J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that gender roles in the Shire are not sharply separated, as males like Bilbo carry out domestic duties like cooking and cleaning. Lack of religion Wood notes that the work contains no formal religion. Hobbits have no temples or sacrifices, though Frodo can call to Elbereth, one of the Valar, in extremis; the nearest anyone comes to religion is that the men of Gondor "pause before meals". Wood's answer here is that Tolkien intentionally left religion out of Middle-earth so that "we might see Christianity reflected in it more clearly if also indirectly". He quotes Tolkien's remark in a letter that "the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism". Racism Tolkien has frequently been accused of racism; however, during the Second World War, he consistently expressed an anti-racist position. Sandra Ballif Straubhaar writes that far from being racist, "a polycultured, polylingual world is absolutely central" to Middle-earth, and that readers and filmgoers will easily see that. She notes that the "recurring accusations in the popular media" of a racist view of the story are "interesting". Straubhaar quotes the Swedish cultural studies scholar David Tjeder who described Gollum's account of the men of Harad ("Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger.") in Aftonbladet as "stereotypical and reflective of colonial attitudes". She argues instead that Gollum's view, with its "arbitrary and stereotypical assumptions about the 'Other'", is absurd, and that Gollum cannot be taken as an authority on Tolkien's opinion. Straubhaar contrasts this with Sam Gamgee's more humane response to the sight of a dead Harad warrior, which she finds "harder to find fault with": Straubhaar quotes the English scholar Stephen Shapiro, who wrote in The Scotsman that Straubhaar concedes that Shapiro may have had a point with "slant-eyed", but comments that this was milder than that of many of his contemporary novelists such as John Buchan, and notes that Tolkien had in fact made "appalled objection" when people had misapplied his story to current events. She similarly observes that Tjeder had failed to notice Tolkien's "concerted effort" to change the Western European "paradigm" that speakers of supposedly superior languages were "ethnically superior". See also J. R. R. Tolkien's influences Notes References Primary This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings. Secondary Sources