!!! «you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like» [lines 422-3]

COMMENTARY

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

The passage to be studied is a part from the first chapter of Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit – Or There And Back Again that was published in 1937. To say a few words about Tolkien, he was… > DONNER QUELQUES ELEMENTS BIOGRAPHIQUES

Before starting the commentary, it is worth mentioning that this story was first meant as a bed-time story Tolkien intended for his children, and absolutely not as a story intended for publishing.

The Hobbit is set in "Middle-earth," a fantasyland created by Tolkien. Within Middle-earth, The Hobbit is restricted to settings in the Western lands. It starts and ends in Hobbiton, a town in the Shire, a peaceful region usually untouched by troubles elsewhere in the world. During the course of the book, the setting changes, moving east across the Misty Mountains and through the great forest of Mirkwood to the area around the Lonely Mountain, which includes the Desolation of Smaug, Lake-town, and the ruins of the town of Dale.

The culture and climate of Middle-earth is akin to that of Europe in the Middle Ages, but presupposes a time much older, when magic was still a powerful force, and elves, dwarves, and other races shared the world with humans. The geography of Middle-earth, however, is not that of earth as it is now known, and regions and landmarks in The Hobbit have no familiar parallels. (Tolkien said elsewhere that it may be that the shape of the land has since changed.) Middle-earth is, therefore, a world both vaguely familiar and altogether strange.

The Shire, the pastoral and idyllic homeland of the hobbits, is on one level simply Tolkien's idealized portrait of rustic, rural England. On a deeper level, however, it symbolizes the withdrawn life, the insulated life, the too-self-directed life. Bilbo must leave the Shire, not really to go questing after dragon's gold, but in order to grow up – in order to engage the world and to find his place in it. As Gandalf tells him near the novel's end, Bilbo is "only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all" – but that "only" still leaves quite a large role for Bilbo to play, and he must discover that role in the wide world for himself. The Shire represents comfort and tranquility, and while these experiences are not bad in and of themselves, they are also not all that constitutes life. When Bilbo returns to the Shire, he is a more experienced and more knowledgeable person, especially of himself, than he could have been had he stayed in the Shire forever. He has learned to value the world outside; as his own song puts it, "The road goes ever on." There are always more journeys – outer as well as inner – to be taken, even at one's home.

The first chapter takes place in the hobbits’ village (named Hobbiton, a piece of information which is not given in this chapter), more precisely at the protagonist’s home, “a hole in the ground”. Notice how the surroundings are described and called: everything revolves around the notions of peace, cosiness, simplicity and nature, and the idea that things never change – quite the opposite of what is going to happen from the second chapter onwards… Actually, it is also precisely where the story will end (this circular structure of the story is obvious in the subtitle of the novel, “There And Back Again”): after the turmoil of adventure, peace again, but although the places have not changed, Bilbo has: he has become the hero Gandalf claimed he could not find easily in Chapter 1 (“… and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found” [lines 476-7]).

In the text, Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit from the Shire (a part of the fictitious world of Middle-Earth), is led by an omniscient wizard called Gandalf to take part in an adventure in which – with his 13 dwarf companions – he will fight or encounter creatures he would never have dreamt of meeting: goblins, elves, a dragon… And in doing so, he will come to possess by chance a magical and mighty ring, which has the power of making its wearer invisible. He will undergo dramatic changes, and when he comes back from this perilous journey to his homeland, he is not the cowardly, unadventurous Hobbit of the first chapter anymore.

SPECIFIC TO THIS EXCERPT:

The passage to be studied takes place when all the 13 dwarves have arrived, along with Gandalf the wizard. The leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, assuming that everyone in the audience is fully aware of what awaits the company, goes into the particulars of the journey to come, which only makes Bilbo Baggins appear as a cowardly and “excitable little fellow” [385], not fit for the job the Dwarves hire him on.

We will see that in this passage, Gandalf asserts himself as the true leader of the adventure, the one who has control of the future of the company, even though he seems to draw back from the scene and let Thorin – the acknowledged leader – assert himself as such. This is shown in the way he acts, speaks and also the imagery the narrator associates him with.

