the hobbit thesis statement

A Summary and Analysis of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Hobbit is one of the biggest-selling books of all time. An estimated 100 million people have read Tolkien’s classic children’s novel since it was first published in 1937. The story of its origins, and Tolkien’s supposed invention of the word ‘hobbit’ (of which more below), are well-known. But how should we ‘read’ The Hobbit ? What does the story mean?

Before we offer a textual analysis of Tolkien’s novel, it might be worth briefly summarising the plot.

The Hobbit : plot summary

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit (a species of small creature which Tolkien invented) who lives in Bag End, in the rural loveliness of The Shire. The wizard Gandalf turns up one day, accompanied by thirteen dwarves, who are on a mission to reclaim their gold, as well as their kingdom, from beneath the Lonely Mountain. This land, which was once theirs, has been taken over by a fearsome dragon named Smaug.

Bilbo has been approached because they need a burglar: someone to break into Smaug’s cave so they can go in and defeat the dragon and recover their gold. Bilbo reluctantly agrees to accompany them. However, the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, is even more reluctantly than Bilbo to have the hobbit come along with them, because Bilbo is not a fighter as the dwarves are. However, the others persuade him, and they all set off together.

They travel to Rivendell, the home of the Elves, where Elrond gives them help with their map. But the gang are then caught by goblins while attempting to cross the Misty Mountains, and Gandalf has to rescue them. Bilbo, however, gets lost deep in the underground tunnels, and encounters Gollum, a mysterious creature whose magic ring Bilbo accidentally acquires.

The ring confers invisibility upon whoever wears it, and – to escape Gollum, having played a game of riddles with him – Bilbo uses the ring and finds his way out of the tunnels. He rejoins the dwarves and they once again have to flee the pursuing goblins. They are assisted by eagles and find their way safely to the house of Beorn, who can transform into a fearsome bear.

In the enchanted forest of Mirkwood, Bilbo uses his sword, Sting, to fight off giant spiders which attack them and ensnare the dwarves in webs. Nearing their destination, the gang are helped by the inhabitants of nearby Laketown, who want Smaug defeated as much as they do. Entering the mountain via a secret door, Bilbo finds Smaug’s lair and identifies a weakness in the dragon’s armour.

When Smaug notices him, he flies into a rage, realising that Laketown has helped Bilbo to find his cave; the dragon flies off to burn Laketown to the ground. Thanks to a thrush overhearing Bilbo’s account of Smaug’s weakness, and then flying to the town to tell them, a man named Bard is able to find Smaug’s weak spot and shoot and kill the dragon with an arrow, halting the destruction.

The dwarves are now able to regain their mountain, and Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, a stone precious to Thorin’s family. But he hides it rather than handing it over to Thorin. When the men of Laketown demand a cut of Smaug’s treasure to help repair their town, Thorin refuses, drawing on the surrounding armies of dwarves to defend his position.

Bilbo attempts to intercede, using the Arkenstone to bribe the Laketowners, but when Thorin finds out he sends Bilbo away, angered at having been betrayed by the hobbit.

With the help of the eagles and Beorn, the dwarves win the Battle of Five Armies. However, in the battle Thorin is mortally wounded. Before he dies, he forgives Bilbo. Bilbo returns home to his hobbit-hole, with a small cut of the treasure.

The Hobbit : analysis

We should, according to Tolkien, resist the urge to analyse The Hobbit as an allegory of any kind. Tolkien disliked allegory, and for this reason he wasn’t keen on his friend C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books (although Lewis denied that these were allegory, too).

In his preface to the second edition of the vast sequel to The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien wrote that many people confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’, and this distinction is worth pondering. ‘Applicability’, to use Tolkien’s phrase, gives the reader freedom in how they interpret and analyse the story, whereas ‘allegory’ involves a very top-down ‘you should read X here as representing Y’ instruction from the author.

So if we read one of the most famous allegories in twentieth-century literature, George Orwell’s Animal Farm (which appeared just eight years after The Hobbit : we have analysed Orwell’s book here ), as simply a tale about animals and their relationships with their human masters, we are missing something vital from the story.

With The Hobbit , we may detect possible meanings beneath the leafy Shire, the dragon guarding his gold, the novel’s quest motif, and many other details, but Tolkien refuses to prescribe one meaning that we’re meant to follow.

