Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

At the center of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings lies an epic power struggle between good and evil, the latter embodied by the "One Ring," "Ash Nazg" in the speech of Mordor. Although Tolkien scholarship has heretofore treated the Ring as a non-sentient object, "Ash Nazg" has a surprisingly dramatic life story as well as a dynamic relationship with other characters in the epic. His character development is here chronicled from conception to death, and his relationships thoroughly examined. As a machiavel of royal birth, abducted after the defeat of his father by the Numenoreans, Ash Nazg has made it his quest to return to the land of his birth at the bidding of his father, ascend the throne of darkness, and claim domination over Middle-earth. By thus characterizing Ash Nazg, this essay not only provides a unique perspective upon the theme of the epic, it again demonstrates the indispensability of character as a literary concept, and thus issues a challenge to the fashionable dogmas of postmodernist thought.

Extent

57 p.

Comments

FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Adviser: Robert A. Collins.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2003.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Identifier

FADT13019

Format

pdf

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