Pilgrim's Progress NOT

Tolkien was highly insistent that his writings about Middle Earth were not to be seen as allegory. In light of this, certain things need to be taken into account. First that the Christian representations are not always obvious but are a subconscious part of the story derived from Tolkien's own Catholic Christian life. Tolkien himself verifies this point. Second, Frodo's "odyssey" is not a personal event for the thrill of the quest or a desire for adventure. It is a selfless undertaking to destroy the ring on behalf of the free peoples of Middle Earth. Because it is an odyssy, The Lord of the Rings is filled with segues, correlations, symbols, stories, and characters that can fortify the Christian and Catholic Faith (this is a paraphrased from something I read, but I do not have the reference). This is why the story takes over one thousand pages to tell. If it were any less it would be incomplete. We are therefore lead into a deeply spiritual message in which each character, even Gandalf, deals with a personal struggle. Frodo, of course, has the most profound struggles and it is no wonder that by the end we see that there are some wounds for which he can find no healing.