So it was with the great Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English epics which he admired and wrote about as part of his day job as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf may mean any number of things: their meaning is in the eye, and mind’s eye, of the reader or listener.

Of course, it helps with old epic poems like Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that the identity of the author remains unknown to us, so even if they were intended as allegory, we have lost the ‘key’ that supposedly unlocks them.

But even though we know The Hobbit was written by someone who had first-hand experience of war (like many men of his generation, Tolkien had fought in the First World War) as the inevitability of another war was growing even more urgent, we should refuse to draw any clear line between real-world events and the work of imaginative fantasy which Tolkien wrote.

So, if not as allegory, how should we interpret this quest tale for a modern readership, which is clearly indebted to Germanic and Norse myths of the Middle and ‘Dark’ Ages? On a structural level we can be more confident. In his vast and brilliant study of plot structures, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , Christopher Booker gives us two pointers which we might apply to The Hobbit : Tolkien’s tale is an example of both the ‘quest’ story and the ‘voyage and return’ narrative.

Indeed, Tolkien’s subtitle for The Hobbit , There and Back Again , even spells this out for us. Bilbo is the reluctant hero who must leave home – as in countless fairy tales – and go out on an adventure which will make him a wiser (and certainly richer) person.

In this connection, it’s worth stopping to analyse both the similarities between The Hobbit and many earlier folk tales and myths and the crucial ways in which Tolkien departs from these tropes and conventions. Vladimir Propp, in his influential work on the ‘ morphology of the folk tale ’, identified a number of plot details and character types which we find in various European fairy stories: a hero has to leave home, a hero is challenged to prove his heroic qualities, a hero is tricked by the villain, and so on; ending, of course, with the hero returning home and order being restored to the world.

Identifying many of Propp’s features in Tolkien’s novel helps to explain (or partly explain at least) why The Hobbit has become such a favourite novel among both young and old readers alike. There is something primal and mythic about its plot elements, as well as its local detail (dragons, treasure, giant eight-legged foes, shape-shifting bears, and the rest of it). Tolkien taps into the need for fireside tales told by travelling mythmongers and local bards which seems hard-wired into our brains.

With The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion it’s clear that Tolkien set out to create a full-blown mythology for England, drawing on its Germanic and Norse heritage, complete with fully developed languages like Elvish (Tolkien’s speciality was philology, or the study of languages). But with The Hobbit he was doing something less ambitious but no less mythic: creating a sort of modern-day fairy story.

And it is those elements of The Hobbit which depart from the traditional folk tale that make the novel something recognisably modern. The hero is not some wet-behind-the-ears youngster who needs to go out and find his way in the world: he is a middle-aged and perfectly settled creature of habit who has his life all sorted and only agrees to leave his comfortable hobbit-hole with the greatest reluctance.

He is not tricked by the villain but turns out to be the arch-trickster himself, outwitting Gollum and winning, for his efforts, the fated magic ring (another well-worn idea even when Tolkien used it: see the Ring of Gyges ) that would become the centrepiece of The Lord of the Rings .

And, of course, Bilbo is knocked unconscious soon after the climactic Battle of the Five Armies begins. Here, perhaps, we might be permitted a smidgen of biographical analysis: Tolkien, having fought in and survived a mass industrial war which afforded little opportunity for old-fashioned heroism, seems to be commenting on the unheroic nature of war and adventure. You’re more likely to be the fellow zonked out on the ground during the battle than you are the warrior wielding the sword and winning the day.

Indeed, even the story’s other main hero, Thorin, doesn’t survive the battle. The Hobbit offers a very cautious and critical account of war, with the costs often outweighing any perceived benefits.

However, this is not to say that Bilbo fails as a ‘hero’: merely that Tolkien is at pains to highlight a quieter, more diplomatic kind of hero whose work goes on behind the scenes (Bilbo’s role as burglar scouting out Smaug’s lair). He tries to prevent the final battle by bargaining with the Laketown residents and Wood-Elves. Thorin is enraged by this, but he ends up paying an even higher price than his family’s precious Arkenstone, giving his own life in the course of the battle.

