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Tolkien's The Hobbit: A True Fairy Story

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Tolkien a literary icon set the standards of what a fantasy is in his essay On Fairy Stories assessing what he believes a story must contain to make it a true “fairy story”. Tolkien never references The Hobbit which he published two years prior. The Hobbit is Tolkien’s first novel based in a fictitious land known as Middle Earth and is about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins and his unexpected journey with a band of dwarfs and a wizard. Tolkien must have believed his novel The Hobbit to be a fairy story by the standards he set in his essay and there is sufficient evidence to say that he did. Tolkien offers a basic outline of what goes into a fairy story from the Oxford English dictionary, “a tale about fairies, or generally a fairy legend; …show more content…

This quote is about the main character Bilbo Baggins a hobbit whom has never left the borders of the shire or had a desire for adventure until Tolkien inserts the character Gandalf. Tolkien’s The Hobbit revolves around this concept of desire where everyone in the story desires something whether it’s Gollum and the ring or the dwarfs and their treasure. Tolkien in his essay brings up that idea of desire in a fairy story stating “When the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story” (On Fairy Stories 23). Tolkien is saying here that in a fairy story when the characters life takes a “turn” and gets that glimpse of joy that he gets a desire that he would not have had on his own. This is how The Hobbit story began due to the Dwarfs stories Bilbo got that inner desire to “to go see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees, explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick” (The Hobbit, 24). In this quote Tolkien suggest that Bilbo had that inner desire to leave the shire because of the “turn” in his life. Gandalf and the band of dwarfs were this “turn” when they showed up on Bilbo’s door step and tell him of the adventures and the beauties of Middle Earth he would endure. From Tolkien’s quote Bilbo’s desire for adventure is the start for the web of the story which is a trait that makes The Hobbit a true fairy

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