General Introduction
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 On a deeper level, however, it symbolizes the withdrawn life, the insulated life, the too-self-directed life.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 is the very beginning of the novel, and as such, it has a specific purpose, namely to introduce some of the main themes and characters of the novel, as well as its main creature, the Hobbit, which is Tolkien’s creation. Accordingly, this excerpt focuses on the definition of what a Hobbit is, as well as every kind of defining feature that may help in understanding its ‘psychology’ – the way the Hobbit’s home is organized, the favorite activities of the Hobbit, etc.Little by little, we are taken from a very general overview of THE Hobbit to the more specific case of A Hobbit, namely the central character of the novel, Bilbo Baggins.
We will see that in this passage, although we are beginning a story about a quest – with everything that goes along with this: danger, adventure, the unknown –, the “hero” of the story is far from possessing all the traditional and stereotypical features that go along with this function. In this respect, we will study the way characterization is accomplished by the author/narrator, who proves in addition to be quite intrusive in the way he narrates the story.
THEMES:
Ø More than meets the eye (related to Bilbo) [A CENTRAL THEME IN THE WHOLE CHAPTER] :
This theme is put to the fore right at the beginning: by mentioning “a hole in the ground”, the first image that comes to mind is exactly what this hole is NOT, that is, any simple hole in the ground… Here, the disambiguation is made by the narrator himself. Nonetheless, this gives the reader to understand that the ‘reading contract’ will be as follows: “always think twice before taking things for granted”. In short, the narrator plays with the reader’s prejudices and basic assumptions. This will become all the more obvious as the story unfolds.
“Belladonna Took”: the belladonna is a beautiful – but poisonous – flower. By the way, it is worth noticing that this is the only female character of the novel…
“It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife.” [l. 34-5]: this aims at showing that our “simple” hobbit may not remain a stereotypical hobbit throughout the story, and that we – as readers – understand this simple and seemingly straightforward creature will prove to be more than that in the end. Thus, we are on a par with Gandalf, the omniscient character of the first chapter: we know more about Bilbo than Bilbo himself.
Ø Straightforwardness:
names of places + characters (the Bagginses: Belladonna Baggins – Bungo Baggins – Bilbo Baggins / places: the Hill, the Water, etc.)
This has to be contrasted to Tolkien’s contemporary world, that is, a world full of anger, with an impending world war, and the uprise of industrialism and machines, impinging upon the beauty and quiet of the rural – and natural – world.
The hobbit is a straightforward creature, and in this respect, a “pure” Baggins is the epitome of the hobbit, as “you could tell what a
Look for straightforwardness in the narration: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” [l.1]: starts right to the point, with no particular attempt at preparing the reader, although the hobbit is a totally unknown creature. Note that this new creature is
Ø Simplicity and cosiness/comfort :
The narrator introduces the home of a Hobbit with a lot of descriptive adjectives, which enables the reader to have a clear mental picture of it. The style is rather simple, with no intricate structures norany obscure words.
“it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” [l.3]: further on, this hole is also defined as what it is not (“not a nasty, dirty, wet hole” [l.1]
“No going upstairs for the hobbit” [l.10]: the hobbit is introduced as not being very fond of physical activity, which is consistent with the description we get at lines 27-8: “They are inclined to be fat in the stomach.”
“The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows” [l.12-3]
All this aims at showing that a hobbit (in general) is not naturally inclined to adventures of any sort…
DON’T FORGET
Make parallels with the movie version Peter Jackson shot of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, even if the primary source is not the same. Nevertheless, the strategy is similar: presenting a creature which is not known by the audience/reader. In this respect, how is the simplicity of hobbits translated into the movie version? What remains from the original text version? Who is the narrator?
In this first part of the chapter, the use of genealogy is of paramount importance in understanding who the different characters are: when the genealogy of one specific character is given, it is always in order to give the reader to understand more thoroughly this character (in the passage studied, this is true of Bilbo, but later on, the same will apply to Thorin Oakenshield, for instance, the leader of the Dwarves).
QUOTATIONS TO BE KEPT IN MIND:
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or toeat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” [1-3]Straightforward beginning: the style is like any classical tale. However, it starts with the description of a Hobbit’s home, which is a first means of introducing the “more than meets the eye” motif: the general prejudice about a hole is that it IS nasty, dirty, etc. and not the least comfortable.
“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole [= un hublot], painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.” [4-5]The idea conveyed by the adverb and adjective is that the Hobbit’s world is very orderly: no space is left for approximation or unexpected things… Moreover, the mention of the round door (as well as the “many little round doors” [l.9] and the “deep-set round windows” [l.13]) is already a hint at what a Hobbit is: a round (“fat in the stomach”) creature.
“lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors” [7]we learn that a Hobbit is very sociable, which becomes quite ironical once we learn about the “unexpected party” coming at Bilbo’s home…
NOTA: the insistence on “unexpected” // title of the chapter: “unexpected party” >oxymoronic phrase in a hobbit’s mind (a party is by definition pleasant and enjoyable, whereas the notion of unexpectedness is quite the opposite for a Hobbit)
“No going upstairs for the hobbit”[10] everything has to be simple for a Hobbit, with the avoidance of any useless physical effort.
“people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected” [16-8]here, this emphasizes the character of the Hobbit: a perfect and respectful life is one without any surprise or adventure. Moreover, it gives a more dramatic hue to what is going to happen to Bilbo, as he is a member of the most respectable – and respected – family of the Shire.
“He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained – well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.” [20-1]here, we have some type of foreshadowing at work. But more importantly, the narrator asserts himself as a genuine omniscient one, as he knows far more about the story than the reader. This may seem obvious, but it serves as a means to prepare the reader for the role Gandalf the wizard plays in the story: he is shown as being the diegetic counterpart of the narrator, as he always knows far more things about what will happen than he tells Bilbo or the other characters.
“The mother of our particular hobbit – what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays” [22-3]
> The narrator pretends to have forgotten to introduce a creature like a Hobbit, implying that although it has now been forgotten, it was commonly known in the past. The narrative strategy here is to make things appear as belonging to history and not pure fiction, in order to make the reader agree more easily to the story.
“a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them” [24-5]> the Hobbit is defined by contrast to the Dwarf, which is a well-defined creature in European and Anglo-Saxon mythology – what is called a stock character.
“like you and me” [26]One of the many instances of the narrator’s intrusion into the story. He often appeals to the reader and makes us take part in the story.
“They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes”[27-8]> not really prone to physical activities of any kind, rather to unphysical activities like eating and drinking. Moreover, dressing in bright colours is not really compatible with the ‘profession’ of Bilbo as understood by the Dwarves (namely, a burglar, who needs to make himself unnoticeable…), nor is the fact of wearing no shoes when embarking on a long and perilous journey across Middle-Earth.
“the mother of this hobbit - of Bilbo Baggins, that is – was thefabulous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife.That was,of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbit-like about them” [32-6]Here, the only female character of the novel is mentioned as being the mother of Bilbo. This is another instance of the “more than meets the eye” motif, as the belladonna is a beautiful – but poisonous – flower, just like the mother of Bilbo: she is “remarkable”, but there is something fishy about the Took family, namely the fact that they may have a fairy ancestor, which has to be understood as opposed to respectability in the Hobbit society. This is also shown in the way this is being said: the rumor has it that Bilbo has a fairy ancestor. “That was, of course, absurd, but…” is, in this respect, a common way to pretend to dismiss a rumor while actually heeding it.