Top-Down Processing: A Network Analysis of The Lord of the Rings as a Means of Defining Good and Evil

This essay was written for Dr. Quamen’s ENGL 486 class on the Internet as Environment. Using networktheory, I seek to analyze the structural characteristics of power and authority in J.R.R. Tolkien’s TheLord of the Rings. I then compare my findings with H.C. Mack’s parametric analysis of the texts, andsuggest that both structural methodologies serve to reinforce the idea that concepts of sight andegotism play a key role in Tolkien’s binary portrayal of characters as being either good or evil. Theessay concludes with the suggestion that the configurations power and authority in LotR are deeply tiedto Tolkien’s portrayal of the nature of good and evil, and suggests further research into the questionof whether such power configurations may have since become mythic tropes in Western fantasy