Abstract

This article examines the short story “Senator Bilbo” by fantasy writer Andy Duncan, in which the author provides a futuristic view of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, specifically the hobbits’ world of the Shire, in a setting which has become xenophobic and racist, excluding all those who are “other” than hobbits. The chief protagonist of the story, Senator Bilbo, is modelled on the American senator Theodore Bilbo, a mid-twentieth-century southern senator known for his segregationist views and writings on “miscegenation”. In the article I investigate how Duncan's character Senator Bilbo mirrors the real Senator Bilbo as he fails to adjust to the Shire's new attitudes to a multicultural Middle-earth— a view Tolkien supported—and how Tolkien's views on “race” were in fact non-racist and, in contrast to many ideologies of his time, advanced in terms of the acceptance of different cultures and ethnicities. In doing so I examine some of Tolkien's views on South Africa and how these ideas influenced his writing; I also explore the ways in which both segregation and apartheid were anathema to his worldview in the 1940s and 1950s, at the time of the writing of The Lord of the Rings. I argue that Duncan's story is meaningful in showing how Bilbo Baggins's descendant can successfully realise that the hobbits of the Shire cannot, for all time, live in an isolated Shire but must, eventually, engage with other peoples.

摘要

本文考察了奇幻作家安迪·邓肯（Andy Duncan）的短篇小说《比尔博参议员》（Senator Bilbo），作者在其中提供了 JRR 托尔金（JRR Tolkien）的中土世界的未来主义观点，特别是霍比特人在夏尔的世界，在一个已经变得仇外和种族主义的环境中，除了霍比特人之外的所有“其他”人除外。故事的主角比尔博参议员以美国参议员西奥多比尔博为蓝本，这位 20 世纪中叶的南方参议员以其种族隔离主义观点和关于“异族通婚”的著作而闻名。在文章中，我调查了邓肯饰演的参议员比尔博如何反映了真正的比尔博参议员，因为他未能适应夏尔对多元文化的中土世界的新态度——这是托尔金支持的观点——以及托尔金对“种族”的看法实际上是如何非种族主义者，与他那个时代的许多意识形态相反，在接受不同文化和种族方面取得了进步。在此过程中，我研究了托尔金对南非的一些看法，以及这些想法如何影响他的写作；我还探讨了在 1940 年代和 1950 年代，在撰写指环王。我认为，邓肯的故事在展示比尔博巴金斯的后代如何能够成功地意识到夏尔的霍比特人不能永远生活在一个孤立的夏尔，但最终必须与其他民族交往方面是有意义的。