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The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth
Shows that the Lord of the Rings can be read in Jungian terms as the central human struggle for individuation, the healthy realization of the self.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1979
4 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Timothy R. O'Neill
6 books6 followersTim O'Neill served in the United States Army for twenty-six years, from Viet Nam through Desert Storm, and was a member of the permanent faculty at West point for fifteen years. He is a recognized expert in applied camouflage, and holds multiple patents in the field. He has been a business executive, a defense consultant, and trained foreign special operations soldiers in the Arab Emirates.
He is the author of "The Individuated Hobbit", "Shades of Gray", and "Mandala."
He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
He is the author of "The Individuated Hobbit", "Shades of Gray", and "Mandala."
He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 12, 2020
I think the book is a hidden gem. I don’t think there are recent editions, though the early edition sells for over $100. The quiet, growing field of studies of Tolkien certainly holds its surprises: a treasure trove, a dragon hoard, among which this one was for me quite a find.
Timothy O’Neill published this work not long after The Silmarillion was published. He had, therefore, enough raw material to go on and had, moreover, quite an original idea. The idea was to present a sketch of psychological approaches first, select the Jungean next, and use this to explain the power of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. To explain, in fact, all of Tolkien’s published work. He succeeded.
That may seem off-putting to some, especially if there is no interest in Jung to begin with. If there is, at the very least what you get, if you are a devoted reader of Tolkien, is a way to understand the Jungean view. You get an explanation keyed to the figures and circumstances that you have already mastered. It is a quick way to explain something complicated since you already have a complex frame of reference which serves for an analogy. So at least this book does that.
But it also explains various harmonies and contrasts in the work, making it more intelligible. You don’t have to accept the Jungean view to do so either. I have read somewhat in the scholarly literature that attends The Lord of the Rings, and I have never yet encountered a better explanation for Beorn and Tom Bombadil. It really is extraordinary, and they are not the only LotR characters illumined by this book, not even the most illumined. His expression clear and witty, but that is probably owing to the fact that O’Neill’s grasp of the cosmos of Middle Earth, the point of each of the enormous list of characters is firm and clear. His is not a muddled mind. The book at least offers an interesting meditation on a beloved subject for those who desire that, like a good conversation with another person who cherishes anything Tolkien.
His last chapter is an apology for the whole enterprise of subjecting something so wonderful to a Jungean analysis. O’Neill is fascinated with the mythical dimensions that Tolkien’s work achieves, and the analysis explains something. It explains exactly what Tolkien wanted to do. Tolkien was a student of mythical literature, specially that of the northern world, the myth mediated to men by bards singing in mead halls or on firelit beaches under the stars, strumming their harps and singing in chants that rose to wails. Tolkien wanted to give what those things gave to ancient northern men to the generations that sit in arm chairs in houses with glazed windows and indoor plumbing. He wanted to reproduce the transmission of mythic lore, the mythic mind through the modern device of the novel. O’Neill describes Tolkien’s achievement as “the subcreator’s stream of consciousness flowing eagerly through the watercourses of primordial affect, and these images emerging into enchanting reality for him and for millions of readers.” He does this precisely, convincingly, exactly.
As for the Jungean aspect, the Jungean view is a feature of modernity, and as such it leaves behind something. What for Tolkien was much more than anthropology, but anthropology within an analogical cosmology, is stripped of that outer transcendence. There is a Kantian refusing of Metaphysics, or a substitution of psychology for metaphysics. The Jungean studies the microcosm as the only thing that can be understood. It is not entirely misguided to consider Man a microcosm, but I am pretty sure Tolkien would affirm the macrocosm which clarifies and substantiates what the microcosm gestures at. I do not understand Jungeans to affirm anything but an agnosticism regarding a macrocosm of metaphysics. The concern is microcosmic, but this still contains much.
