Edited and Finalized: J.R.R. Tolkien and Humanity's Ultimate Fulfillment

Many artists and authors struggle to take the vision in their head and transfer it onto paper. Either their skill level gets in the way, they can’t quite translate their thoughts to reality, or the creation has a mind of its own and takes an unexpected direction. Likewise, creators struggle to finish their projects when they are unsatisfied with the current state. In his short story “Leaf by Niggle,” J.R.R. Tolkien illustrates this struggle while also adding a greater depth to it. The main character, Niggle, is a painter who has a grand vision for his largest painting but can never seem to finish it to his satisfaction. As a result of his obsession with it, he fails to use his gifts for the benefit of others and forgets to prepare for his quickly approaching “journey.” When he finally takes the long-dreaded journey, however, he finds his vision for his painting fulfilled in reality (109-110). J.R.R. Tolkien’s narrative appeals greatly to creators, and even more so to Christians. Tolkien reminds his readers through Niggle’s struggle and eventual fulfillment that one day life will become something greater than it is now, and that a man should direct his life toward a future in Christ.

Niggle is a painter, an amateur but a painter nonetheless, with a particular skill with leaves. He wants to paint a tree, however, “with all of its leaves in the same style, and all of them different” (94). Many creators can relate to Niggle’s dilemma. They want to create something greater than themselves while also maintaining their own style. One sees this tendency in both his creative friends and in skilled craftsmen like Tolkien himself. Tolkien is known as the father of high fantasy for his worldbuilding and individuality in style. Niggle, however, can’t seem to bring what’s in his head to life on canvas. He paints his tree, and he continues to expand it into a world, but he’s never certain whether it looks like he wants it to. Yet he’s determined to complete his painting before he embarks on his journey (95). In trying to create a world with only his own hands and mind, Niggle neglects the people around him and often dreads being asked for help. He wants to focus solely on his work. His neighbor, Parish, is a different problem entirely. He has a lame leg and often asks Niggle for help with jobs that he finds difficult, and though Niggle usually gives his begrudging help, Parish never offers anything in return. He has no interest in Niggle’s paintings, no eye for creativity, and “when he looked at Niggle’s pictures (which was seldom) he saw only green and grey patches and black patches, which seemed to him nonsensical” (97). He is a gardener, however, and would likely be exactly the critical eye Niggle needs to bring his painted tree closer to his vision of it. Niggle, likewise, would be able to help Parish cultivate a more beautiful garden. Before the two can set aside their differences, however, Niggle is called upon to make his journey.

Tolkien doesn’t make it immediately clear what Niggle’s journey represents. He finds himself in a carriage with very few of his belongings, and when he arrives at the workhouse that is his destination, he is put to work doing different odd jobs that he’s good at, but takes no pleasure in (104-105). Later, however, after his work at the workhouse is deemed complete, he is sent by train to a new place: a gate, with his bicycle there waiting for him, and beyond the gate a meadow that looks strangely familiar (109). The meadow is described as a beautiful, perfect, lively place that’s too real for simple Earth: “[the grass] was green and close; and yet he could see every blade distinctly” (109). As he rides his bicycle across the grass and over hills that he already knows, he comes to the meadow’s central point: his tree. He sees that “before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that of a tree that was alive, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. ‘It’s a gift!’ he said” (109-110). The meadow that he’s found is the entrance to heaven, and he contributed to it.

As Niggle is exploring his meadow, looking for a place to begin his work, he finds his neighbor Parish standing uncertainly (112). Parish is unfamiliar with Niggle’s meadow, but as the two of them work together, Parish begins to appreciate everything that Niggle has created. He still doesn’t realize, however, that it was Niggle who created it. Eventually, when a guide comes to take Niggle farther into this new world, the guide tells him that “it is Niggle’s Country… or most of it; a little of it is now Parish’s Garden” (114). Parish is suddenly able to appreciate not only the beauty of Niggle’s Country but also the skill of its creator; in truth, however, Niggle could not have made it so real on his own, and he couldn’t have turned it into a garden and a home without Parish’s help. In the end, Niggle finds that he needn’t have spent so much time trying to perfect his painting in life; the true reality of it came after death. God must be involved in the work for it to achieve its full purpose. Part of its beauty must be shared with Parish, Niggle’s neighbor, for its beauty and perfection to be fully recognized. It cannot become more than a beautiful place without someone to experience it, and Parish and his wife are the ones to make it a home rather than simply a land (114-115). Niggle finds that, after all his time striving to achieve perfection, he can’t achieve that perfection on his own. If he pursues God and the love of God, however, his life’s work becomes everything that it was meant to be.

The final realization of Niggle’s painting is a reflection of the new Earth and the reality of it compared to what we know as reality now. He cannot fully complete his work until he first focuses on God and his neighbor, and once he does, his world becomes what he always intended for it to become: a place of beauty that others can enjoy. Now it is also eternal, and many travelers will come to enjoy its beauty and perfection. The edited and finalized version of what Niggle has worked for is in heaven, not on earth. 

Works Cited

Tolkien, J.R.R. Tree and Leaf. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.