Contrary to popular belief, the word ‘hobbit’ did exist before The Hobbit . The famous story is that Tolkien, while marking some of his students’ exam papers in Oxford one day, came to a blank sheet which had not a single word written on it. Out of nowhere – or so it seemed – he had a flash of inspiration, and hastily scribbled down the sentence, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’

For all that Tolkien’s origin-story offers a delightful ‘Eureka’ moment for the novel’s (and word’s) conception, it should be taken with a pinch of salt. And ultimately, the strength of Tolkien’s novel lies not in its originality but in its superlative assembling of existing tropes and ideas into a story that offers a quiet commentary on the meaning of ‘heroism’ in the modern age.

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J.R.R. Tolkien

• Literature Notes
• Major Themes
• Book Summary
• About The Hobbit
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Bilbo Baggins
• Thorin Oakenshield
• Character Map
• J.R.R. Tolkien Biography
• Critical Essays
• Full Glossary
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Major Themes

The major theme of The Hobbit is the quest, one of the oldest themes in literature. As a scholar of ancient languages and literatures, Tolkien would have known the theme well through Greek and Norse myth and Old- and Middle-English poetry. The quest theme is central to the story of Beowulf, the Old-English epic about which Tolkien published an essay of lasting scholarly significance in 1937. The quest story best known to modern readers is probably the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail, in which a knight ventures forth in search of a sacred cup (the Grail) that he brings back to restore power to his king and, thus, improve the welfare of the kingdom. The Grail story is an important sub-plot in the middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which Tolkien edited with his friend E. V. Gordon and published in 1925. Given that a cup and the Grail are similar objects, it is interesting that it is a cup that Bilbo Baggins steals from the dragon's treasure when he first descends to Smaug's lair in Chapter 12.

The quest theme is related to two important features of The Hobbit and other works in which it occurs. The first of these is the journey plot structure. The protagonist or main character who embarks on a quest must physically go somewhere; his search involves travel, usually in a circular route such that he returns home with the object of his quest. The journey allows the main character to encounter various characters and circumstances that are unfamiliar and even threatening to him. Thus, novelty and suspense are built into the journey plot. Bilbo, for example, encounters Goblins, Wargs, elves, Gollum, and Smaug the dragon on his journey to help the dwarves retrieve their treasure, and he travels well beyond the hobbit-lands through Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain. Along the way, he escapes death several times, undergoes the privations of hunger and bad weather, and ultimately sees combat in the Battle of Five Armies. None of this would have been possible if he had stayed at home in the safety of his hobbit-hole. The structure of a journey plot is often described as episodic, meaning that the protagonist moves from scene to scene (or episode to episode) in a rather simple linear fashion; there is no complex interweaving of the various characters he meets throughout the story. This is generally true of The Hobbit: It is not until Chapter 15 that the various groups of creatures Bilbo encounters on his journey converge on the Lonely Mountain in what becomes the Battle of Five Armies.

The second important feature related to the quest theme is in the character development of the protagonist. In most quest stories, the physical journey serves as a metaphor for the personal growth of the questing character, for whom the quest is often the fulfillment of a personal destiny. As the protagonist travels physically farther from home, he develops psychologically and/or spiritually beyond the self he was when he started out. The episodes of the plot serve as trials and lessons to him, and when he finds the object of his quest, he also finds his authentic self. Bilbo, for example, begins his journey with the dwarves reluctantly, not at all sure that he is suited for it. Throughout much of the journey, he regrets his decision to join them and daydreams about the comforts of his own home that seem so attractive in comparison with the dramatic adventures he undergoes. In early episodes, when he is threatened with death, he must be rescued by Gandalf. As time goes on, however, Bilbo develops both ingenuity and courage, partly under the tutelage of Gandalf and partly through a combination of good luck and the exercise of his own will. It is apparently through luck that he finds the ring of invisibility in Gollum's cave, but its powers allow him, in the absence of Gandalf, to use his intelligence and courage to rescue the dwarves from the dungeon of the Elvenking and later take the Arkenstone to Bard in an attempt to prevent a war over the dragon's treasure. Bilbo is depicted as making sound ethical judgments and choosing to do good, as he does when he does not use the advantage of his sword and invisibility to kill Gollum. Like other quest heroes, Bilbo returns home at the end of his journey. In keeping with the tone of The Hobbit, however, his life is changed only subtly: He writes poetry and he lives somewhat eccentrically, more like his mother's family, the adventurous Tooks, than the Bagginses he so thoroughly resembled before.