DISCUSSION:

In this passage, we become more closely acquainted to Thorin Oakenshield, the Dwarves’ leader. In addition, we learn a little more about the hidden capacities of Bilbo through the hint at one of his ancestors, Bullroarer Took (from the adventurous branch of Bilbo’s family).

In this passage, Gandalf – who has kept to his position of master of events – starts by drawing back a little to let Thorin play his role as leader of the Dwarves. The latter gives some particulars of the adventure about to unfold, which makes the reader – as well as Bilbo – understand the danger of the journey. (“We shall soon before the break of day start on our long journey, a journey from which some of us, or perhaps all of us (except our friend and counsellor, the ingenious wizard Gandalf) may never return”. [368-70]).

Tolkien, in telling the story, anchors things into reality, with subtle hints at the “historical” value of the story unfolding before our eyes. In doing so, he blends purely mythological creatures like goblins with actual elements: “He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Gol-firnbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.” [389-92] The importance of this example is two-fold: it also stresses the fact that everything is not that straightforward about Bilbo, and that – once again – there is ‘more than meets the eye’. In fact, we learn that his lineage comprises celebrated ancestors famous for their high deeds (here, it is his “great-great-great-granduncle” [412],“Old Took's great-granduncle Bullroarer, who was sohuge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse” [388-9]). Thus, we are led to imagine (and/or understand) that although he is small by all standards, he may have in his own blood everything needed to make him a bona fide hero. Notice that only the Took branch of his lineage is concerned, and that there is a constant struggle between the Took side and the Baggins one, and every time we think that the cowardly Baggins side wins, it proves to be quite the contrary a short while after. For instance, after overhearing what is being said between the wizard and the dwarves in the parlourwhile he is recovering in the “drawing-room sofa with a drink at his elbow” [383], he eventually enters: “The Took side had won.” [402] Of course, the Baggins side does not surrender that easily, and the struggle goes on and on (“Many a time afterwards the Baggins part regretted what he did now,and he said to himself: “Bilbo, you were a fool; you walked right in and put your foot in it.” [404-5])

In this introductory chapter – and at that stage of the adventure yet to come – Bilbo remains what he seems to be, and apart from Gandalf (with his almost God-like insight), everyone fails to grasp the real (inner) strength of Bilbo – all the more as he shows no features underlining this. On hearing what Thorin tells (and thinks is known by all) his audience, Bilbo shrieks andtrembles with fear (“he began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel” [377-8] / “shaking like a jelly that was melting” [380]), he almost faints (“he fell flat on the floor, and kept on calling out “struck by lightning, struck by lightning!” [380-1]), etc. – in short, far from being a burglar or a hero!In fact, the dwarves claim that “He looks more like a grocer – than a burglar” [400-1]”

But when the dwarves mouth their doubts about Bilbo being the appropriate 14th member of their company, Gandalf asserts himself as the real master of the game: “Just let anyone say I chose the wrong man or the wrong house, and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to digging coal.” [421-3] + “I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.” [427-9]He asserts that “he is one of the best, one of the best – as fierce as a dragon in a pinch.” [386]

Only Gandalf knows the truth of the matter…and is ready to share his knowledge only when needed. Thus, the imagery linked to light highlights Gandalf’s role as ‘the one who knows (and who reveals)’: he reveals Bilbo shaking like a jelly by striking “a blue light on the end of his magic staff, and in its firework glare the poor little hobbit could be seen (…) shaking like a jelly” [379-80]. Now, as the conversation focuses on the particulars of the journey the company will have to undertake, Gandalf shows a document resembling a map, proposing to “have little light on this” [430]. This has to be understood in two ways: on the literal level (of course, they need some light to study the map correctly), as well as on the metaphorical level (they also need to be explained some specific things about the map that only Gandalf knows). Here, the purveyor of physical light is not Gandalf himself, but Bilbo: this emphasizes his importance in the story (he is endowed with more powers than what is noticed at first sight).