The Hobbit Research Paper

In 1937 J. R. R. Tolkien shaped the pathway for a greater interest in the fantasy world by writing the first books in Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit. In creating the fantasy world of Middle Earth Tolkien not only created a world of characters with descriptive personalities and traits, but he also exposed the world to ideas such as racism and segregation which were prominent issues at the time. Tolkien primarily conveys the themes of segregation, racism, and religious intolerance through the use of characters, symbolism, and plot. Tolkien’s past experiences gave him the ability to give deeper meanings to his stories by allowing the characters to represent real issues instead of focusing on the fantasy and uses this to portray current

themes of the 1930’s that are still very important issues today.
As a student, and later a professor at Oxford University, Tolkien was able to work on his writing and rhetoric style that he would use in writing The Hobbit.

Tolkien, due to his studies was considered an academic scholar. He researched the fields of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English Cultured which helped him to find inspiration for the formation of middle earth (Koster, 27). Tolkien was able to use fantasy and childhood rhetoric in order to capture a younger audience and to make the themes and the characters of his story more relatable and easier to comprehend. Tolkien even addresses a child audience in most pages of the book (Kocher 44). We see this in the first page of the story through the style in which Tolkien describes Hobbits:

what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or we're) a little people, about half our height, and smaller then the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little to no magic about them except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. (Tolkien

4)
This style of writing allowed him to take his past experiences and turn them into stories that portrayed people he met and events he had lived through. The Hobbit is portrayed according to Lois R. Kuznetsk’s critique of the book as a children’s classic (Kuznets 31).
Tolkien wrote the Hobbit in 1937, a few years before World War II, and he drew from his past experiences as a solider during the first world war. Confirming that the famous trilogy was inspired by war, Tolkien himself wrote after the war informing readers that the character Sam Gamgee was about “the English solider,… the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war” (Koster 24). The themes in the Hobbit came to reality during World War II when the antisemitic behavior of the Nazis was prominent and this urged Tolkien to write the sequels in 1954 and 1955. The novels were then considered “an allegory of good and evil in the context of the Second World War” according to Tim Wood’s Who’s Who of Twentieth Century Novelists (333). In 1971 Tolkien admitted that the dwarves in his trilogy were based on the Jews. They are similar in the ways that they were exiled from their homeland and longed to return home because they had deep roots in their origins. Even though Tolkien seems highly critical of the dwarves in some aspects of the Hobbit it is shown though the Lord of the Rings that he is not being anti-semitic as he shifts to the side of the dwarves (“The Secret Jews of the Hobbit”).
In addition to war and tragedy shaping Tolkien’s themes, he also has underlying tones of religion that stem from his religious background.

Tolkien’s religious influence is shown in many critiques of his writings including Peter Epps’s article that criticizes Joseph Pearce’s book on The Hobbit which compares the dwarves journey to reclaim their mountain as a pilgrimage. The journey is much like a pilgrimage because when Bilbo goes back to The Shire he is changed and considered a social outcast because he went on an adventure. Jennifer and Geoffrey’s article explain how the hero’s traits portrayed by Tolkien in the Hobbit are based on kenosis, or the giving up of oneself for others (Vaughan 31). Another aspect of religon is that in this article Smaug is often compared to man’s evil, as well as in many other criticisms of The Hobbit. It also describes in the article how Pearce’s book suggests that with the downfall of the dragon the evil in the rest of the characters comes out more, but in the end they learn from their greed (Epps

122).
Tolkien “applied his Chrisitan imagination to an epic” through replacing the character traits often found in war such as power and shrewdness with humility and obedience according to Jennifer Vaughan and Geoffrey M. Vaughan’s article “The Hobbit Redemption” (28). Gandalf is often shown as one of the main characters who accepts everyone and believes in them and is often described as a “friend of all free peoples” ( Tyler 192). He is the one who picks Bilbo, an unadventurous Hobbit, and brings him on the journey. When the dwarves want to leave him behind with the goblins Gandalf persisted that they would not go on without him. Gandalf is the character who sees the good in everyone and hopes for the unity of races (Tolkien 85-90). Tolkien also uses Bilbo Baggins as the unlikely hero who comes from a race that frowns upon adventure and things that are extraordinary. He characterizes Bilbo in this way to make the hobbit relatable to the reader. Bilbo and his family is described as respected in The Hobbit because they “not only.. were rich, but also because they did not have any adventures, or did anything unexpected” but Bilbo's journey is what makes him stand out from the crowd (Tolkien 3). Even though there are well developed characters, hated have their flaws and are not perfect.
Through the greediness of the characters Tolkien expresses that greed for money, which also is related to power, is the root of all evil. He does this through the use of the character Smaug. Tolkien often refers to the the dragons obsession with gold as “Dragon Sickness” in The Hobbit, the dragon is not the only one who has the sickness: Thorin, the dwarves, Bilbo and many other characters have it as well. This greed is what caused the dwarves to be banished in the first place as well as it causing the war and the hatred between the goblins, the elves and the dwarves. Tolkien also portrays that this greed separates races of people. Middle Earth is portrayed to be just like the real world, except with elements of fantasy, and thus there are wars over power, and money based on what the different races look and act like. These issues between the people of Middle Earth are based off the real issues of World War I and World War II as mentioned earlier.
Through the characters actions and through the themes of the story Tolkien portrays the facts that greed over money and power is what divides us. Tolkien, through the use of character traits, also tries to teach us a lesson based values such as loyalty, acceptance and bravery. These values will help to overcome greediness and ultimately segregation and racism. Tolkien set out to draw people into a fantasy world using vivid description in order to teach them certain moral truths and to warn about racism, segregation. He was able to do so thanks to his books becoming a bestseller across the world even after his death. Vaughan explains that "fantasy allows us to gaze at the 'arresting strangeness' of our own lives reflected back in a new way" (31). Thanks to Tolkien’s ability to use symbols, themes, and characters readers are able to fall in love with a world that teaches them lessons. He has made an impact on the literary world by opening the world up to fantasy as well as teaching his readers about acceptance and the importance of bravery and giving of oneself to others, but it is up to us in how we take these lessons and apply them to our lives.