Tolkien Gateway

The One Ring

The One Ring
Other namesThe Ruling Ring, the Great Ring
AppearancePlain gold ring with Black Speech inscriptions made visible by heat













Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
One ring.png




The One Ring by Roger Thomasson.



Inspiration and Symbolism


Although Tolkien always strongly held that his works should not be seen as a metaphor for anything, and especially not for the political events of his time (for instance WWII or the Cold War; note that much of The Lord of the Rings was written prior to and during World War II and well before the Cold War), many people have felt an urge to see the One Ring as a symbol or metaphor for various things. Among them are atomic energy and the atomic bomb, which would both be anachronistic, as the Ring was invented in the late 1930s, and the atom bomb did not become public knowledge until 1945. Other possible interpretations are that the ring represents the urge for power, which in Tolkien's view is always corrupting.

A recent interpretation by Danish author Peter Kjaerulff is that the Ring symbolises The Cursed Ring, a device described by both Plato in his Republic (the Ring of Gyges), and in Richard Wagner's Ring operas, besides Tolkien. Although Tolkien denied any connection, it is certainly possible that the One Ring was inspired by the central artifact of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), without being meant to "symbolise" it.

The quest to destroy the One Ring is unusual in both folklore and literary epics. Quests to regain a treasure are common in folklore and literature. Tolkien described such a quest in The Hobbit to recover the treasure stolen from the Dwarves by the dragon Smaug. Quests to destroy a treasure are seldom the theme of folklore or literature.

A different way to look at this question is to ask what gives the idea of the Ring its power as a story element, without considering whether it was intended as a symbol for any one thing. The notion of a power too great for humans to wield safely is an evocative one, and already in the 1930s there were plenty of technologies available to make people think of that idea. The lure and effect of the Ring and its physical and spiritual after-effects on Bilbo and Frodo are obsessions that can be compared with drug addiction, for which the Ring serves as a powerful metaphor.

Portrayal in Adaptations

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, the wearer of the Ring is always portrayed as moving in a shadowy realm where everything is unclear and distorted. Neither Bilbo Baggins nor Frodo Baggins ever mentioned anything about this while using the Ring, but when Sam puts on the Ring at the end of The Two Towers he does experience something similar to this. This is the only time that this is mentioned in the books and could be attributed to Sauron's power increasing, and because Sam is within the borders of Mordor at the time he uses the Ring. Sam never wore the Ring in Jackson's movie.

See also

 Rings of Power 
The One Ring
Three Rings
(Narya · Nenya · Vilya)
Seven Rings
(Ring of Thrór)
Nine Rings