Property and Community

Related to the quest theme is the theme of community, and in The Hobbit, you see the value of community especially in relation to property. The object of the quest hero's search is usually something that will improve the welfare of his community. In Arthurian legends like that of Gawain, for example, the kingdom has fallen to ruin and the king has become powerless. The Grail or sacred cup that Gawain brings back is meant to restore the power of the king and the welfare of the kingdom. In The Hobbit, there is a parallel in the disinherited situation of Thorin, the leader of the dwarves, who is no longer King under the Mountain like his grandfather and who has lost his birthright, the treasure trove, to Smaug the dragon. The town of Dale, once a thriving dwarf town, is in ruins; other stretches of landscape on the way to the Lonely Mountain are also described as desolate places where nothing can grow. Despite his dwarvish love for beautiful material things, Thorin does not want to reclaim the treasure only for himself; he wants it for the entire dwarf community so that their world can be restored to what it was under his ancestors, before the invasion of Smaug.

Smaug and Gollum represent the perverted use of property. They are monsters because isolation and selfishness such as theirs is evil. They do not recognize community; there are no other creatures like them. Smaug makes his home in the Lonely Mountain, and Gollum is so self-centered he does not even know the word for "you." They are vehemently opposed to sharing; indeed, they would rather kill than share what they possess, whether it be Gollum's ring of invisibility or Smaug's treasure trove. Smaug makes no use at all of the treasure trove; he only sits on top of it and sleeps. Ironically, Smaug is killed himself as he wages war in defense of his treasure. (Gollum, too, dies in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as he finally reclaims his prized possession, the ring of invisibility.)

But other characters possess lesser versions of Smaug's and Gollum's flaws. The Master of Lake-town, who is given a share of the treasure trove after the Battle of Five Armies, becomes corrupted by the wealth. He does not share it to rebuild the town devastated by Smaug and he is described as falling prey to the dragon sickness. He loses power; Bard replaces him. At various times, the dwarves are described as being overly fond of material wealth, and there is a sense in which the pursuit of his personal ancestral treasure kills Thorin, although it also brings about the necessary death of Smaug.

Even Bilbo Baggins, that mildest of creatures, must learn to leave the safety of his home, where he lives alone, and act as part of a group. He is rather social in his own way, on his own terms, but his journey requires him to push himself beyond the limits of his own comfort. Whereas he formerly could think of nothing better than the solitary pleasure of a breakfast of eggs and bacon or a pipe full of tobacco, he eventually wins the respect of others for acting in their behalf. In agreeing to accompany the dwarves on their journey, he agrees to cooperate in a communal venture in which he has no personal investment.

The Uses of Power

One of the major themes of The Hobbit concerns the use of power on several different levels. Gandalf has magical powers that you see him use almost immediately. As the story begins, he places a secret mark on Bilbo Baggins' door that causes the dwarves to congregate at the hobbit-hole. He seems to know much more about Bilbo than can be explained, and he has a certain gift for prophecy. He uses a magic wand at times, and he appears and disappears at will. The full extent of his sorcery is demonstrated in The Lord of the Rings, but even in The Hobbit, Gandalf clearly has powers that exceed those of the other travelers. His magical power is reflected in his age and his wisdom.

Although much younger than Gandalf, Bilbo's wisdom increases throughout the story and as a quest hero, he very much develops a kind of personal power. He grows from a reluctant, rather cowardly creature who complains when he is hungry or rained upon into a clever and courageous one who rescues the dwarves from the dungeon of the Elvenking, defies both Gollum and Smaug, and survives the Battle of Five Armies. He gains the respect of his companions and develops a personal authority that defines him as a leader. When Gandalf temporarily leaves the group, Bilbo becomes the leader in essential ways: He devises plans and he volunteers to go first in risky situations. Although he is the beneficiary of a great deal of good luck, Bilbo also exercises his will to take on difficult tasks, like confronting Smaug, and he makes ethical choices, like when he spares Gollum's life. He declines heroism and chooses instead to live a relatively quiet life when he returns home, but it is a life enriched by the self-knowledge he achieves on his journey.

