The Fellowship of the Ring: Flashbacks 2 key examples

Tolkien presents the second chapter of the first book of the novel in the form of an extensive flashback. In this flashback, he explains the history of The One Ring to Frodo: 

Long after, but still very long ago, there lived by the banks of the Great River on the edge of Wilderland a clever-handed and quiet-footed little people [...] There was among them a family of high repute [...] The most inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Sméagol. He was interested in roots and beginnings; he dived into deep pools; he burrowed under trees and growing plants; he tunnelled into green mounds; and he ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers opening in the air: his head and his eyes were downward.

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Saruman, a powerful wizard and peer of Gandalf, uses logos in his argument to Gandalf that they should attempt to harness, rather than destroy, the power of The One Ring. Recounting his past meeting with Saruman to the Council of Elrond in the form of a flashback, Gandalf recalls Saruman's words: 

'As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.'

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