The dualism of the Jungean does get annoying. Jung was famously curious about Gnosticism. I think his dualism is more of a Manichean approach, Manicheanism 2.0, a considerably improved approach. I call it an improvement because there is a predilection for the good that denies the absolute dualism which was the dominant feature of the Manichean system. The Manichees achieved an absolute dualism by refusing to take anything but this feature of absolute dualism absolutely seriously. This is why St. Augustine became disillusioned and was delivered by the Platonists. If you are going to think, you need an ultimate point of reference. If you are going to evaluate, you need to identify an ultimate positive standard. Manichees made that ultimate standard the fact of dualism, the ultimacy of positive and negative both, which denied them the power of really evaluating and so of having a viable intellectual system. The Jungean approach does not make that mistake. While it pulls heavily toward balance and harmony and complements and contrasts, it is relentlessly driven by evaluation. Its aim is evaluation, and so it must opt for light over darkness, coherence over confusion, and I think even male over female, oddly enough. And yet, throughout, the dualism persists. So much are the Jungean’s dualists that O’Neill expresses unease with the concept of the Trinity and then breathes a sigh of relief when the Blessed Virgin Mary is deified to form a more Jungean quaternity! It is too much for this old Platonist, never mind that I’m a Christian Platonist.
But the book seldom fails for all that. I only really found one failed conclusion in the whole interesting and engrossing book, when O’Neill summarizes the four ages of man in the whole cycle of Arda. One of the things that is lost in the Jungean approach to those four ages, which O’Neill interprets in terms of the development of the integrated self, is the gentle and pervasive regret, the never-ending sense of loss which is like nitrogen in the atmosphere of the air breathed inside of Tolkien’s mind. It is rather lost on O’Neill, as his asides about Elrond eloquently demonstrate. The fourth age is not the achievement of something lasting, but is for Tolkien a temporary respite from the long retreat. But then, that conclusion makes sense if taken for what it is: this is Tolkien appreciated by Modernity, and Modernity is obviously not adequate for Tolkien altogether.
I hope I haven’t given you the impression that O’Neill’s is an uninteresting book. It is a tribute to the power and ability of Tolkien. It draws you in, it is interested in the right object, and it stimulates reflection.
Timothy O’Neill published this work not long after The Silmarillion was published. He had, therefore, enough raw material to go on and had, moreover, quite an original idea. The idea was to present a sketch of psychological approaches first, select the Jungean next, and use this to explain the power of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. To explain, in fact, all of Tolkien’s published work. He succeeded.
That may seem off-putting to some, especially if there is no interest in Jung to begin with. If there is, at the very least what you get, if you are a devoted reader of Tolkien, is a way to understand the Jungean view. You get an explanation keyed to the figures and circumstances that you have already mastered. It is a quick way to explain something complicated since you already have a complex frame of reference which serves for an analogy. So at least this book does that.
But it also explains various harmonies and contrasts in the work, making it more intelligible. You don’t have to accept the Jungean view to do so either. I have read somewhat in the scholarly literature that attends The Lord of the Rings, and I have never yet encountered a better explanation for Beorn and Tom Bombadil. It really is extraordinary, and they are not the only LotR characters illumined by this book, not even the most illumined. His expression clear and witty, but that is probably owing to the fact that O’Neill’s grasp of the cosmos of Middle Earth, the point of each of the enormous list of characters is firm and clear. His is not a muddled mind. The book at least offers an interesting meditation on a beloved subject for those who desire that, like a good conversation with another person who cherishes anything Tolkien.
His last chapter is an apology for the whole enterprise of subjecting something so wonderful to a Jungean analysis. O’Neill is fascinated with the mythical dimensions that Tolkien’s work achieves, and the analysis explains something. It explains exactly what Tolkien wanted to do. Tolkien was a student of mythical literature, specially that of the northern world, the myth mediated to men by bards singing in mead halls or on firelit beaches under the stars, strumming their harps and singing in chants that rose to wails. Tolkien wanted to give what those things gave to ancient northern men to the generations that sit in arm chairs in houses with glazed windows and indoor plumbing. He wanted to reproduce the transmission of mythic lore, the mythic mind through the modern device of the novel. O’Neill describes Tolkien’s achievement as “the subcreator’s stream of consciousness flowing eagerly through the watercourses of primordial affect, and these images emerging into enchanting reality for him and for millions of readers.” He does this precisely, convincingly, exactly.
As for the Jungean aspect, the Jungean view is a feature of modernity, and as such it leaves behind something. What for Tolkien was much more than anthropology, but anthropology within an analogical cosmology, is stripped of that outer transcendence. There is a Kantian refusing of Metaphysics, or a substitution of psychology for metaphysics. The Jungean studies the microcosm as the only thing that can be understood. It is not entirely misguided to consider Man a microcosm, but I am pretty sure Tolkien would affirm the macrocosm which clarifies and substantiates what the microcosm gestures at. I do not understand Jungeans to affirm anything but an agnosticism regarding a macrocosm of metaphysics. The concern is microcosmic, but this still contains much.
