Gender Roles In The Lord Of The Rings

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“The Lord of the Rings” is a perfect example of a myth about gender-roles. Gender-roles are very much entangled in this trilogy because power and who it is associated with is important. Often times in the movie we hear “take the women and children to safety” followed by men leaving fully geared for battle. This depicts women as people who cannot defend themselves. While at the same time we see a woman break this notion and chose to go to war with the men to die for what she holds dear. Another case of gender-roles is through the hobbits who are depicted as powerless children yet are able to achieve tremendous feats. Through these cases we can see that the cultural truth-value from “The Lord of the Rings” is that of “gender should not dictate what one can or cannot do”.
The hobbits, while not a gender but a different race, are often …show more content…

They are shown as people who prefer their safe and comfortable Shire. We get to see that their size is no larger than a child and that their capabilities are no more than a woman in the movies, as they were relegated to wielding daggers because swords were too large. Yet Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippen venture away from their comfort in order to save Middle Earth. These four hobbits bear the task of taking the ring to Mt. Doom for its destruction. These four hobbits rise above what others may think of them to accomplish tasks that many would deem them incapable of doing. We see this concept again through Eowyn, the niece of King of Rohan, Theoden. During battle women were expected to take the children and run to safety while men would fight. Eowyn thought differently. She believed that if

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