10 Famous Books You've Been Reading Wrong This Whole Time

It's a common assumption LOTR is about World War 2, with its unambiguous villain, its coalition of loosely-assembled good guys, and the eagles rushing in to save the day at the last minute, probably singing The Star-Spangled Banner. Eagles! It's not exactly a subtle metaphor.

Except it's not a metaphor at all. The eagles aren't the Americans; the camp, conflict-averse elves aren't the French; and Tom Bombadil is just... whatever the hell Tom Bombadil was supposed to be.

If the races in the book represent anything at all, it's the various regions of the UK. The amicable, food-loving hobbits and their idyllic rural homesteads represent the wilds of rural Warwickshire, for instance.

In fact Tolkien was personally offended by claims Lord Of the Rings was based on the war. In the foreword to the second edition to The Fellowship Of The Ring, he wrote: “The real war does not represent the legendary war in its process or its conclusion... I cordially dislike allegory and all its manifestations.”

Tolkien did however state that a writer can never entirely escape their own experiences and the resulting inspiration – by all accounts he was influenced by his own experiences on the Front in World War 1 – but that he had no intent of imbuing the book with any hidden meaning or symbolism. It's just a book about hobbits and a ring.