So right now I'm looking for a lord of the rings boxed set of hardcover books, but I just can't decide which one to get!! The ones with or without the hobbit, with or without Alan lee's illustrations or even tolkien's own illustrations... Whether the books have the appendices and THERE'S SO MUCH TO CONSIDER.
And why I'm getting a headache over just books? Because I wanna get a collection I can keep for life and they are god expensive! So of course I'm gonna want the ones that suit me the most!

Anyways... I'm about looking for the books when I started going off track and.....
Wondering why JRR Tolkien chose the ONE RING. Did he want it to symbolise anything?? Well-no. And here's why...

"Tolkien didn't use symbolism or allegory. He was dead set against it.

Any meaning you get out of it are your own."

And this is why I LOVE HIS LITERATURE =)

And so we're out set thinking again... COULD we get any meaning out of it? And here's another:

"What Jallan says about Tolkien not believing in allegory is true. But if you are asking why a ring was chosen over (let's use Jallan's example) an item like a cloak; some reasons might be:

A ring is circle. It has no beginning and no end. It seems small and insignificant on one hand, yet holds so much meaning on the other. Throughout history, rings have meant a bond to something or someone: whether it be a signet ring, a clan ring or a wedding ring. A ring ties us to something or someone. And the One Ring was most definitely a binding object. Look what it did to its bearer. So, in it's way, the ring is a better representational item then something else, like a cloak.

A ring can represent the circle of life. As with a ring, life will tend to circle back on itself, we repeat the mistakes of the past, and come full circle, history repeats itself. How could one small thing (the Hobbit/the Ring) make any impact on the world surrounding it? Yet it is the small things in life that can have the greatest impact.

So, I agree that Tolkien had a set agenda for his story, not wanting us to read too much into, or pick apart his meanings, he said so himself. BUT, on the other hand, there doesn't seem to be ANY other object that would have sufficed quite as well as the ring did. Some how a cloak, a helmet, or even a different piece of jewelry would not have held the strength that a ring does. This doesn't mean we are analyzing or changing the story that Tolkien has given us, which is one of the greatest stories of all time. We are simply theorizing as to why a RING was picked to play the part in the story and not some other random object. The ring is crucial to the story and itself becomes a character. I am pretty sure that Tolkien's choice of a ring as the object that connected all the characters was not by chance. Besides being a linguist and a theologist, Tolkien was also an avid historian, particularly in the areas of Anglo Saxon and Norse lore. Weapons, creatures, and jewelry (especially rings) were of great significance to these people and therefore of great importance to Tolkien when picking the objects and characters that would represent things in his books. So, there may have been other objects that Tolkien contemplated using in place of the ring, but somehow I don't think any other object would have had the impact that a ring does. We cannot overlook the fact, that a ring IS representational of something by itself, otherwise Tolkien would have chosen a less significant item when writing the story. A ring, within or without a story to surround it, is a powerful thing."

This is AWESOME. You learn something new every day =)

Well good luck to me in my epic quest of book hunting! The passion of reading really brings you on a whole new adventure~