There are suggestions in The Hobbit that Tolkien is interested in the problem of a more worldly power than either Gandalf or Bilbo represents. At the beginning of the story, Gandalf tells Thorin that their journey requires a hero or a warrior, but he cannot find one because all the warriors are far away fighting each other. Later, in Chapter 4, the narrator explains that Goblins are so wicked they are probably responsible for inventing the machines that have since been used in war to kill many people at once. Such machines were a distinguishing feature of World War I, in which Tolkien served in France; formerly, wars had been fought much more as a series of hand-to-hand combats. As his writing of The Hobbit drew to a close, the events that would result in World War II were taking shape in Germany. Even his friend C. S. Lewis remarked that as Tolkien began writing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, political events in Europe were imitating his "history" to an uncanny degree. There is no evidence that The Hobbit was intended as an anti-war fable, however; Tolkien was adamant that he was not interested in writing allegory. Nevertheless, Chapters 14 through XVII certainly depict the flaws inherent in political power. You see the leaders of various groups committed to war for personal gain — namely Smaug's treasure — and you see failures of diplomacy, as when Thorin refuses to parley with Bard because Bard has allied himself with the Elvenking. The personal failures of characters like Thorin, whose pride prevents him from negotiating peace, the Master of Lake-town, whose political power ultimately corrupts him, and Bilbo's failure to buy peace, in effect, with the Arkenstone represent an attitude toward war that is both critical and resigned. The Prime Minister of England, Neville Chamberlain, signed the Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler as Tolkien was beginning the Rings trilogy; it was not be long before "monster" became the common description for Hitler.

The Storyteller's Voice

Readers frequently comment on the voice of the narrator of The Hobbit, often attributing to it the book's success. Some have called it professorial, because it gives a great deal of information on rather esoteric topics like runes, the lifestyle of hobbits, and the ancient history of dwarves and elves. It is certainly congenial, however, and one of the reasons The Hobbit is so enjoyable to read is the pleasure the narrator takes in telling the story.

The story of The Hobbit is related from a third-person omniscient point of view; that is, by a narrator who is not a character in the story himself (there is no "I" in The Hobbit ) but who nonetheless knows everything there is to tell. He knows what some of the characters are thinking, especially more complex characters like Bilbo, Gollum, and Smaug. He describes Bilbo's daydreams about food and tobacco, for example, and the alternatives he faces when making choices; he describes Gollum's unique psychology.

This narrator also knows what will happen in the future of the story. The first time Bilbo thinks longingly of his hobbit-hole and wishes he were back home, the narrator explicitly tells you that this will not be the last time Bilbo has such regrets. On different occasions, he reveals that a certain character or place won't be seen again; he hints at the future death or disappearance of some characters. When Bilbo is rescued by the Lord of the Eagles, you are told (Chapter 7) that Bilbo won't see the eagles again until the Battle of Five Armies (Chapter 17). In his prophetic vision, the narrator shares some of Gandalf's magical power; this is consistent with the power that has traditionally been attributed to storytellers. He is in control of the plot of the story.

On the most superficial level, the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves conforms to the maps, drawn by Tolkien himself, that serve as the endpapers for most editions of the book. More subtly, the narrator draws your attention to the significance of events, as when Bilbo finds the ring of invisibility, that you might otherwise pass over. When a character is mistaken, the narrator sometimes shares with you the more accurate judgment, the better decision that could have been made. Despite the fact that he is narrating a story of his own invention, he assumes you are in sympathy with him and even share in his knowledge, as when he identifies the Wood-elves and comments that "of course" that is what they are.

At one point in the story, Tolkien offers a peek behind the scenes, as it were, to see the crafted structure of his plot. After Smaug has flown out of the Lonely Mountain in a rage and destroyed Esgaroth, the narrator begins Chapter 14 by asking you to go back two days to imagine the terror the people of Esgaroth felt as they saw Smaug descend upon them.

These narrative intrusions — places where the narrator breaks in upon his own story, destroying any illusion that it is reality unfolding before you — contribute to your sense that the plot is being capably managed and that the story is told by someone who really does know, down to the smallest detail, what happened. You are, in other words, in the hands of a master storyteller. While there is no "I" in The Hobbit, you find a great many references to "you," the reader. Tolkien's great attention to you as you read The Hobbit, his care that you understand every detail along the way, and his welcoming you into the world in which his story takes place accounts for much that makes the narrative voice so attractive.

Previous J.R.R. Tolkien Biography

J.R.R. Tolkien

Everything you need for every book you read..

