The Ring symbolizes intense desire, which the novel suggests allows evil to thrive. Also called the One Ring (to distinguish it from the other Rings of Power), the Ring was forged by Sauron and is the object upon which his life and power depend. Each bearer of the Ring is corrupted by its temptation of greatness and domination; even a hobbit like Sam, whose aim in life is only to be a gardener and live in comfort, envisions his existence as a fearsome ruler of Middle-earth while carrying the Ring. The Ring brings tragedy to those who can’t resist its promise of greatness: Gollum, whose existence since losing the Ring has been reduced to a desperate desire to find it again, dies as soon as he takes it from Frodo—and Sauron, who cannot fathom that anyone would want to see the Ring destroyed, is destroyed along with it. The Ring seems to corrupt its bearer by augmenting their greed and forcing them to become dependent on it, which means that Frodo’s ability to carry it over such a long journey is due to his humility and his lack of desire to control anyone else.
The Ring Quotes in The Return of the King
“We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but small hope for ourselves. For, my lords, it may well prove that we ourselves shall perish utterly in a black battle far from the living lands; so that even if Barad-dûr be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age. But this, I deem, is our duty. And better so than to perish nonetheless—as we surely shall if we sit here—and know as we die that no new age shall be.”
In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need a due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.
Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master’s left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn.
Sam’s hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil. It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. He himself, though only for a while, had borne the Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again.
“But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”
The Ring Symbol Timeline in The Return of the King
