The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as an Epic Sara Elizabeth Metzger 12th Grade

From within the Shire, an unlikely hero arises. Equipped with a golden ring forged from the fires of Mount Doom, assigned an adventerous quest to save Middle Earth, and accompanied by clumsy yet loyal gardener Samwise Gamgee, young hobbit Frodo Baggins assumes the role of ringbearer, journeying through various wordly realms in order to destroy an ancient evil force and restore peace to the land. Through the extraordinary and often unpredictable endeavors of Frodo and his companions, the Lord of the Rings films reveal numerous criteria essential to an epic, exemplifying the tendency for good to thrive in the face of evil. Crucial to their success as an epic, the iconic films depict a quest of grand importance. With origins explained in the opening scene of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the trilogy portrays a continuation of a past conflict, wherein “a master ring to control all others” was created by the dark lord Sauron, and re-emerged years later as the cause of Frodo Baggin’s journey.

This backstory is the first epic criterion to present itself in the films, mimicking the thorough description of past events that is common to the genre, and first presenting the malicious force to be confronted in the...