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"More Than Meets the Eye"
Tolkien never precisely invokes this old cliché, but it aptly summarizes his characters' experience of Bilbo Baggins, and Bilbo's experience of himself. Bilbo is an unlikely hero, but from the outset of the adventure Gandalf knows that the little hobbit has it within him to be more than even he imagines-and Gandalf says so on more than one occasion! The other characters' growing knowledge of Bilbo, and Bilbo's deepening awareness of himself, signals the theme of self-knowledge that forms the heart of any mythic quest tale.
Greed and Pride
As mentioned in the Analyses and the Metaphor Analysis, the theme of the dangers of too much pride and of greed runs throughout The Hobbit. Thorin, who ultimately loses his life because of stubborn commitment to ancestral pride and overmuch desire for his family treasure, serves as a cautionary tale. Furthermore, the broken relationships between men, elves, and dwarves at the end of the book warn readers today of how greed and pride can damage the social fabric.
Morality
Readers may wish to consider the question of "What is moral?" in the context of The Hobbit. After all, the hero of the story is a burglar who, at various points, conceals the truth from his friends, doesn't quite "play fair" in a riddle contest, and steals the one part of the treasure that Thorin most desires. Do ends always or even often justify the means? Is Bilbo consistently obeying a larger and greater good? How might the theme of morality interact with the theme of "More Than Meets the Eye," discussed above?
Engagement and Withdrawal
As the discussion of the Shire as a metaphor above indicates, The Hobbit concerns itself with questions of when and how to engage with the wider world. While "Bag End" is not bad-indeed, Tolkien presents Bilbo's home as quite a comfortable place (as in the novel's celebrated opening lines)-it is not the sum total of the "wide world" (to use Gandalf's phrase) either. Like Bilbo, we all must discover our place in the wide world, even if it end up being a "small" one (but, caveat lector: consider once more the theme of "More Than Meets the Eye"-what is "small," and who decides?).
History Haunts Us
Tolkien draws on the vast, personal mythology which he had been creating for years in The Hobbit-to a lesser degree than he does in The Lord of the Rings, to be sure, but the past is still very much present: for Thorin, for the Wood-elves, for the Master and the people of Esgaroth, for Bard, and even for Bilbo, who must reconcile the "Baggins" and "Took" sides of his personality. Readers should ponder the questions: How aware am I of my personal and social history? Does that history affect me largely for good or for ill?-for it is, of course, possible that it may do both. To what extent should we respect and learn from the past, and to what extent should we let it be past?
Scapegoating
As mentioned in the Analysis for Chapter 14, the Master "scapegoats," or unfairly shifts blame to, the dwarves for Esgaroth's troubles after the final attack of Smaug. Readers will wish to be aware of the tendency toward scapegoating not only in society at large but also in their own experience. Perhaps they have committed scapegoating; perhaps they have been the victims of it; perhaps some combination of both. How can we, as individuals and as a society, prevent scapegoating? How might the theme of history haunting us be brought to bear on this issue?
The Quest
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 XII.
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 XV 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.