The Hobbit: a Mythical Story with Realistic Characters

Every year, high school students are tasked with reading a book in its entirety over the summer break. For many people, including myself, summer reading is looked upon as a requirement as opposed to a privilege. As it may sound cliché, I came to realize how much of a privilege the summer reading task truly is. This can be solely contributed to the brilliant writing of J.R.R Tolkien in The Hobbit. Ever since I was a child, my parents have pushed me to read this novel, but as technology evolved, I never got into reading it. But, when I discovered that I had a choice to read it as my summer reading, I pounced at the opportunity thinking back to all the high praise my parents gave it. It took me until just before e-week to read it, but after completing it, I see why I was pushed so hard to read it earlier. Now that I have completed reading it, my task is to give personal review of “The Hobbit”.To do this, I picked a quote from the essay that will help get my point across: “Everything in this book is true, but not everything is precisely factual”. The earliest place in the novel that I found relatable truths was right in the first chapter. 

The Hobbit’s main character, Bilbo Baggins, was just an ordinary hobbit living who lived an ordinary hobbit life, until one day he was approached by a group of 12 dwarves and the great wizard, Gandalf the Grey. Uninvited, they came to his doorstep one by one. While in his home, they explained to him that he would be accompanying them on a dangerous journey to steal treasure from the Lonely Mountain. The treasure was currently protected by Smaug, a brutal dragon known for massacring towns and driving the dwarves away from their home that he now inhabits. Bilbo was lost as he had no recollection of ever putting himself in such a position and never heard of this plan to attack the Lonely Mountain. He later learned that Gandalf put forward Bilbo’s name to be the burglar on their journey even though Bilbo had never left the sanctity of his own home village. “Let's have no more argument. 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.” – Gandalf. Bilbo was put forward without any warning and was essentially forced into becoming something he was not. Bilbo at the time was just like all the other hobbits, very content with their current situations and scared to death by the unknown that surrounded them. By Gandalf putting him forward, it forced him into an uncomfortable spot and throughout the rest of the novel, pushed him to adapt and eventually become the stories hero. This happens to most people in their everyday life, including me, we get put into difficult and hard situations that we don’t always feel comfortable in, yet we learn to adapt so that we can succeed. 

While I believe the rise of heroism is one of the main themes in The Hobbit, I think that greed is something that affects almost every character we come across making it another prominent theme. It all started when Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves set out on their journey to recollect the treasure held by Smaug in The Lonely Mountain. When looking throughout history in both cinema and writing, the hunt for a “treasure” will almost certainly result in a character becoming overly greedy. This is best exemplified in The Hobbit when the dwarves finally come into possession of the treasure and the armies of men come to challenge them for their earnings. One of the armies looking to share the wealth with the dwarves are the people of Lake Town, who had their homes destroyed by Smaug out of anger for helping the dwarves achieve their goals. While Bilbo believes that it would be fair to share the riches with those that have lost so much, Thorin says: “To the treasure of my people no man has a claim, because Smaug who stole it from us also robbed him of life or home. The treasure was not his that his evil deeds should be amended with a share of it. The price of the goods and the assistance that we received of the Lake-men we will fairly pay—in due time. But nothing will we give, not even a loaf’s worth, under threat of force.” Thorin makes it well known that the dwarves have no interest in sharing the treasure and plan to defend it without any regret. I see this as a perfect example of greed as the dwarves had all the riches they would ever need and instead of sharing some of that wealth with the people of Lake Town who lost everything, they decided to keep it for themselves. To be able to make this a complete truth, there has to be real-life examples to compare it too. I can’t fathom coming into such unimaginable wealth, but I do know that for the money I have earned and come across in my lifetime, I hold onto dearly and don’t always think about what other people might not have compared to me. It sounds terrible but I think it’s true.

In conclusion, The Hobbit is a novel that follows the quote “Everything in this book is true, but not everything is precisely factual”. While the plot is based on mythical beings exploring and adventuring through fictional lands, each character is constructed by various human traits such as courage, heroism, vengefulness, nervousness and many others. This allows the characters to become personable and relatable to the readers and can help them see the various ‘truths’ throughout the novel.