The Hobbit Hero's Journey

Gollum is, “...as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes on his thin face.” (Pg. 82) He is a lonely fellow, and believes that Bilbo’s fate is sealed. Gollum underestimated Bilbo’s expertise, and promptly challenges him to a high stakes riddle contest. If Bilbo fails to answer Gollum’s riddle correctly, he becomes Gollum’s lunch. If Gollum loses, Gollum has to tell Bilbo how to escape. Bilbo thinks on his feet in an effort to gain his freedom. In the form of a riddle, Bilbo asks Gollum to identify the object in Bilbo’s pocket. The cave is extremely dark and Gollum can’t see what is in Bilbo’s pocket, so Gollum cannot know the answer. These circumstances parallel with the scene between Bilbo and Smaug in chapter

When most people think of J.R.R. Tolkien, they often think of his great imagination and his world of great dragons, warriors, orcs, hobbits, wizards, dwarves and elves. But most people forget about the deeper meaning behind his stories and his controversy towards society. Tolkien was a British, fantasy, writer during the mid-1900s. Through his love of languages, religion, and country, J.R.R Tolkien’s works of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are controversial but masterpieces because Tolkien represents “good” as a fuller, more imaginative reality than evil.

At the beginning of the adventure, Bilbo was a timid, little hobbit with no idea how to steal or survive outside of his little hobbit hole. When Thorin and the rest of the dwarves first meet Bilbo, they question

By putting his life in danger Bilbo shows a true example of heroism. Though the dwarves were still skeptical of his abilities, they were starting to take into consideration of what Gandalf had said about this little hobbit. Continuing their adventure the group is attacked by goblins where they are eventually saved by Gandalf. Throughout the turmoil of the attacking goblins Bilbo gets lost in the caves and finds himself alone in the darkness. It is in this event when Bilbo finds Gollum’s ring. Gollum was a sickly looking creature that had been dwelling in the caves for many years. Bilbo used his wits to outsmart the creature by playing a riddle game with him and eventually made it to safety. Having Bilbo win the riddle game shows that his smart and witty mind aids him in becoming the hero. Bilbo wasn’t some tough strong stereotypical super hero, he used his smarts to outwit his foes and to triumph over evil. Though Bilbo at the time did not know the power of the ring that he had retrieved from Gollum’s lair (the power of invisibility), it was his heroic fate that he found it as it assist him in becoming the hero of the story. Fate has it that Bilbo will become a hero, but Bilbo also has the courage on top of his fate to get the dwarves out of life threatening situations.

Bilbo lives a quiet and comfortable life in his hobbit hole in Bag end and he almost never leaves home. But the wizard knows that there is more to Bilbo that meets the eye and he has certain powers that can help the dwarves in their journey to

In The Hobbit chapter five, the passage that speak to me was “Not far away his island, of which Bilbo knew nothing, and there in his hiding-place he kept a few wretched oddments, and one very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful. He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring.” from this passage, the particular character that I thought would exemplify something about High fantasy is Gollum, who is a strange small slimy creature who lives deep down by the dark water on a slimy island of rock in the middle of the lake. They were dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. After Gollum meets Bilbo Baggins. Gollum’s decided to play a riddle game with him, where Bilbo has no choice, but agree to play with him to get out of the mountains. After they start

Still, he defied them all, and many times alone. He had to rely only on himself. Luckily, Bilbo was also very clever. He was able to have Gollum show him the way out of the Goblin cave while avoiding him instantaneously. Also, when the dwarves were imprisoned by the wood elves, Bilbo created a plan that lead to their escape.

This is Bilbo’s acceptance of the adventure. Next Bilbo got help from a supernatural aid; a ring. He came across the ring underground in the Goblins territory right before he encountered Gollum. The ring turned out to be Gollum’s and was very important to him, but still Bilbo took it for himself; and that was a smart idea, as it became quite a useful tool throughout his journey. With it he escaped Gollum’s lair; “Gollum was defeated. He dared go no further. He had lost : lost his prey, and lost, too, the only thing he had ever cared about, his precious” (Tolkien 87). The ring helped Bilbo escape the goblins, who Bilbo encountered shortly after fleeing from Gollum. The ring also helped Bilbo escape from the treacherous spiders he and the dwarves came across later on in the story. Finally, Bilbo crossed the threshold, or in other worlds, left the old world behind. The morning after the dwarves had convinced Bilbo to join them, Bilbo found his house trashed, but the dwarves gone. So he assumed they went on without him. Ten minutes before he was due at the Green Dragon Inn, Gandalf appeared at his house informing him that they were all waiting for him to arrive. Flustered, Bilbo was shoved out of his house towards the Inn, without