The dualism of the Jungean does get annoying. Jung was famously curious about Gnosticism. I think his dualism is more of a Manichean approach, Manicheanism 2.0, a considerably improved approach. I call it an improvement because there is a predilection for the good that denies the absolute dualism which was the dominant feature of the Manichean system. The Manichees achieved an absolute dualism by refusing to take anything but this feature of absolute dualism absolutely seriously. This is why St. Augustine became disillusioned and was delivered by the Platonists. If you are going to think, you need an ultimate point of reference. If you are going to evaluate, you need to identify an ultimate positive standard. Manichees made that ultimate standard the fact of dualism, the ultimacy of positive and negative both, which denied them the power of really evaluating and so of having a viable intellectual system. The Jungean approach does not make that mistake. While it pulls heavily toward balance and harmony and complements and contrasts, it is relentlessly driven by evaluation. Its aim is evaluation, and so it must opt for light over darkness, coherence over confusion, and I think even male over female, oddly enough. And yet, throughout, the dualism persists. So much are the Jungean’s dualists that O’Neill expresses unease with the concept of the Trinity and then breathes a sigh of relief when the Blessed Virgin Mary is deified to form a more Jungean quaternity! It is too much for this old Platonist, never mind that I’m a Christian Platonist.
But the book seldom fails for all that. I only really found one failed conclusion in the whole interesting and engrossing book, when O’Neill summarizes the four ages of man in the whole cycle of Arda. One of the things that is lost in the Jungean approach to those four ages, which O’Neill interprets in terms of the development of the integrated self, is the gentle and pervasive regret, the never-ending sense of loss which is like nitrogen in the atmosphere of the air breathed inside of Tolkien’s mind. It is rather lost on O’Neill, as his asides about Elrond eloquently demonstrate. The fourth age is not the achievement of something lasting, but is for Tolkien a temporary respite from the long retreat. But then, that conclusion makes sense if taken for what it is: this is Tolkien appreciated by Modernity, and Modernity is obviously not adequate for Tolkien altogether.
I hope I haven’t given you the impression that O’Neill’s is an uninteresting book. It is a tribute to the power and ability of Tolkien. It draws you in, it is interested in the right object, and it stimulates reflection.
May 11, 2009
A pretty good book, I almost understood it. Actually, O'neill did raise some interesting points of comparison between Jung and Tolkien's takes on archetypes in story telling.
September 21, 2018
There were some valuable insights, but I found it to be a rather forced interpretation. He was reading Jung into the novels in a way that I can’t believe Tolkien intended.
November 18, 2019
a very special book for various reasons.
January 28, 2020
O'Neill manages to misunderstand both Jung and Tolkien, to different degrees. The highlight of this butchering is his truly cringeworthy attempt to claim Tolkien was directly influenced by C. G. Jung; this seems to suggest that no two people in the 20th centuries could be influenced by the same myths and create works which appear superficially similar. His inability to notice the real structural differences is hampered by the fact that he does not seem to understand the individuation process. Perhaps this could be forgiven by the fact that at the time of writing Jung's Red Book was still secret knowledge. Even so, he seems oddly more familiar with interpreters such as Emma Jung and Marie-Louis von Franz than Jung himself.
As far as understanding Tolkien is concerned, he identifies Saruman with Wotan while neglecting the fact that the author repeatedly called Gandalf "an Odinic wanderer." He in general appears to privilege Varda over Manwe (again, odd), and takes an approach to Tolkien's work which one suspects that Tolkien himself would have been sorely opposed to.
The ultimate problem with this Jungian Analysis is that O'Neill did not understand enough of what Jung was talking about first -- as evidence of this, he calls Jung's experience of God "subjective." Even if he had, Tolkien would have fiercely resisted an "analysis" of his work, because it contains no themes other than itself. The conclusions that O'Neill does come to are ridiculous; the Ring represents "Self-realization" rather than Evil, because it must represent "the Self", an archetype which, like Bilbo groping in the dark, O'Neill grasps at but fails to understand fully. It reduces the work to a series of abstractions which O'Neill himself lacks the key to comprehend - so thoroughly, that the closing lines of his book seem almost to render a cruel parody on the work of Owen Barfield and Flieger's Splintered Light -- O'Neill calls his task to "fracture the light into all its facets and then carefully put it back together again." Which is the exact opposite of everything Tolkien was trying to convey.
