, Tolkien and Lewis’s achievement not only remains but continues to grow in stature. Like few other writers over the past century, they show us what friendship can look like when it reaches for a high purpose and is watered by the streams of sacrifice, loyalty, and love.

We have come to neglect this aspect of war. We understand its atrocities, its injustices, its heartbreak, and its horrors well enough. We rightly seek to avoid it, at almost any cost. But Tolkien and Lewis were not satisfied with this version of war. They assumed that war would sometimes be necessary to preserve human freedom.

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.

For all the accusations of “medieval escapism,” Tolkien comes closer to capturing the tragedy of the human condition than any postmodern cynic. At the climax of his journey, at the fires of Mount Doom, despite all his courage and strength, Frodo fails in his quest: he chooses not to destroy the Ring, but instead succumbs to its power and places it once again on his finger. “But one must face the fact,” Tolkien wrote, “the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however ‘good.’

The heroic ideal in the works of Tolkien and Lewis, however, is qualified in a much more profound way. The hero cannot, by his own efforts, prevail in the struggle against evil. The forces arrayed against him, as well as the weakness within him, make victory impossible. The tragic nature of his quest begins to dawn on him, to oppress him, until the moment when failure seems inevitable.

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.”

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.

In the end, the creators of Narnia and Middle-earth offer a vision of human life that is at once terrifying and sublime. They insist that every soul is caught up in an epic story of sacrifice and courage and clashing armies: the Return of the King. It is the day when every heart will be laid bare. We will know, with inexpressible joy or unspeakable sorrow, whether we have chosen Light or Darkness. “For the day of the LORD is near,” wrote the prophet, “in the valley of decision.”36 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.