Hobbit

A Hero Or A Hobbit

Many children's tales are written the same way. They are stories of some heroic figure who is in search of a magic sword, lost treasure, or a princess to rescue. In these stories, the hero usually has to overcome many obstacles and enemies to reach his goal. Some of these stories are more than that. They sometimes may have the same story line, but when analyzed a little closer, they can teach us a lot about ourselves and the way we live our lives. The novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, is not just another quest to uncover a lost treasure, it has more of a coming of age theme, where the most unheroic hobbit learns much about himself and matures into an adult and even the hero of the story.

As the story begins, Bilbo is at first seen as a safe and unadventurous hobbit, content in the security of his hobbit-hole at Bag End. Bilbo is described as being terrified to leave his hobbit hole and seek adventure. When Gandalf and the elves decide to let Bilbo in on their dangerous journey, he is not quite sure he wants to go. He feels scared and even faints at the idea. Although his mother's side of the family, the Tooks, were adventurous people, Bilbo seems to take more after his father Bungo Baggins. He has great conflict with his two inner sides, the Took and Baggins. "His Tookish aggressiveness is being repressed" (Mathews 583). It gets to Bilbo when Gloin expresses doubts about him being for the task. Gloin exclaims, "He looks more like a grocer than a burglar" (Tolkien 18). This gets to Bilbo, and his "Took side" wins. He shows that he is determined to prove his worth by telling Gloin, "Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert" (Tolkien 18). The dwarves decide to let Bilbo join the quest only because Gandalf insists.

Bilbo possesses valuable hidden strengths that he does not know exist. He first shows this when he finds himself alone dealing with Gollum in the mountain. He is anxious when Gollum first appears but manages to disable his fear and outwits him in a game of riddles. As Gollum realizes that Bilbo must have the ring, Bilbo utilizes this quick wit and uses the rings powers to evade him. This ring is important to the way Bilbo matures throughout the story. It "Confers invisibility and thus gives Bilbo confidence and makes many of his later exploits possible" (Fisher 1 of 2). He is now willing to attempt daring feats that he would otherwise shy away from. Bilbo uses the ring to follow Gollum through the tunnels until he shows him the exit. When Gollum blocks the exit, Bilbo "must make a decision whose outcome will be a measure of his maturity" (Mathews 583). He thinks about killing him but sees that Gollum is faced with "endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering" (Tolkien 80) and decides, out of pity for the creature, to let him live. The dwarves are impressed with Bilbo's escape from the mountain and begin to look at him in a different way. This is the first time they look at him as competent.

Bilbo realizes he is not the timid little hobbit he thought he has come to be. In the forest, it is his sharp eyesight and good advice that gets them over the river of forgetfulness. When he wakes up and kills the spider, it is a high point in his maturity. He is now bold and fearless. He does not think twice about saving his friends and attacks all of the spiders on his own. The dwarves see this great courage in the hobbit that they earlier saw as uncapable, and now look to him as a leader.

When faced with adversity, Bilbo masters his fears. Although he is afraid of what he has to do his real battle is within himself, as Tolkien confirms "He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. At any rate after a short halt go on he did" (Tolkien 193). He does not let his fear stop him from performing the part of the task that the dwarves brought him to do. It in a way strengthens him, " a strange lightening form the heart, as if a heavy weight had