Themes of The Lord of The Rings - Technophobia

Technophobia

Tolkien's criticism of technology has been observed by several authors. Pienciak notes that technology is only employed by the forces of evil in Tolkien's works and that he found it to be one of "the evils of the modern world: ugliness, depersonalization, and the separation of man from nature." Examples of this technophobia have been indemnified in the palantíri, the seeing stones, and in the last chapter "The Scouring of the Shire". Initially built by the elves as a good-natured means of communication, the Palantíri have been turned into instruments of evil by Sauron, and whatever industrial technology was imported by Saruman's minions to replace the traditional crafts of the Shire hobbits was seen as an evil threat and eventually removed after his downfall.