Late in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee finds himself in darkness and likely near death. Enemies have captured his dearest friend, and Sam lies alone, shivering and impossibly far from home. He tries to make sense of the situation, but “even of the days he had quite lost count. He was in a land of darkness where the days of the world seemed forgotten, and where all who entered were forgotten too. ‘I wonder if they think of us at all,’ he said” (The Lord of the Rings, HarperCollins, 2021, p. 987).
Forgetfulness is a key tool of evil in The Lord of the Rings. Cowardice, despair, and exhaustion tempt characters throughout the book, but forgetfulness—of home and friends, of beauty, of causes worth fighting for—is the fog in which treachery grows most threatening. Memory, in turn, has a distinct power in The Lord of the Rings. It rouses characters to hope in the face of staggering odds, hardening them against fear and doubt. Beyond this strengthening effect, Orthodox Christian writers also recognize memory’s role in enriching and beautifying a man’s life, even uniting him with God. Memory in The Lord of the Rings bears striking similarities to this idea as well. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov sets out both conceptions of memory—as a source of strength and as a redeeming force—and illuminates the centrality of memory to The Lord of the Rings.
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