Coming of Age

Although Bilbo Baggins is “fully grown” at the beginning of The Hobbit , his adventures teach him to be brave, to take responsibility for himself and for others, and to develop skills he didn’t know he had: in effect, to grow up. When Gandalf and the dwarves approach Bilbo with an offer to be their burglar, Bilbo is so satisfied with his life and his home that the mere thought of adventure is enough to…

The Power of Language

During The Hobbit , Bilbo , Gandalf , and the dwarves confront countless dangers: spiders, goblins, wood-elves, wolves, a dragon, etc. To defend themselves, they use an equally vast number of weapons: knives, daggers, spells, fire, rocks, sticks. Yet one of the most important weapons that they use—and one of the most important skills Bilbo develops on his travels—is language. In the early chapters of the book, Bilbo exhibits almost no sophisticated command of language…

Greed, Trust, Fellowship

Virtually every one of The Hobbit ’s primary characters—including both the heroes and the villains—is at least partially motivated by a desire for unnecessary material things. Smaug , the primary antagonist of the novel, is so greedy that he notices when Bilbo steals a single cup from his vast collection of treasure. (Tolkien notes that his anger is that of a rich man who’s lost something he never uses.) The dwarves are struggling to reclaim…

The Hobbit is a fantasy novel, and it contains many of the genre’s traditional tropes: a quest, treasure, a dark forest, and even a dragon. With this in mind, it’s worth asking who the hero—arguably the most important fantasy trope — of The Hobbit is, and how Tolkien defines heroism. Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist of The Hobbit , meaning that he’s the default hero. In the early chapters of the book, Bilbo is cowardly…

Home and Birthright

The desire and love for a home motivates most of the main characters in The Hobbit . Sometimes, the characters’ desires for home contradict each other. For instance, Bilbo Baggins says at many points throughout his journey that he regrets ever leaving his home in hobbit-town, while the dwarves with whom he’s embarking on his adventure seek to return to (and reclaim from Smaug) their home under the Lonely Mountain. In many cases, having home…

The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hobbit essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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The Hobbit Essays

Tolkien's hobbit: from children's story to mythic creation elsje e. fourie.

<i>"Mr. Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional and inconsistent fairy-tale dwarves, and got drawn into the edge of it - so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge."

-J.R.R Tolkien, letter to his publisher (quoted in...

Heroes and the Hobbit Jason Gussow

The principal concern of a literature student is to try to infer what the author's intentions are. However, we often include our own perspectives and forget the author altogether. Take a look at The Hobbit. Many people assume Tolkien wanted Bilbo...

Sting and Bilbo: Significance of the Small in The Hobbit Elaine Huang 11th Grade

Bilbo’s sword, Sting, plays a large role in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien -- a role that almost appears to be incongruous for its size. Through each one of its appearances, Sting’s increased significance as a plot element simultaneously...

Archetypes of Englishness in The Hobbit and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Anonymous College

Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are children’s novels which share a number of key similarities. Both are ‘quest’ narratives, whose main protagonists (Bilbo and Alice) begin their journeys in tranquil pastoral...

The Impact of Setting in The Hobbit Elizabeth Sanders 10th Grade

While it may be easy to underestimate the importance of scenic descriptions, setting plays an important role in most literature - including character-driven fantasy. Setting can be written to represent conflicting forces or ideals, and to help...

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A riddle, unlike a common question, contains its own solution, and cleverly using word play and double meanings, it both exposes as well as obscures the answer. This type of mental puzzle requires creative thinking to solve.One must see past the...

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Though it is a book of children’s literature, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit still deals with issues of great moral complexity. In the novel, Bilbo Baggins debates whether or not he should kill the creature Gollum, who stands in his way of escaping...

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Through the knowledge that J.R.R. Tolkien’s widely beloved fantasy novel, The Hobbit , was originally an oral story meant to entertain his own young children, the story, structure, narration, and style of the book can be understood through a...

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The literary world of fantasy was forever altered by the fateful publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s extraordinary children’s novel, entitled The Hobbit , in 1937. Through his unique tapestry of a paternal narrator telling the story in a highly...

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A word that features prominently in Tolkien’s first published work about Middle-Earth is “adventure.” The initial spark of the plot is Gandalf’s proposition that Bilbo accompany him on an adventure, and throughout The Hobbit, this is how Bilbo...

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The famous poet, Rumi, once said “Greed makes man blind and foolish, and makes him an easy prey for death.” The Hobbit has many instances of greed, all of which lead to their inevitable destruction. Almost all characters are guilty of greed here...