“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them”(Tolkien 156) 。 This is an incantation on the ring which made by Sauron。 It is said to bring the ring can have the supreme power and the eternal life, but at the cost, you have to surrender your soul。 The evil curse of the ring, will cause a fundamental temptation from the deepest place of holder’s desire。 Because of our weakness, it leads us closer and closer to surrender。 Finally, the ring will swallow our minds, and degrade our souls。 The author Tolkien is a devout Catholic, he admits himself that “ The Lord of the Ring is essentially religious, or exactly speaking, a Catholic story” (Tolkien 187) 。 Under the influence of the Bible, he built a world of humanity, pinity and demon, and established a kingdom with dwarfs, wizards, elves, human and monsters。 This novel is about a risky experience when the Fellowship destroyed the ring。

Canadian famous scholar Northrop Frye has pointed out that there is a U-shaped narrative pattern in the Bible (388)。 Narrative subject is usually in a peaceful and blissful state at the beginning stage, and with the development of narrative, this kind of state is destroyed, and then disaster strikes。 At last, the narrative subject is saved by fighting or with the help of others, and then recovers the state of inner peace。 By analyzing the narrative pattern of The Lord of the Ring, we can find there are numerous similarities between the Bible and The Lord of the Ring。 Just because the ring is rediscovered, it starts the adventure which the Fellowship of the Ring experienced hardly to destroy the ring and finally saved the world。 It also follows the U-shaped narrative pattern。 We can also find the biblical elements in the plot development and the archetypes of main characters, such as the day ring-bearer team starting their adventure is on the same day as Jesus’ birth and the day the ring has been destroyed is on the same day of Jesus’ resurrection。

This paper, tries to start with the religious implications hidden in The Lord of Rings, analyzing the biblical elements in this fantasy novel。 And it tries to explore the deeper meaning and the reason for the best-selling novel。

Ⅱ。Religious Implication of Narrative Perspective

Great variety of minds collision and the entanglement between good and evil in The Lord of the Ring are all reflected in religious meanings。 The spiritual foundation of the novel is actually a kind of religious culture。 We can put the narrative perspective in the novel into three parts: the Original Sin, the Redemption and the Resurrection。

2。1 Narrative Perspective of Original Sin 

    The Original Sin, it is doubtless the most important image as the main clue throughout the novel, The Lord of the Ring。 The Ring escorted by Frodo, is just like the cross on Jesus’s shoulder, it represents the Original Sin of humans。 Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s will and ate the forbidden apple which is the first sin ( the Original Sin) in human’s history。 Because of the Original Sin, the other sin, comes one after another。 The sin transmits all of Adam’s line, and became the source of human’s sin and disaster。 In this novel, the Ring represents the Original Sin of humans and also represents human’s unbridled desires。 It is the root of evil and it is the culprit to break peace。 How to deal with the Ring, has changed into how to deal with the unbridled desires of oneself, how to eliminate the Original Sin from humans’ shoulder。 Tolkien has chosen a path that people can not imagine for Frodo: to destroy the Ring by suffering both physically and mentally。 It fully reflects the Christian doctrine that the destroy of sin is to abstain the desire。 Thus the Middle-Earth can be redeemed and the world can back to peace。文献综述

2。2 Narrative Perspective of Redemption