Again Bilbo is trying to prove himself to the dwarves, so by trying to get past the goblins in the coming chapters he gets hurtled into a hole and ends up in a dreary under land with Gollum. Here Bilbo has a riddle competition with Gollum in order to try and win his help with getting out of the wet and damp cave. When Bilbo finally tricked Gollum and found the ring that turned him invisible. He now had to escape; in doing this he ended up following Gollum out to the exit and then jumping over him.

The ring makes him invisible, but he doesn’t know that yet. He then comes across a little shriveled up hobbit named Gollum. He knows the way out of the cave so he made a bet with Bilbo. If you can beat me in a game of riddles I will show you the way out, but if I win I get to eat you. Bilbo bravely accepts his challenge. Bilbo then wins the challenge by pure luck. “What have I got in my pocket?” (Tolkein, 78) That was his last riddle that Gollum didn’t get. Gollum gets mad and thinks Bilbo is trying to trick him. He then puts on the ring. Gollum then goes to the exit of the cave unknowingly followed by Bilbo. Bilbo then jumps over Gollum and out the door. He was very brave to face Gollum.

evil. An example of when Gollum was evil is found on page 105. The text say’s “and still sometimes he put it on … when he was very, very, hungry, and tired of fish. Then he would creep along dark passages looking for stray goblins.” You can see in this quote that Gollum uses the rings power for evil. Gollum hides in the shadows until he finds a right target to capture and eat. This also shows that Gollum is very sly. Another example of when Gollum was evil is found on page 96. The text say’s “He was anxious to appear friendly, at any rate for the moment, and until he found out more about the sword and the hobbit, whether he was quite alone really, whether he was good to eat ...” Gollum thought. You can tell by the tone of Gollum’s thought that he was trying to be sly, and evil. Gollum was trying to get to know more information about Bilbo, so then perhaps he can eat Bilbo. One more example of Gollum portraying evil and greed can be seen on page 108. The text say’s “Bilbo could not guess what had maddened the wretched creäture, but he saw that all was up, and that Gollum meant to murder him (Bilbo) at any rate.” You can see by the tone and mood of the atmosphere and the narrator that Gollum was so attached to his precious ring, that he got so angry and; wanted to kill Bilbo. As he thought that Bilbo had his ring in his

Bilbo Baggins and Gollum Bilbo Baggins and Gollum will share both similarities and differences. They are both very unique characters in their own ways. Bilbo is a wee hobbit who is too hesitant to do anything out of the ordinary while Gollum is a crazy killing machine. Bilbo and Gollum definitely do not seem like the type of characters to share anything in common, but nonetheless they will have traits that are alike to each other. In this essay we will justify both these similarities and differences portrayed by Bilbo Baggins and Gollum.

After Bilbo opens his eyes and began searching around the tunnel, later he finds a tiny ring on the floor of the tunnel and puts the ring in his pocket. A petite slimy creature named Gollum was watching Bilbo from a distance; however, Bilbo could not see Gollum. Next, Gollum walks up to Bilbo to approach him and begins to have a conversation with him. Gollum asks Bilbo if he wants to sit and play a game of riddle, Bilbo agrees although he was anxious to say yes to Gollum. I consider the character of Gollum interesting as he was observing Bilbo at first and then asks Bilbo if he wants to play a game of riddles. At first, I assumed that since Gollum lives alone in an isolated environment perhaps he felt lonely and requested Gollum to play with

There, he meets a weird animal/creature named Gollum. When Gollum sees that Bilbo is lost, he is interested and a hungry, so he approaches Bilbo. Bilbo pulls out his sword when he sees Gollum. Gollum does not want to be hurt by the hobbit, so he proposes a riddle game. If Gollum’s riddle stumps Bilbo, he will eat Bilbo, but if Bilbo’s stumps Gollum, Gollum will show

The protagonist of the book is Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo the main character in the book, is a hobbit. He was scared to leave his home town of Bagan. Bilbo was invited by dwarves to go on an adventure to find treasure that belonged to the them. Little was known about what could happen on this trip, but still Bilbo was drawn to this adventure with much excitement. It was when he did not have food to eat that he would question why he left his hobbit hole.