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Scouring Of The Shire"The Scouring of the Shire" is the second to last chapter in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It is among the most prominent scenes not featured in the theatrical release of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. After returning from the War of the Ring to the Shire, Hobbits, Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took discover that the evil they had fought in Mordor had come home to roost. Rousing the Shire, they are able to drive off the evil that infested it, through the work of Farmer Cotton, Merry, and Pippin. The Battle of Bywater can be considered the last battle in the War of the Ring, in which 19 hobbits died. Saruman and Wormtongue also find their ends. Despite Tolkien's much-publicised dislike of allegory, this chapter can be viewed as the most directly allegorical component of the book. The transformation of the Shire from rural idyll to industrial wasteland heavily parallels Tolkien's own views of the destruction of the English countryside by the steady creep of industrialisation. In particular, the loss of the old Mill in Bywater, only to be replaced by a much larger, grimier version, mimics an event from Tolkien's childhood. Tolkien himself commented that the symbolism lay in the feeling of loss he felt after returning from the First World War, to discover that many of his close friends had died, and the world he remembered from his youth had largely disappeared.
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