That said, through no fault of his own, O'Neill did manage to stumble onto some interesting insights. It's a shame that he did not make more of "Numenor as Neurosis," as Tolkien himself explicitly referred to having an "Atlantis Complex." Understanding Shelob as an archetype of the anima was interesting, although he staggeringly seemed to miss her connexion to Elbereth. His comparisons of Britain, the blessed realm of Aman, and Celtic and Classical literature was interesting - most tantalizing was a poem he highlighted from the ancient cult of Hercules -- but unfortunately he seemed to lack the wider background knowledge to situate these little glimpses into their proper historical context. Ironically, rather similar an experience to reading the Silmarillion itself.
In short I would say, read this book if you are interested in another take on Tolkien and Jung. Other people recently, especially in California, have been doing this work in the past ten years, so check that out too. But keep in mind that the archetypes are not what they seem; they are not tools for analysis, and it is better to let a myth speak for itself than to reduce it to a pile of abstractions. In light of this, if you want to understand the mythical philosophy which *truly* underlies Tolkien's work (HE WAS NOT INFLUENCED BY JUNG), you should read Verlyn Flieger's book "Splintered Light."
As far as understanding Tolkien is concerned, he identifies Saruman with Wotan while neglecting the fact that the author repeatedly called Gandalf "an Odinic wanderer." He in general appears to privilege Varda over Manwe (again, odd), and takes an approach to Tolkien's work which one suspects that Tolkien himself would have been sorely opposed to.
The ultimate problem with this Jungian Analysis is that O'Neill did not understand enough of what Jung was talking about first -- as evidence of this, he calls Jung's experience of God "subjective." Even if he had, Tolkien would have fiercely resisted an "analysis" of his work, because it contains no themes other than itself. The conclusions that O'Neill does come to are ridiculous; the Ring represents "Self-realization" rather than Evil, because it must represent "the Self", an archetype which, like Bilbo groping in the dark, O'Neill grasps at but fails to understand fully. It reduces the work to a series of abstractions which O'Neill himself lacks the key to comprehend - so thoroughly, that the closing lines of his book seem almost to render a cruel parody on the work of Owen Barfield and Flieger's Splintered Light -- O'Neill calls his task to "fracture the light into all its facets and then carefully put it back together again." Which is the exact opposite of everything Tolkien was trying to convey.
That said, through no fault of his own, O'Neill did manage to stumble onto some interesting insights. It's a shame that he did not make more of "Numenor as Neurosis," as Tolkien himself explicitly referred to having an "Atlantis Complex." Understanding Shelob as an archetype of the anima was interesting, although he staggeringly seemed to miss her connexion to Elbereth. His comparisons of Britain, the blessed realm of Aman, and Celtic and Classical literature was interesting - most tantalizing was a poem he highlighted from the ancient cult of Hercules -- but unfortunately he seemed to lack the wider background knowledge to situate these little glimpses into their proper historical context. Ironically, rather similar an experience to reading the Silmarillion itself.
In short I would say, read this book if you are interested in another take on Tolkien and Jung. Other people recently, especially in California, have been doing this work in the past ten years, so check that out too. But keep in mind that the archetypes are not what they seem; they are not tools for analysis, and it is better to let a myth speak for itself than to reduce it to a pile of abstractions. In light of this, if you want to understand the mythical philosophy which *truly* underlies Tolkien's work (HE WAS NOT INFLUENCED BY JUNG), you should read Verlyn Flieger's book "Splintered Light."
August 13, 2025
I enjoyed this book on three levels: first, to get a basic grounding in Jungian theory (by no means comprehensive, but a decent intro); second, to explore the mythic archetypes that populate Tolkien's work and thus better appreciate the sort of shared unconscious yearnings that he tapped into with such unprecedented success; and third, to view the cultural time capsule of the late 1970s when this book was written. The insane popularity of LOTR was still relatively new, the Silmarillion had just been published, and psychology was only a few decades into establishing itself as a legitimate science. Some of the perspectives are almost quaint from a 21st century standpoint, but who am I to judge? I'm sure we'll all look quaint another fifty years from now. (One brief warning: the author offhandedly refers to Gollum as 'autistic,' indicating a far different and perhaps pejorative meaning of the term than how it's used nowadays. Again, no judgment against the author, but it could be triggering for some.)
January 2, 2013
read July 1994
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews